David, Lisa, Kayla & Isaac

Lucky for me, we have one coming up this week!! Not soon enough, though! I want it to be right now! I need a break - mentally, physically and emotionally from my life. Not to say that my life is really all that difficult. I realize how blessed we are... But that's not to say that I don't struggle with things. Kayla is growing up more and more each day... and I can't keep up with her changes! It seems like just yesterday she was unable to roll over. Now I really can't leave her alone anymore... she has learned to climb up things (couch, babygate, etc):

and in things (behind the love seat):

and get into things (um, we forgot to close the downstairs bathroom door... and I heard silence in the other room, which is always a bad thing. Yeah, she was playing with the water in the toilet and put toilet paper in her mouth - awesome).

She is constantly harassing Wesley:

and I need to break them up.
I would like to have a little break from the physical aspect of motherhood.

Mentally and emotionally.... I'm just tired. I tend to worry about things too much, and as much as I try not to, I often get overwhelmed by things that shouldn't overwhelm me. Planning a vacation should be fun, not stressful.... and while we are leaving on this vacation in a few days, we are already trying to plan 2 more, and thinking about several more in the future (um, like next summer). Now, I love to travel and enjoying visiting family and friends. But traveling takes a little bit out of you. So the planning part stresses me out a little, and then the actual doing of it stresses me out a little. I need to just stop thinking and start enjoying.

After our vacation in April, I realized that I really won't ever get a "true" vacation, seeing as how my job is to watch Kayla, and I'll still be doing that so long as Kayla comes with me! However, that trip helped me realize that I need to verbalize (to David if no one else) what my needs are, and make sure that I am taking care of myself, and not falling into the trap of taking total responsibility of her. It is hard for me - I know her best, and she looks to me for comfort. But that doesn't mean that David, or our families don't WANT to take on some of the responsibility and help me out. But I need to be willing to give up that control. On my most recent trip in May, I was able to get more of a break from her because I was able to verbalize my needs. I am hoping that trend continues! I am hoping that I will feel refreshed after our trip, and that I am able to get a break from Kayla so that when we come back I am feeling excited about having her to myself each day! We'll see. For now, I'm worried about laundry and packing! :) Pray for me!!!!

Posted by Lisa at 11:39 PM | Permalink

Kayla's newest thing: carrying stuff around the house. As a result, I have to search the house for my sandals (shoes, my does she love shoes).... and I have to walk all over the 1st story to gather her toys. Her fridge magnets? Some by the back door, some in the living room. It's actually really cute to watch her carry things( something in each hand, and sometimes something in her mouth too!). But aiya! And I thought my house could get messy before!

She also is starting to show some interesting eating habits. She is EXTREMELY wary of letting us feed her. Good thing she mostly self-feeds! But when we do try to spoon feed her something, she immediately puts her fingers in her mouth and examines what we put in there. No fooling her anymore! She also is rejecting things she previously loved (avacado and mango). Like, refuses to eat it, does a "windshield wiper" motion to get it off her tray... and get it off quickly. Like it might contaminate her other food or something!

Walking, not crawling, is her preferred method of transportation now. She'll cruise if there is furniture there, but will let go and walk without skipping a beat.

She figured out that she can crawl behind the loveseat and into the furniture. I tried to run and grab a camera, because she was so stinkin' proud of herself for getting back there! But she climbed out before I could get to the camera. And I suppose I shouldn't be encouragine that behavior.... She also steped up on the trim around our entertainment center to peek at the cable box with BUTTONS!

When she is upset, she arches her back and screams. Makes it very difficult sometimes to put her in the carseat or change a diaper.

