Smerry Family

Birthday Bash

2011-04-18T21:20:00.004-05:00

A lot has been going on at the Smerry's since our last post (way back in December). We are still settling in to our new home in Oak Park. Kerala loves school and Kian loves all of his classes during the week (particularly, his gym class). Right now we have both kids enrolled in soccer on Saturdays and they love it. Kerala does a fabulous job listening to instructions in class and actually doing the soccer drills/games. Kian's favorite part of class is jumping into the goal (not a class sponsored activity...but fun for him nonetheless).

The kids are at a really good stage with each other. They are generally very sweet and respectful. Kerala loves to pretend like she is the grown up with Kian and will try to read to him, dry him off after bath and generally just being attentive. Tonight, they were running around pretending to be super heroes and then pretending to be on a camping trip. It is so cute to see them and how they have developed a friendship.

I was having some technical difficulties with the the post - I was trying to embed some photos of the kids' birthday bash in the link, but for some reason I couldn't so check out the April 2011 photo link. The kids had their party at My Gym and I must say that I was really impressed with the staff and facilities. It seemed like everyone had an absolute blast and we couldn't have been happier. We were also really fortunate to have Ellen, Kerala's former nanny, come in and stay with us. It's really interesting to see how Kerala still has a connection with Ellen, although we are not sure how much she remembers of Ellen since Ellen left when she was 2. It's clear though that she knows Ellen has a special place in her life, which is really neat to see.

Now that my busy season is over, I am going to try to post more often. Anyway, please check out the March and April photos to see what we have been up to.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T23:54:00.003-06:00

The kids had a fabulous Christmas. This was the first year that Kerala seemed to really get the idea that on Christmas day she would wake up and there would be a roomful of presents.

We started Christmas Eve off with opening up all of the great gifts from Grandma Sue. I am really happy we did that because it took forever to open gifts on Christmas. The kids would get distracted and want to play with what they had received, so it was like pulling teeth to get them to continue opening presents. After opening some gifts on Christmas Eve with Grandma Sue, we had a nice dinner at home. The kids went off to bed and we finished up all of the final preparations for the big day.

I am not sure if I mentioned, but Kerala is not really a morning person. We had to wake her up Christmas morning and basically prod her to get out of bed. Kian, on the other hand, was super psyched to go downstairs (although I don't think he realized what was awaiting him). The kids started with their stockings and that took quite some time because they were obsessed with all of the candy (note to Santa, not so much candy next year). Troy had made a really wonderful breakfast for us to eat on while opening presents - homemade cinnamon rolls, a donut hole Xmas tree, and an egg casserole (actually that was my contribution). After presents, the kids played with their new toys while we started preparing for Xmas dinner. Although Grandma Sue and Jeff did not stick around for Xmas dinner, they helped us prepare for our annual Xmas dinner with friends - thanks Sue for putting on the ham and keeping up with all of the dishes and thanks Jeff for shoveling our sidewalks). Dinner was fabulous - it was great to have a houseful of friends and family for our first Christmas in our new home.

We are now off for our annual New Year's trip - can't wait for a relaxing week with friends.

Halloween Update

2010-11-18T20:27:00.000-06:00

Okay, I know it's been a few weeks since Halloween, but I thought I might as well give a quick update of the holiday as well as the other happenings around here.

We started off the Halloween weekend with a Halloween party at our house. There were about 20 kids and 20 adults, it was the first big event we hosted since moving in and things generally went pretty well. I had a number of activities planned for the kids (bozo buckets w/ pumpkins, pumpkin decorating, mummy wrapping), but for the most part hte kids just wanted to run around and be kids. Kerala was really psyched to have her friends over and I hope we can make it a Halloween tradition.

On Halloween, Kerala and I handed out candy while Kian napped. Kerala really enjoyed handing out the candy and enforcing the no costume/one piece of candy rule - she was strict! She did seem to get a bit overwhelmed when there was a large crowd of trick or treaters that would build up while she tried to find the perfect piece of candy for each trick or treater. As far as costumes, Kerala wore her mouse costume for the first year. She wore the same costume at 9 months, 21 months and 3 1/2 years. Since it appears to now be capri length, I think this is definitely the last year she will wear it. She insisted though. Kian went as a ghost, the costume Kerala wore last year. I must say that he was a very cute ghost.

