Rain, Sun, Rain

The weather hasn’t been able to make up its mind the last couple weeks. We’ve been going back and forth between rain and sun, and from nice and warm to quite chilly. My head has been driving me crazy (I get barometric pressure headaches aka weather headaches when there is a sudden change in weather). But the nice thing is God has blessed us with breaks of beautiful sunshine. Andrew and I have been trying to take advantage of the nice breaks in weather and take Kayley outside to play.

This led us to discover and explore a fun park near us that is like a little kid’s fairytale playground. I mean it has a tall tower for the princess, and even a dragon you have to protect the castle from. Plus, the only way into the playground is by walking across the draw bridge. It’s pretty cool. Kayley’s a bit too small for a lot of the big playground, but there is a mini playground within the whole area too. She has loved the couple adventures we have gone on there.

Some day my prince will come

Check out the fairytale playground!

Walking with mama

Swing time!

The dragon!

Kayley and I have also been playing out on our balcony more. Her highlights include discovering that hitting a stick against the rain makes music, mommy says no to eating pine cones, and big leaves are really fun to waves around and crinkle. This morning, just while looking out the window, Kayley and I observed two fat and fluffy squires climbing on a stump and the ground. Kayley seemed to be quite fascinated by them.

I can’t wait until the weather it more consistently nice. Then we can go on more adventures outside and take trips to the zoo again! (Yes, this proves I’m a Californian at heart – I don’t like going out in wet weather…)

First Steps

Kayley took her first step! Last Thursday night she was standing and took a step forward. Within an hour she took three steps in a row. She got super excited about it and then could barely stand up. She was so cute to watch and Andrew and I are so happy we were both there to witness her first steps. I was afraid we would both miss her first steps. I just knew she’d be adventuring out in steps soon and since Andrew and I had a planned vacation away from Kayley for Friday through Saturday I was worried she would take her first steps then. But God is good and allowed us to witness her first attempts.

Kayley got to spend Friday and Saturday at her aunty and uncle’s house with two of her cousins while Andrew and I spent a lovely time at the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie. We missed her, but did our best to focus on each other, knowing she was probably having a blast and doing just fine. We were told that while Kayley was there, she took five steps in a row! Go baby girl, go!

Kayley is still very wobbly when it comes to walking, but she has only had a few days of practice. You can tell a part of her is interested in being able to walk like mommy and daddy and she wishes she walked better than what she currently does (sometimes she takes a step as if trying to run and lands hard on the floor. Though she doesn’t complain about falling as much anymore). But her desire to get places is overruling this at the moment, and crawling indeed gets her places fast.

On a completely different note; Kayley had her first taste of Japanese food! We went a Japanese restaurant Sunday after church with some friends and let her try an avocado roll, and inari (fried tofu filled with rice). She seems to enjoy the taste of seaweed and inari. When she gets older we’ll be able to share more Japanese food with her!

Kayley: What is this?

Avocado sushi

Inari

Practice Makes Perfect

Kayley has been doing quite a bit of practicing. Last week a friend gave us their walker for Kayley to use. Kayley loves it! She loves the music it makes and the buttons on the front of it. But most of all she loves pushing it as she walks. 

Happily walking

Peek-a-boo, I see you.

She has actually figure out that when she walks it into a wall she can walk around it and push it from the front until she walks it into another wall. It’s so fun to watch her walk around and problem solve when it gets stuck.

Focused on walking

Kayley has also been working on standing by herself. We started playing a game a few days ago: I sit on the floor in front of her and then put in her a standing position and let go, she then stands for a bit by herself and then leans or jumps toward me. Sometimes she stands there and then goes into a squatting position, squats for a bit and then sits down.  She loves playing this game, and she’s getting pretty good standing alone.

Kaboom!

So excited to be standing alone! She squealed and put her hands together.

I think she is still trying to figure out what she is supposed to do while standing, or what to do next. Oh I love watching her learn and grow!

Gates

We have had baby gates up in our home for a couple weeks now. One thing we didn’t think of when we put the gates up is how much Hoshi, our cat, hates to jump high and over things. Turns out our baby gates aren’t just baby proof, they’re cat proof too. So to make it so Hoshi can get to her food, water, litter box and “throne” (the chair she thinks is her's), we’ve had to make a couple adjustments.

The pressure gate that we use to keep Kayley out of our room sits about 3 inches off the ground so Hoshi can crawl under it.