Posted by Lisa at 05:25 PM | Permalink

So June 15th was my first ever Father's Day. I have to say it was pretty cool. Kayla let us sleep in a little bit which was quite nice. Lisa told me that we had to get up or we'd be late... I asked "late for what?" seeing as we had 2+ hours before church, and she said "for breakfast!" I certainly couldn't let that happen, so we got up and showered. Lisa gave me a card and Kayla gave me a new tie. Yes, it's the traditional Father's Day gift, but hey, I needed a black tie and it's my FIRST Father's Day, gotta keep some traditions right. Lisa had made reservations at the new hotel downtown at their fancy little restaurant. The important thing is that they had an omelet bar, which you know I made full use of. After my 3rd omelet and plenty of other food I was stuffed! Kayla was not only very good for the entire meal, she was complimented several times by other people in the restaurant. After breakfast we went outside and took a few pictures along the Grand River.

We relaxed for a part of the day and were able to go on a roller-blading trip for a while. Kayla seems to enjoy being pushed around, she usually falls asleep. We worked on the basement some more and it's exciting to see that project coming along. You can see more pictures of that here.

Posted by David at 02:34 PM | Permalink

Probably the biggest thing to discuss from this past month is her sleeping habits. I hate to talk about sleep when things are good, it seems like every time I do we have a sleep regression! But this past month Kayla has been consistently sleeping through the night. I will nurse her to sleep when she is ready for bed (usually between 9-10), and she has been sleeping from then until about 7 or 8 when she wakes up to nurse.... then she will go back to sleep until she's gotten usually 11-12 hours of sleep. Some nights she does wake up crying, but she is able to calm herself down pretty quickly (really before she ever actually wakes up) and go right back to sleep, with no intervention from us. This is a huge change, as previously she would wake up screaming and standing and unable to calm herself down without our help. I can't even explain how amazing it is to not be woken up at nights. She has slept through the night on many occasions prior to this past month, but it was never a consistent thing. And I'm always concerned that tonight will be the night that she starts waking up again... and I'm sure we aren't going to have great sleep for the rest of her life. But the bottom line is that the good nights are majorly outweighing the bad nights, and that is a major breakthrough. I have to say that I am very happy with how things went. We did not force her to sleep all night on her own... it was something that she did when she was ready for it. Not to say that we didn't try different ideas to help her sleep more. But she wasn't ready for it, and it's not really something you can force. As I said, it's not like she was just waking crying and able to settle herself. She was waking screaming, and if we didn't attend to her she would escalate (if that is possible!).

As for naps, I have resigned to the fact that she can easily go on two 30 minute naps a day and be totally content. Sometimes she surprises me and sleeps longer, but most times you could actually set your watch to when she wakes up because it is almost exactly 30 minutes later. I am trying to work on her going down for naps on her own. I have been rocking her to sleep, but the last few weeks it has involved much screaming on her part, and much frustration on my part. So, I am trying new things. Wish me luck! :)

As for eating, about a week ago I started feeding her lunches. She seemed to need more nourishment, and I was planning on starting 3 meals a day soon anyway. So now I nurse her at 7 or 8, feed breakfast around 9:30-10... nurse her around 11-12 (either before or after her nap, depending on how things go), lunch when she wakes up from the nap. Then another nursing around 4-4:30, dinner with us around 6:30, and nursing her around 9 for bed. For the most-part she eats what we eat. I have to say, it's been good for me to think about adding more veggies and healthy foods to our own eating habits! It is really fun to have her be a participant in this part of our daily lives. She continues to be an extremely messy eater! She is often rubbing the food in her hair, behind her ears, all over her face, not to mention on the floor! Sometimes she doesn't make a mess at all, but often cleaning her up means practically giving her a sponge bath with the washcloth, if we don't just take her directly up to the bathtub! New foods she's tried: asparagus, turkey, pork, sausage, cheeseburger, steak, rice, cool whip, blueberries, ham, cream cheese, mushrooms and pineapple.

We've also introduced the sippy cup and give her like 1 part juice, 100 parts water (or so David says I do, he makes it more like 1:4), and she is getting much better with that. She is best when she is lying down or when we are helping her hold it up! But she is at the beginning stages of mastering this skill.