The kids are doing well. Kian has been doing really well with speaking. He is consistently uses two word sentences, which are pretty cute. Lately he has been saying "Shake your booty, Tamra" because our friend Tamra taught him that phrase. It's pretty adorable.

Kerala is doing well at school. I got to observe her classroom this past week and it was really neat to see her in action and the various activities that she does. It was also cute to see the interaction between her and her friends.

Settling In

2010-10-04T22:22:00.000-05:00

We finally feel like we are settling in our new home in Oak Park. This past week we had our bedroom and family room furniture delivered. Up until this point, we had been sleeping in our guest bedroom. While we still need to buy a ton for the home, we are beginning to really enjoy our home and the surroundings. Kerala really loves her preschool and Kian loves his morning classes (music, spanish, gym and art). We also got a cat this past weekend and plan to add to the household with a dog this spring. The kids are doing really well with the cat - although I did have an "Olivia" moment when I turned around and saw Kerala carrying the cat up the stairs and then attempt to plop him down in a kid's chair. He is a kitten - but he is really long, so the two of them looked pretty funny. I have also heard Kerala tell Max, the cat, that she is going to give him a bath. Kian is very excited about the cat as well. This evening he kept putting a ball in front of Max and telling him to "eat it." Kian also is constantly showing Max where is food and litter pan are located. It's very sweet to see how quickly the kids have become attached to this cat.

As far as preschool, Kerala really loves it although she does not tell us a ton. It seems like the most infomration that we get is right before she goes to sleep. Tonight she was telling me about how someone was not being respectful today during line up time and he had a time out. Troy and I are just really happy that she is excited to go to school every day and appears to even be disappointed when it is the weekend.

As for Kian, he is doing spectacular. His language is really developing - the other day we were cuddling in bed and when I told him I had to get up he responded with "stay here." It was so sweet - needless to say, I got in a bit later to work than I was planning to that day. Kian is also really active - it seems like he went from crawling to running. He is constantly running around the house - typically chasing either Kerala or me.

All in all, we are doing really well and look forward to the fall. This weekend we are going pumpkin picking, which should be a blast.

First Day of School

2010-08-28T14:52:00.001-05:00

This past Wednesday was Kerala's first day of preschool. From what we could tell, it went really well. We did not have any separation issues (well, at least not on Kerala's part) - Kerala basically kissed us goodbye and then walked into the classroom. She hasn't talked a ton about school, but every so often she will say something which gives you a little bit of insight into her new world. For instance, she has talked about a favorite seat next to some bookshelves as well as playing with a little boy named William. She hasn't told us a ton about her activities, but she did say she painted last week. She also said that when the teacher wants them to be quiet she turns off the music and that they also have to get in a line for carpool time (the time we pick them up). Overall, it seems to be going well.

Kian is doing great. He is definitely a bit more adventerous than Kerala. He can now climb up the slide in our backyard whcih is no small feat. He also loves to get on top of the kids' play table and look at you with a very devlish grin. It's cute because he knows when he is being mischevious.

First Day of School Tomorrow

2010-08-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Kerala's first day of preschool. We are really excited for her - she is going to love it. This past weekend I had orientation at her school and was able to see the classroom set up for the students and it was wonderful. It was really neat to see the various stations that I know Kerala will absolutely love. Her teacher visted us yesterday and said there are a lot of really sweet girls in the class this year, so I think Kerala will make a ton of friends. Kerala's teacher seems to be really sweet and has a very calm presence, which you probably need in a room full of 3-5 year olds. It was also really nice for me to meet the other parents at orientation and I exchanged e-mail addresses with another mom who has a son Kian's age and a daughter Kerala's age - sounds perfect. We will post tomorrow with updates on how the first day went.

We are still unpacking and hope to be completely unpacked and situated sometime next month (after the painters finish painting up a couple of rooms). This has been a long process - I can really see why people never move. We are enjoying our home more and more and have really loved our backyard lately. The kids just love to run around. I bought a play golf set for the kids. So far they love the golf clubs - they like to take them and hit them against one of our trees to knock down leaves. Kerala also likes to use the club to crush cicadia shells, which she refers to as "taking care of the scadas."

