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?!