Walking.... yeah, every day she is choosing to walk places rather than crawl. She has increased her step ability from 2-3 to like 6-7 on average before she plops down and crawls. She is still learning how to keep her balance, but she is getting much better. In fact, the last several days she has walked more like 10-12 steps and can go from one end of the living room to the other, touch base and then set out walking again. She is still much faster at crawling and cruising, so those are easy to rely on, but she is really going with the walking. It's fun!

Climbing... didn't think I'd need to start talking about this yet. But this weekend she has learned to climb up on the couch! She has done it 3 or 4 times since, so it wasn't just a fluke! Oh my.... now nothing is safe! :)

She is majorly into things in the kitchen. She likes to open drawers, try to climb inside the dishwasher, get into the drawers in the fridge, explore the closet... it makes working in the kitchen interesting. I am constantly trying to distract her to one side of the kitchen, then quick run to the other side to do what needs to be done before she gets there.... then I run to the side she just left and do something. It's quite a project! I try to make the most of the time I have when she is in her feeding chair so I can work without worrying about her getting into things!

She loves peek-a-boo. She has started playing on her own (like she holds up something over her face and then uncovers herself). It's pretty cute.

She LOVES Wesley. She is always so excited when she sees him walk into the room and immediately goes to him. Often she flops her whole self on top of him, like she's giving him a huge hug. It's pretty cute, and he is (to a fault) extremely patient with her. Sometimes I wish he would just run away or climb up to where she can't get him, because I always have to patrol their petting sessions. I say "gentle", and show her how to pet him nicely. But as soon as I let her go on her own she comes up with a fist-full of his hair!

She is curious about everything. This was her first experience watching a fan - it was hilarious! While I must have said 1 million times, "we don't touch fans", she made a noise that sounds like "wow" like 1 million times! It was cute!

We have a membership to Meijer Garden's, and we chose to upgrade to the kind that allows us to bring 2 free guests every time we go. We did that so when family comes in town we can bring them there, but also to allow me to invite my friends there for play dates! I have been there 2 times in the past 2 weeks, and it has been really fun. I didn't think Kayla was old enough to enjoy things yet. I figured it would be fun to be outside and enjoy the weather, walk around the park, look at the beautiful flowers, etc. But they have 2 water areas which Kayla LOVED. She had such a blast. I'm looking forward to many more trips there this summer!!

Motherhood gets better and better the older she gets. It is so amazing to watch her enjoy life and to have her participate in daily experiences. I know it sounds silly, but the older she gets the more and more she is becoming a person (as opposed to just a baby) and that is really exciting to me.

At the doctor's she weighed in at 18 lbs 13 oz which keeps her in the upper 30 percent. She really is a busy-body; she honestly never sits still. She's started to lose a little baby fat in her thighs, which weren't really that chunky to begin with!

1. Her eyes are still a pretty blue color.

Posted by Lisa at 09:29 PM | Permalink

I wrote briefly about this before, but I took Kayla to the doctor's earlier this week. She had an infection in her left ear and she was prescribed Amoxicillin. After I gave her a dose this morning (4th dose so far), I noticed some red bumps on her face and chin. I was concerned, but thought it might be heat rash or something, so I'd monitor it. Well, it spread to her belly and back. I called the Dr and we went back in today. Yup - she had an allergic reaction.... she is allergic to amoxicillin (which actually I am allergic to also). Too bad we had to find that out the hard way. The good news is that the bumps didn't seem to bother her at all, thankfully. As it turns out, her ear hadn't improved at all. The doctor actually said that it looks like the amoxicillin wasn't working at all (her ear should have improved in these 48 hours, and it had not). So... I went back to Meijer for the 4th time in 3 days... picked up her new meds. And I picked up some meds for myself: Peanut Butter M&Ms, ice cream and Malibu :)