Kian is doing great. I am not sure how he will adjust to Kerala being at school in the mornings. He loves his sister so I think he is going to miss her. This morning he kept climbing into her bed trying to wake her up by laying on top of her and saying her name. Kerala wasn't a huge fan of that method of waking up at first, but in a minute or two both kids were laughing. It is really sweet to see the bond they are developing.

Back from Vacation

2010-08-12T20:54:00.000-05:00

We had a fabulous time in Michigan last week. We went to Michigan with four other couples that we have known since college. Each couple has children now, so it was a great family vacation. All of the kids played very well together, although we did have some sharing issues. Kian and Kerala were particularly fond of their buddy Emmett and every time Kian would here Emmett cry he would scream out "Emmett!" It was really sweet. The weather was great most of the trip and we spent almost every morning at the beach. Both kids loved playing in the sand and Kian loved the water. He was actually a bit dangerous because he would attempt to walk straight into Lake Michigan and keep going. He also did not seem to mind it when big waves would splash him in the face and he even asked for "more waves" a couple of times. We definitely need to enroll him in swim classes since he likes the water so much. Kerala got to experience her first campfire and seemed to really enjoy the vacation once her buddies Val and Rollie arrived. Kerala has been asking about doing a sleep over with Val ever since. The girls were really adorable together - holding hands and just playing.

We are still in the process of getting settled into our home. They did some work while we were away, but work seems to always be ongoing. Right now we have quite a large hole in our living room ceiling so that our plumber can fix some horrible pipework that was causing some issues with one of our bathrooms. The plumbing work should be done tomorrow and then the hole will hopefully be patched up on Saturday. The nice thing about this whole process is that we found a really great handyman, so if anyone needs a recommendation please let us know.

We Have Moved

2010-07-30T21:55:00.000-05:00

We are finally in our new house. It seems like so long ago that we moved out of our condo. We stayed in our friend's townhouse for about a month while they were doing work on our house and then moved in on July 3rd, just in time for the Fourth of July parade that goes in front of our new house each year. We have had our share of new home issues - leaking bathroom, paint issues, sump pump malfunction (just in time for the "100 Year Storm") and a host of other mishaps. But overall we really like our home and our new neighborhood.

The kids are still transitioning to their new surroundings. They both seem to really love the backyard and their playroom (up until it was flooded by the huge rain storm). Kian also seems to like the fact that he has his own room. Kerala is really excited about preschool - she has visited her preschool a couple of times and talks about it a lot. I think she is going to do really well and will love being with a ton of kids everyday. She is still a social butterfly and has been really good about introducing herself to people. Unfortunately, she hasn't quite figured out age differences and the other day she went up to a group of 15 year olds at the park and said "Hi, I am Kerala. Would you like to come over for a playdate?"

This is a short update because I am int he process of packing - we head off for a week beach vacation tomorrow. The kids and I are leaving tomorrow and Troy will be following Tuesday/Wednesday. Everyone is very excited about the time away, particularly Kerala who cannot stop talking about the beach, going into the water and having ice cream with her buddy Todd.

Last Night in Condo

2010-05-22T22:56:00.000-05:00

I am taking a break right now from packing. The moveres arrive tomorrow at 8:00 am to move us to our temporary house for the next five weeks. We are excited, but also sad. This was the first home that we brought our children to, the last home we lived in when both of our fathers were still alive...it was just a really wonderful home and we are sad to say goodbye. If only it had two more extra rooms, a basement and a backyard.

The kids have been fabulous during the packing. Kerala has been very into helping us pack and attempting to climb on all of the packed boxes. Kerala did say that she was sad to be moving, but hopefully it will be short lived and she will transition smoothly into her new home and surroundings. Kian should be pretty pscyhed about his new house - he will have his own room which is at least 3x the size of his current room (aka as my closet).

