Magic Carpet

If you see any errors, Kai is helpin gme type this entry. We had a lot of fun on his "Magic carpet".

Any Suggestions?

After watching Kai eat for only a few mintues (ok, maybe only seconds) the reaction we get from most people is--Wow! He's messy! And they're not kidding, unfortunately. Kai showed little interest in learning to feed himself until a couple of months ago and even since then it's been hit or miss. So, sometimes I feed him and he's relatively clean and a quick eater--and then sometimes he feeds himself. Translated: he plays with his food, throws it off of his highchair, eats a few bites, smears a few bites on his face and hair and then looks at you and says "up!". You'd think that'd mean he wasn't hungry and maybe he wasn't..but there's no pattern or consistency to it. He may not have eaten all day (just played with his food) and at dinner it's still the same play time. But then at 2am he awakes screaming and begging for his milk because his tummy is growling.

Yesterday was a good day in that he actually ate most of what he was playing with. In fact, we had leftovers for lunch because he liked Monday's dinner so much that he actually said "Yummmm" after the first bite. So, here are some pictures of my little eater.


As you can see, I've started stripping him down for his food (this is his pudding desset) as he has almost completely ruined all of his summer clothes with food stains. So, my question for all of you moms out there...How can I teach my little one to eat without making quite the mess? Any miracle suggestions?

A Challenge

Yesterday morning I was presented the challenge of babysitting a 3-month old for a few hours. I figured it would be a good experience to see how Kai would react to a baby and to remind myself (not that I need reminding!) why I'm not ready for number 2. I was actually surprised at how good the baby, Rebekah, was. Maybe if Kai had been so easy.......She never let out a single cry--even when she woke up in a strange house with a strange person and toddler staring over her. She also slept in her carset for an hour! To most of you, that's normal. From my experience, that's monumentous!! So, all in all, it was a good experience and made me think that maybe two wouldn't be as bad as I thought--I'm still not ready though. Once Rebekah left, I reveled in my one-on-one time with my little boy, and I realized I'm not ready to give that up. I love him so much!

Kai teaching Rebekah how to use the bouncy seat.
So cute!

Toy Room

Around mid-July we did a little redecorating of the house and I moved Kai's toys from the living room into his very own toy room. Reid refers to it as Kai's "East Wing" (as opposed to the "West Wing" which would be his bedroom, or the "Play Room" which is Kai's large 15X30 foot rec room in the basement. Okay, yes, Kai is the master of the house!). The plan is that once Kai is ready for a "big boy" room, this toy room will become his bedroom. In the meantime, though, it looks something like this:

Waddle Waddle Waddle

Kai has a couple of books with animal pictures in them. Whenever we read the books I try to teach him what noises the various animals make. Several animals generally stump me--the giraffe, the hippopatamus, the turtle, the penguin, etc. Last week I started saying "waddle waddle waddle" and rocking Kai back and forth whenever we saw a penguin. He caught on pretty quick and now when he turns to a page with a penguin he'll start "waddling" before he even points to the penguin. It's so cute! Here's a video of him "waddling". (Sorry his back is to the camera, I couldn't get a better shot.)

Jumping

Reid decided to show Kai how to jump on Sunday. While he can't get off of the ground, it's pretty cute what he picked up on. The last couple of mornings he has gotten out of bed "jumping"!

Rainy Season

The locals tell us that normally June/July is the "rainy season" and August is sweltering hot. Well, July was awful and now that we're in August it seems the sun has disappered. Last week we had thunderstorms, lightning, and pouring rain 4 out of 5 days and there were a few days that we didn't see a ray of sunshine at all. In fact, by Friday night it was so cold (around 40 degrees) that I knew it was time to buy Kai some fall/winter jammies. Kai now has new ultra-cute jammies, thanks to Colorado's rain. Oh, and the green on the mountains now extends up about half-way. Wow-who would have thought?!

Soccer Star

Have I mentioned that Kai is a soccer player??

Tunnel

A couple of months ago Kai discovered a new way to get from our living room area to the kitchen--by crawling under the end table. This got us thinking that maybe Kai would like a tunnel or something of the sort to crawl through. This past weekend we opened up a diaper box and showed him how to go through. It now works as a fabulous tunnel for his choo-choo train and him!

Mommy's Helper

I've mentioned to a few of you that Kai likes to do laundry. In fact, first thing on Saturday Kai started doing the laundry by himself! Being 7 in the morning, I didn't manage to get any pictures, but here are some shots from this morning's load.

Step 1: Place dirty clothes in the basket and transport to the washer. Yes, Kai typically does this one piece at a time. (We still have some things to work on!)

Step 2: Load clothes from the basket into the washer.


Step 3: Close washer door.


Step 4: Return basket to laundry area--ready for clean clothes.

15 Months

Kai had his 15-month check-up this morning. I can't believe how old he's getting! Let's start with the vital information:

Height--29 1/4 inches--8th percentile
*This is up from the 3rd percentile at his one-year appointment and so I was happy about that.
Weight--18 pounds 13 ounces--below the 3rd percentile
*At his one-year appointment he was in the first percentile weight-wise and so this is no change really. When the doctor showed me the chart, to me it looked like he had dropped off of the chart, but the doctor says he's holding strong and he's just going to be little like me.

Another chocolate mess

So, other than the fact that he still has to sit rear-facing in the car, he's doing great! He loved playing with the beads-on-wire toy (you know, the one that every doctor has) and really just played while the doctor and I talked. He only got upset when we had to take the toy away and the doctor looked at him. The best part of the whole appointment though was when the doctor was checking his belly. She was holding him down, he was crying and talking, and then the doctor looked up shocked. I'll admit I wasn't listening to Kai closely, but she asked me if he had just said "Hold me". I told her it wouldn't surprise me as he has started to put two words together--mostly "button push". And she said she was sure that he had said "Hold me". Needless to say, his vocabulary blew her away!

Other than that, he got two immunizations and I was happy to hear that after the two at 18 months, he'll be done with those until he's 4. We also went to the lab for some lab work. The doctor had us run a thyroid test (just because of family history) and an anemia test. We're just checking to make sure that's not contributing to Kai's small weight. I can't believe that they had to take the blood from the inside of his elbow, like an adult. That was hard. Poor kid came out like a champ though and is now nappping in his crib. After his morning, he deserves some sleep.

Good Grief

Since coming back from our trip to Washington, Kai has only successfully made it through a night once. And he's not just getting up once a night either--it's two or three times! The exhaustion is starting to set back in for me! He has cut a new tooth, making a total of six teeth, and so that probably is playing into our nighttime woes. It was also very hot several days in a row (and we don't have air conditioning). Whatever the matter is, I hope we figure this out soon.


In the meantime, he was a cutie this morning as he decided that it would be fun to crawl into his basket. He also demonstrated his newest vocabulary by pointing out his "belly". He is a doll, even if he's keeping me up all night!

On a completely separate note, since the TV viewing has been a bit sparse, Reid and I have started to catch up on movies. I rented 27 Dresses the other week (loved it!) and this week we've watched Happy Feet and Shrek the 3rd. Out of those two I think Shrek wins! While I'm enjoying the movie viewing, I'm anxiously awaiting Olympic gymnastics! I'll be glued to my TV/computer from Saturday through Thursday! Go USA!