Posted by Lisa at 11:38 PM | Permalink

So.... yesterday I was a bit out of sorts. I wrote THE LONGEST POST EVER about all of the things that are frustrating me and making me feel so down (which I do not intend to actually put up on the site, there is no need). Yesterday I was sobbing uncontrollably.... for no apparent (good) reason. The intellectual side of me can easily say that I really don't have a case for being so frustrated/moody/upset/out of sorts. The emotional side of me was out of control yesterday. OUT OF CONTROL. Like, I had absolutely no perspective on life. Everyone was out to get me, go out of their way to make my life miserable (I know, I'm crazy!). The intellectual side of me says that Kayla is a baby.... she isn't trying to frustrate me. She doesn't want to be sick (I had to take her to the Dr, she had over 100 fever 3 days in a row. Turns out she has another ear infection, and this one actually needed to be treated because her left eat was pussy... poor kid) and she doesn't mean to be more needy that normal. She doesn't mean to hurt me when she pulls and eats my hair (this must be a comfort mechanism for her?). But the emotional side got the better of me yesterday. And it seemed nothing was going right, everything was going wrong, and I couldn't gain control or perspective. I felt like I was drowning. Somehow after many prayers, a change in attitude and a good night of sleep (um, and googling PPD, which for the record I don't think I have!) I am doing much better. I think I am battling a lot right now (all I need to do is re-read all I wrote yesterday, and indeed, I have a lot on my plate... lots to do, lots of little conflicts that need resolution, lots of emotions) and I let it completely overwhelm me. Completely. There were 2 things that helped stop the sobbing. First, Kayla thought it was hilarious. She was crying too, and all of the sudden she was laughing and trying to hit my face. I don't know if she thought the tears were like a toy, or that my wrinkled face was me making a silly face at her.... but seeing her finding it funny brought some humor to the situation. The second thing is perspective. My goodness.... I was crying as though I just found out a loved one died.... or something really terrible. My emotions were so far gone that while one part of me realized it was ridiculous, the other part of me couldn't snap out of it. I've felt like this once before.... but a change in BC pills made the situation better. So, I'm thinking it must be a combination of my situations and my hormones, and I realize that hormones can be a little out of whack while breastfeeding. A little might be underestimating the situation. They might be majorly out of whack?! Anyway.... I post this to ask for prayers. I'll be just fine. I'm doing immeasurably better today. A lot of the emotions I'm feeling have to do with still adjusting to being a mom.... the sacrifices I'm making (not working, no personal time or space anymore, my body, my interests, my ability to get things done, freedom, etc)... and although I love Kayla to pieces, sometimes she can drive me to tears :) I wouldn't trade my situation for anything... anything. I love my life; I realize that I am truly blessed. But it doesn't mean that life is always easy or fun. And I'm trying to keep that all in perspective.

Posted by Lisa at 11:39 AM | Permalink

We had a busy weekend. We've been working on finishing the basement. I'd say working hard, but sometimes we go for long stretches without doing anything! But this weekend we did work hard! :)

We had someone come in and help David build the cabinet to cover up the water shut off to the house - clever, huh?! There is also a column to cover the pipes running up. They also put up the casing around the doors and the trim... the little work that didn't get finished with him we have finished up on our own. We have a little more work to do tonight, and then tomorrrow we are starting the painting. We are hoping to have that done by the end of the weekend so we can have our carpet installed early next week. Things are certainly coming together quickly! Here are some recent pictures of what we've done. It's starting to look like a room, and I am getting really excited about using it!

This weekend was Fesitval of the Arts in downtown GR. We always like to go - mostly to try out all the different kinds of foods! But they have music and dancing, and tons of fun things for kids. This year Kayla was too young to enjoy any of the activites, but she had fun crawling up to the story-teller (we sometimes called her "tri-pod" because she 1/2 crawls and 1/2 walks... and this is a picture of her doing that!)! In the years to come, she'll enjoy watching the dancing, doing artwork and listening to storytime and things of that sort! But we had a good time, despite the extremely hot weather!

Weekends always go by too quickly!