As far as development goes, Kian continues to walk more and more every day. At times he will take up to 5 steps, however, he still prefers crawling. His language development is still amazing - today, he kpet saying "OK Sam" when we were making fun of Troy acting like his father. Kerala and Kian also have been getting along fantastically. Their favorite actiivty is to wrestle, which can get pretty intense. Kerala is doing great - I don't think I have posted that she is officially potty trained. We only do diapers at night (we tried one night without and that was a disaster). The only problem with being potty trained is that we had to unbabyproof her door at night so she could use the potty. The problem is that occassionally Troy and I will get a visit from her around 4:00am or so. The other morning she came to our room at 4:30 to tell me that I didn't tickle her before she went to bed and that she needed me to tickle her. This morning she came up to let me know that her nightlight was out of batteries.

We should be able to post from our temporary housing, but in case we can't - we'll write with pictures shortly after we get into our new home.

A long long past due update....

2010-05-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

For the past two months we have been crazy busy with house-related stuff. We bought a new home, which we close on in a little over a week. Between packing, working, picking out (fighting over) paint colors, etc...we have been really busy. The kids have been great through it all - Kerala has generally been pretty psyched about the new house. She has requested that her room be a space theme with a castle and an elevator. We are accommodating hte space theme request. While we close in a little over a week, we won't be moving in until the end of June while some work is being done at the house. We are very fortunate in that a friend of ours has a vacant house in the city that we will be using for the next month and a half. The only downside is that we basically have to move twice. If all goes well, we will be in the house in July. That will give us plenty of time to adjust before Kerala starts preschool.

The kids are doing great - Kian has been taking some steps, not a ton. Today he walked from me to our friend Alba, twice! The funny thing is that he only seems to be taking steps at Kerala's art class. Even though he isn't walking, he is talking like crazy. At this point, I would say he has between 20 to 30 words. He is really picking up verbally and it's just amazing. I think it's because he hears Kerala chattering away non stop. Today was pretty funny because Kerala was getting pretty bossy with him and Kian responded in a pretty bossy garble of words.

As I mentioned, Kerala is pretty psyched about the new house. She has been talking about preschool a lot and I think she is ready for it. She is very into having friends and will go up to any kid at the park and introduce herself and ask them what their name is, so I think preschool will be a great environment for her. We are still figuring out which preschool she will be attending, but for now it looks like we are going to send her to a Spanish immersion preschool. It's a block away from our new home, so it is in an ideal location.

Birthday Update

2010-03-31T23:51:00.000-05:00

After much planning, we had the kids' birthday party at Kerala's art studio. The party was an art themed party with the kids doing various art projects. There was a Pablo Picasso table (homemade scultping clay - cinammon and apple sauce mixed together), Jerry Garcia table (tie-dye t-shirts), Georgia O'Keefe table (flowers made out of coffee filters), Jackson Pollack table (splatter painting on canvas) and a Monet Table (water colors). Everyone seemed to have a great time and the kids were able to take home some fabulous handmade goodies. The only negative of the party was the fact that Kerala and Kian were both coming down with a stomach bug. The next week was horrendous at our house with everyone getting sick, which included our nanny and my sister Kim who flew in from AZ for the parties. Kerala and Kian made it through the party but you could defintiely tell they were pretty low energy.

With the kids' birthday came their one and three-year dr's appts. Overall the kids are doing really well. The only area of concern that came out of the visit was the fact that I have two very skinny kids. The doctor wasn't overly concerned, especially since they were both getting over a stomach bug, but we do have to go in for a weight check in a few weeks to make sure the kids get back on track. The doctor also gave us some tips on potty training which we are still implementing.

As far as a general update for Kian, he is doing fabulous. He is still not walking, but he is going crazy verbally. His favorite phrase is "thank you" and he says it non stop. It's pretty cute because he will give you something and then say thank you. He also will waive when you say "adios" and say something that sounds somewhat like "adios." I need to count how many words he has, but it sure does seem like a lot at this point.

Kerala is doing great. We have pulled out her bike wit the warmer weather and she is pedaling like crazy. It's actually great to be able to walk to the park with her pedaling on her bike. It's definitely a slow walk, but I am quite impressed that she can make it the whole way there and back.