Silly cat

As for the gate that cuts our apartment in half, well when we plan to have it closed for a lengthy amount of time we place one of our table’s stools on one said of the gate, and another one on the opposite side. We don’t know why, but Hoshi will jump onto the stools, though she won’t just over the gate… Go figure… Otherwise we just open the gate for her when she sits and meows or scratches at it. 

Our third gate blocks the heater that Kayley thinks makes wonderful music when toys are hit against it. We discourage this because when the heater is on, the vent gets hot. We don’t want little burned fingers. Hoshi could care less about this gate and has completely ignored it. 

Oh yes, and we keep a box in front of the entrance to Kayley's room (you can see it in the picture above). She can climb on top of it and push it, but she rarely does either (now). But it's easy to move and step over for Andrew and me.

We still need to figure out how to baby proof our entertainment unit or purchase a new one.  Currently we block it, and divide the living room in half (to keep Kayley away from the fireplace) with our coffee table and two stools lying on their sides. Hoshi just walks right through those. Our home might look weird if you come over and it’s set up like this, but it keep our precious little one out of danger. 

Keeping Kayley away from the fire.

Solid Adventure Two

I thought I would share more of Kayley’s first impressions of the food I have made and given her. I was just going to do a small selection, but all her facial expressions are just so great. Anyway! Here’s what she’s had since her last Solid Adventure, in alphabetical order:

Apricots: This is shockingly sweet, but it made my cheeks turn red.

Avocado: I'll eat it, but I prefer you don't make me

Beets: Beets! More please!

Chicken with mix veggies: Your attempt to conceal the chicken has failed. I don't like chicken.

Couscous: Wow! Can I have more?

Dates: Sweet stuff.

Ham with apples: This is a lot better than chicken. I could eat some more

Kiwi: No so sure about this.

Mangoes: Mangoes are tasty!

Oatmeal: Uh, could you add some thing else to the oatmeal? It's a little plain by itself.

Olives: Hm, I guess I'll eat this

Papaya: This is good stuff.

Salmon and pear: This is surprisingly good.

Spinach: I really like this stuff.

Split Pea Soup: Oh my gosh! Maimie's split pea soup is amazingly good!

Yellow Squash: Hm, this is pretty good.

Since Kayley's last Solid Adventure she has started to eat pieces of food with her tiny little fingers.

Banana and mumu cracker. Yummy!

Hmm, what to eat first?

Milk

As of last Saturday, Kayley (9 and a half months) isn’t getting any more milk from me. She’d been weaning herself for a while now. For the past two months she had only been eating mama milk in the morning, and right before going to bed. Over the last three weeks or so, she’d been losing interest in even those two feedings.

What do I mean by this? Well, she’s been very easily distracted, not really seeming interested, pulling away a lot while eating, and cutting her feeding time really short. It really seemed like she was just not going to latch on one day. That’s not exactly what happened though.

Let me back up a little. When people asked me how long I wanted to breast feed Kayley for, my answer was always along the lines of “I’ll nurse her until she weans herself, or she is able to verbally ask me to feed her (milk please, mama?), or she bites me.” Right now I’ve been hoping she would nurse through cold season, since there are a lot of benefits she can get from breast feeding to help fight colds, etc. But we obviously didn’t make it that far. Can you guess what happened?

I’ve been nipped a few times in the past couple months as her teeth have been coming in. It wasn’t too bad, though it always did make me slightly afraid to let her latch back on again. Her nipping slowly got harder though… I would flick her in the mouth and tell her no, but that wasn’t really working. Friday night she bit me pretty hard, but I thought I would continue trying. She then bit me harder and I was done feeding her for the night. She barely ate anything.

Saturday morning I thought I’d try again since it was a new day. Two minutes into the feeding she bit me hard. It hurt. But I lovingly forgave her and tried again. She latched on, ate a mouth full or two, and then bit me really really hard. No blood was drawn, but ouch!  I was done. I hurt really bad and I did not want that to happen again. I forgave her of course, but no more mama milk for Kayley.

Kayley has adjusted really well so far. It doesn’t seem like she misses her mama milk at all. At night we have just given her a small snack of warm oatmeal so she goes to sleep with some food in her belly. She has always slept better on a partially full tummy. Since it’s only been a couple days I am sure she’s transitioning. I know I am. Emotionally I’m fine, but my body still has to get used to it.

That all being said I’m happy Kayley loves eating her solid foods! My baby girl is growing up so fast!