Posted by Lisa at 01:16 PM | Permalink

As an update on our bedroom door crisis..... we purchased 4 doors and 4 new handles for the upstairs. As previously mentioned, they are not of a standard size, meaning they would need to be cut on top and on bottom (they are 6 panel doors, so it needs to be even).... and since they are hollow doors, it makes the task even harder. We had someone come to quote installing them because the task seemed daunting. However, we decided on a different path. David figured out (why he didn't figure this out the first time we had problem I do not know) that you indeed CAN replace the hardware on the old doors. You just need this handy $15 tool which makes a larger hole for the hardware to fit. Soooo.... we did that...and returned the 4 doors... and now we have 4 brushed steel handles that are beautiful and make the doors open and shut smoothly and easily and quietly. Kayla's door has a huge chunk of wood missing out of it, so It'is a little bootleg! But it works!

Here is a picture of the break in:

As I said, projects lead. We ended up buying new hardware for all of the doors in the downstairs as well so they match. As an added and unknown bonus, many doors open and close with a simple flick, rather than the pulling and sticking that we used to have to deal with. It's nice, though a little expensive.

As always, I had way too much food. But better too much than too little! I had 2 breakfast casseroles, homemade pecan rolls, coffee cake and a fruit display. David carved the watermelon into a bassinet; It was adorable! :) For dessert we had cupcakes that spelled "Welcome Baby Bell"!

I am quite relieved to have that over. Now I can't wait to meet her baby!!

Posted by Lisa at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Several nights in the past week Kayla has fallen asleep like this:

Posted by Lisa at 12:00 AM | Permalink

I wanted to take a moment to put on paper some of my thoughts on Kayla's personality.

1. She's genuinely a happy little girl. I rarely go anywhere (on a walk, in the grocery store, anywhere) without people commenting on what a happy girl she is. She's all smiles about everything!
2. She's persistant. If I pull her away from something she's not supposed to have/do, she keeps going back for it and back for it again.
3. Almost to contradict that, she is easily distracted. She doesn't like me putting her hat on when we go outside in the summer... but if I distract her with a toy or by clapping my hands together and smiling, she totally forgets about it!
4. She's a cuddler. When I pick her up out of her crib in the mornings or from a nap, she likes to nussle into my shoulder crook and snuggle in.
5. She's very, very, very active. She is a pretty skinny little girl, and it's because she never EVER sits still. Before she could move, she'd flail her arms/legs. Now that she can crawl, forget it. She's just all over the place all of the time. And now that she's pulling up, she gets up and then goes down, and then is up somewhere else, and then down.... she really loves to move around! And so quickly! She is a very fast crawler!
6. She is easily excitable, and absolutely adorable about it! She either gives a little giggle, or shakes her head back and forth with glee! So super-cute. Lately, every day when she hears daddy coming home from work she starts squealing with joy. Melts his heart (and mine).
7. She's talkative! Always having conversations with herself, or with me.
8. She loves music. It calms her in the car if she is fussy. It makes her smile if we whistle. If we have the tv on at nights, she isn't interested in it at all, but if someone on tv starts singing, she'll arch to find out where the music is coming from. She smiles when her toys start to play music. She enjoys listening to me play the piano.
9. She's easy-going (like her dad). She's (usually) content to do what we want/need to do. She is happy at Meijer, Lowe's, Costco etc when we need to shop. She's content at restaurants. She is happy when we are at friends houses (however, it is SO HARD to be able to enjoy visiting friends who have not baby-proofed their houses! I am glad most of our friends are getting to the point where they will have to do this too, because we have to watch Kayla 100% of the time, which makes conversation more difficult). She enjoys walks and rollerblading trips.
10. She's eager. Eager to explore and try new things (like crawling up the steps). Eager to eat her food (you put food on the tray and she instantly has two fist-fulls... or, if you are spoon-feeding her something, if she'll let you that is, she attacks the spoon! When she is nursing, she knows what she wants and she greedily latches on - it is so cute to see!).

Posted by Lisa at 09:22 AM | Permalink