And for the family news...we sold our condo (yay!). We are now starting to look for a house and hopefully will find something before we close on our condo at the end of May.

Family Vacation

2010-03-22T22:48:00.002-05:00

We are in Vail and having a blast. Kerala had her first ski lesson and Troy and I couldn't have been prouder. The class was a solo class - so her first experience without us or her nanny. Yesterday, we picked up her ski boots, helmet and goggles - all of which she was super pscyhed about. We talked to her about the class last night and how she would be in the class with other kids and a teacher. She seemed pretty pscyhed about it, but we weren't sure how she would do when we actually had to say good bye to her. Dropping her off at the class was a bit of a mad house - there were a ton of kids there, some of which were screaming incredibly loudly about not wanting to do the class. We were a bit concerned because as we were standing in line to drop Kerala off a little girl was screaming and kicking behind us. Kerala held my hand a bit tighter than normal, but when it came time for her to go - she walked through the classroom door and didn't even look back at us. We were able to check her out during the class and she was having a blast. She kept going up the magic carpet and down a little hill (with much assistance). At one point, she also kept trying to hold a little boy's hand, but he wasn't really intersted. She did seem to make a friend and from the sidelines we could hear her and her little friend talking about how they were going to ski on the big mountain. We originally signed Kerala up for a half day, but when we went to pick her up she said she wanted to stay for the full day. At the end of the day, we picked up a very tired but very happy little girl.

While Kerala was at ski class, Kian tried out the ski resort's day care. I was pretty hesitant about putting him in it, but we heard great things about it and I was able to check it out yesterday before enrolling him in the class. Kian apparently fell in love with one of the staff people and she told us that he was definitely her favorite kid during the day. They said he had a blast and got pretty attached to some of the other little ones.

With Kerala in ski class and Kian in the resort day care, Troy and I were able to enjoy a day on the slopes with Kim and Kyle. We were having a blast until a lady collided with me pretty badly. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet so I am fine, but the lady ended up hurting her head which was pretty scary. After the collision we ended the day doing some pretty easy terrain.

On our trip, Kian has developed a few new words. The house we are staying at has a stuffed moose above the fire place, so he has been pointing to it and saying something that kind of sounds like moose. He also said book and Troy has finally acknowledged that Kian has been saying "Kerala."

The Big One and Almost Three Party

2010-03-01T23:24:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday was Kian's one year birthday. We celebrated it by having a party down at Troy's mom's house. We also combined it with Kerala's three year party. In the past, we have held two parties on one day - the am party was for family/friends and the afternoon party was for friends with little ones Kerala's age. This year we decided to do the family/friends party on Kian's birthday and the crazy kids party closer to Kerala's birthday. I like this format better because the two parties on one day was absolutely exhausting and left little time for us to enjoy and take in the special day.

We had a great time down at Troy's mom's house. Kerala and Kian were pretty psyched about the party and getting to spend time with the gang from down state. I am so happy that Kian is over all of his illnesses from February - he was in a fabulous mood at the party. Since the party, Kerala has been talking about her friends, Bonnie, Sandee and Jeff which has been pretty cute. Kian was psyched about the cake and Kerala was willing to help Kian with his smash cake. The kids were also pretty psyched about Grandma Smith's doggie Harley, who is really gentle and sweet with the kids. The only negative was that Kian had a pretty rough time sleeping. Kerala, on the other hand, did fabulous sleeping - she went to sleep on her own and on the way home on Sunday she told us she was going to sleep and shut her eyes and slept the entire ride home. Overall, we had a great trip - thanks Grandma Smith for the lovely party.

As far as milestones, Kian stood quite a few times by himself today. Also, we introduced milk to him yesterday. I am psyched about the milk introduction because I'll start reducing the number of pumping sessions I have at work. Kerala is doing really well - she has been super into the alphabet and knows the sounds for most letters and has been sounding out some words with Troy. She loves books, so I think we will have an avid reader with her. Kian on the other hand is still developing his love for books - a lot of times he still wants to chew the book.

A Rough Month for the K Man

2010-02-24T21:50:00.000-06:00

Kian has had quite a month or so. At the end of last month/beginning of this month, he came down with a terrible stomach bug. He finally got over that bug and then got hit with the flu, an ear infection, and three new teeth all in the same week. We defintely had a pretty rough patch here. Kian is generally the happiest little guy and he was just so miserable the past week. He did not want to have anything to do with food which resulted in him losing quite a bit of weight. Fortunatley, he seems to have recovered and has his appetite back, so hopefully he will regain everything he lost before his one year appointment. We will definitely try to stuff him with some birthday cake to beef him up.

As far as positive news, Kian is babbling away and today he was saying "no no" and consistently will say "Da" for Troy. I am also convinced that he said "Kerala" but no one (other than Kerala) beleives me. He will also shake his head sideways for "no" and move his body back and forth for saying "yes." He is getting really fast at climbing stairs and stood up in our bed all on his own the other morning. For awhile now, he has been catching a ball if you throw it to him pretty slowly. I am still amazed that he has figured out that he has to close his hands to catch the ball.

Kerala is doing great - she is getting really excited for her birthday party. The other day she asked me if her best friends, Griffina and Ella, will be there. She does not quite get the fact that Kian has begun to get birthday presents and that she can't open them. Also, everything that Kian gets she tells us that it really belongs to her because "Kian actually has enough." I am shocked at the things Kerala says. For instance, the other day Troy asked her if she would like a little bit of cookie for dessert. Her response was "No Daddy, I would like a lot of cookie."

I hope to have another post on Sunday with pictures from the kids' birthday party down at Grandma Sue's.

An Update...Finally

2010-02-09T20:39:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know it has been a while and I do apologize for not blogging more frequently. With the holidays and it being my busy season at work, blogging has not been a priority.

The family is doing really well. We had a great Christmas and New Year's, although it will be known as the year of the pink eye. Kerala developed pink eye right in the middle of Christmas dinner and it made it's way through the whole family the following week while we were on vacation with about 20 other people in the same house. Fortunately, we were able to quarantine the infected family members and no one else got sick. It was not a pleasant experience however. The kids did really well on Christmas and Kerala got the gift she asked for from Santa - a big thing of chocolate. I think she was more excited about hte chocolate than any of the other gifts she received.

We have had ton of excitment here since the holidays. My friend Tania and her husband Charu were visiting from Ethiopia. Kerala fell in love with Tania and keeps talking about her and whether Tania and Charu will go to the park with us. When I explain that Tania lives in Ethiopia, Kerala says that she would like to go there. Kerala has also insisted that Tania is her friend and not mine. Kerala also went to her first musical - Curious George Live. I think she was a little freaked out about it at first, especially after Troy set her down in the stadium chair and it folded up on her because she is such a peanut.

Kian is doing great. He has been saying Mama and Dada indiscriminately for awhile and this past week or so he seems to be making the connection that we are mommy and daddy. He was also waving bye bye to Troy yesterday and about 2 minutes after Troy left the house he said "Bye Bye." He hasn't repeated it since, but we will count it as a word. He is still crusing like crazy and has finally started to get interested in books. He will now sit through a couple of stories which is good since I was a bit worried about his language development since he didn't seem interested in books.

Other than that, we are doing great. I will post more often this month especially since the K-man is turning the big one this month! I can't believe it.

Busy December

2009-12-14T22:32:00.000-06:00

Just like everyone else, we have had quite a busy December. We are really looking forward to Christmas this year - it's the first year that Kerala seems to really get it. She has been into decorating the house, wrapping presents, making presents and walking around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. Last night, Kerala and I walked around a few blocks looking at all the lights and had such a blast. Everytime she would see a new house with lights on it, she would run up and scream "Look Mommy!" It was really fun. She keeps asking for Santa to bring chocolate which is just really sweet - occasionally she will also say that she wants a digital camara like her friend Griffin, but for the most part she just has her heart set on chocolate. Speaking of Griffin, Kerala went up to her buddy today at art class and said "Griffin, I want a hug." Griffin wasn't too psyched about giving her a hug, which is surprising since at the beginning of the class he told Ms. Carrie that Kerala was his wife.

Kian is doing really well. We had his nine month visit last week. He did not do well with shots, it took him much longer to calm down then in past visits. He is still pretty tall, but is thinning out a bit. The doctor said it was normal since he is very active and his milk intake has started to decrease with the increase in solids. The doctor was very impressed with his physical and verbal development - he kept yapping at the doctor the whole visit. Kian is still working out cruising and has even stood a couple of times by himself. He also seems to have taken a turn with solids - the last two days he has devoured grilled cheese pieces. Right now, he is on soy cheese since he seems to have a slight sensitivty to dairy products, but the doctor said to try moving him to cow dairy products in another month or so. He has been a bit fussier than normal because he has a cold - but when I say fussier than normal he is still generally a pretty happy little guy.

Kerala and Kian - BFF

2009-11-30T21:49:00.000-06:00

Kerala has been really sweet with Kian lately. Last week at art class she was suppose to paint things that made her happy and all she wanted to paint was Kian and music. Also, as Kerala and I were walking to a holiday market in our neighborhood this past weekend, she told me that she wanted to buy Kian something for Christmas at the market. It was really cute - she ended up picking out a somewhat expensive Mario Brothers ornament which I ended up persuading her not to get. Finally, she kept giving Kian little kisses on his head and telling him everything would be okay while I was comforting him after a fall this weekend. It's so sweet to see how nurturing she is with him.

Kian is doing really well. He is starting to move along with finger food. So far we have tried the Gerber puffs, shredded apples and cheerios. It's pretty cute because he will start to kick his legs when he sees the finger foods. He is also doing really well with cruising on furniture and will even move from one peice of furniture to another so long as they are pretty close to each other. Troy and I need to start video taping him - we were lucky enough to catch the night Kerala first stood up by herself on video, so we are hoping to do that again with Kian. He is still such a happy little guy and always laughs and smiles - it's just unbelievable how mellow he is.

Happy Belated Halloween

2009-11-18T21:31:00.000-06:00

I have been meaning to post Halloween pictures for the past two weeks, but I have been busy at work. So a belated Halloween update. Kerala was a ghost (thanks Grandma Perry for the costume) and Kian was a pumpkin. We tried getting Kian to wear the mouse costume that Kerala wore the last two years, but he wanted nothing to do with it. The week leading up to Halloween was full of Halloween parties. The Sunday before, we had a pumpkin carving party at Kerala's art studio. Kerala painted a pumpkin and did a ton of other Halloween crafts. Kerala and Kian wore their Halloween costumes to Spanish and music class that week and had a little Halloween party at our house with a couple kids that they regularly play with. We started off Halloween with ballet class - most of the kids wore there costumes which was really cute and then we made our way down to Wicker Park for a Halloween festival and trick or treating with Kerala's buddy Griffin. Kerala had a lot of fun at the festival but did have a major freak out because of the band that was playing there - it was just too noisy for her. After we came back for lunch and naps, we headed out to visit my mom and then to our friends' annual Halloween Party. Kerala did really well with trick or treating. Kian was not a fan, but I think it was just too cold for him. The only downside to the day was that Kerala was way too amped up for sleeping.

Since our last post, Kerala has been really into doing puzzles and learning her letters. She does a couple of puzzles each day and is getting to the point where she does them without our assistance. One of the puzzles is an alphabet train and it's been a great way to help Kerala learn her letters. Also, we have made great progress on potty training - today was our first day with no accidents. I am so excited about the prospect of only one in diapers.

Kian has been pulling up on everything and has learned how to climb up the stairs this past week (scary)! He is progressing okay with his solids - he doesn't seem to be moving as quickly as Kerala in this area and he still will not take a bottle or sippy cup. Also, whenever he sees the camara he busts out in a smile which is really cute.

First Dentist Appointment and My Tough Guy

2009-10-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

Kerala had her first dentist appointment this past week. It went pretty well - Kerala has no signs of any tooth decay which is great, but the appointment was a bit rough. The pediatric dentist was wonderful. The dentist demonstrated exactly what she would do to Kerala on a stuffed bear, Kerala was able to sit in my lap for the exam and the dentist was able to do the whole exam and teeth cleaning while singing "Wheels on the Bus." Kerala was just not happy and screamed during the exam - understandable since I am sure it was scary for her. She perked up as soon as we left and headed off to art class. This past week was probably the coolest class yet. Kerala and her buddy Griffin painted canvas and then got to splatter paint on the canvas. They were basically trying to replicate the work of Jackson Pollock. Kerala had a blast and I can't wait to pick up her final work product this week. I can't say it enough, her art class is by far the best kids' class we have been to (and we have been to a lot). She just lights up when she talks about it and as soon as we walk into the studio.

I know I have written over and over about how easy Kian is as a baby - well this past week he amazed us all by not even crying during his flu shot. He just looked down at where the nurse stuck him with the needle and went on with his business. We also had the nurse do a weight check on Kian since I have been a bit concerned about his milk intake. Good news is the boy has gained over a pound this past month. He is still progressing with his pulling up - although he pulls up a lot in the bath which is not an ideal place for him to practice. He also kept trying to "swim" in the bath. He would lay on his belly and just flap his arms and legs - he was having a blast.

Updates

2009-10-14T23:23:00.000-05:00

I know it's been awhile since we have blogged, but we have had a lot going on. I went back to work about two weeks ago so you can expect fewer blogs from us compared to when I was on leave. So far we are all adjusting pretty well to me being back at work. I am home on Mondays with the kids which has been wonderful and I have been getting home fairly early the other days of the week. Kerala loves our new nanny, Emily, and the change for her has been almost seemless. For Kian, he has had a bit of a hard time because he will not take a bottle. Emily has been doing a great job with spoon feeding him his milk or using a dropper so he gets plenty of milk during the day, just not in a traditional way. Any suggestions on bottles/sippies would be appreciated.

This past weekend we discovered that Kian can do his first "trick." When you sing the hello song from his music class he will move his arms up and down like we do in class. Although it is a pretty simple act, it's pretty amazing because you see that he just gets it. It's so cool. We did experiment and he seems to only do the arm motions with the hello song. He also is an official crawler and has been pulling up on things. We have to be pretty careful because he is very strong and he can tip over his leap frog table by pushing on it.

Kerala is doing really well. As I mentioned, she really likes our new nanny so she has been pretty happy. Kerala is still doing a lot of imaginary play - her newest thing is to pretend like she is "Miss Carrie" (her art teacher) and pretend that she is giving us snack at art class (goldfish/pretzels and raisin juice). She will play Miss Carrie for an hour straight and just has a blast. She also has been pretending to cut my hair with her play dough scissors. I must say that it is actually quite nice having her do my hair since it's like a scalp massage - at least until she gets the "scissors" stuck in my hair, then it's a bit painful. Also, she has been really cute with Kian - last night she insisted on reading him his bedtime stories which was adorable. She was reading him this book about puppies and she kept telling him about the pictures and kind of asking him questions the way we ask her questions about books that we read together - it was too cute.

My maternity leave ended on a great note - Troy took off the last day of my leave and we had a fabulous day at the kids' music class, playing at the park and then having JT and the boys over for dinner.

Organic Matter

2009-09-25T23:09:00.000-05:00

Cheers to good friends and organic matter! Kerala, Kian and I were finishing up dinner on Wednesday when Kerala told me that she had an orange peel up her nose. I thought she was being silly and I started to laugh it off, but she insisted that she had an orange peel up her nose. She loves to peel oranges and is constantly smelling the peel. Anyway, I looked up her nose and what would you know - she had an orange peel lodged up there. I calmly called Troy at work and told him the situation and he suggested having the neighbors come up and hold her down while I tried to get it out with tweezers. We don't know our neighbors super well so I called Tamra. Being the good friend that she is, Tamra was over in 10 minutes flat. We both took turns trying to hold her down and perform the operation but we were not having any luck. Fortunately for us, Kerala's doctor's office has fabulous hours and were able to get us in in 20 minutes. When we walked into the office, the receptionist greeted us by saying "You must be the orange peel patient." Despite everyone's efforts (three of us holding her down and one person performing the procedure) we were unable to get the peel out - at this point I am starting to freak out a bit. The doctor decided that because Kerala did not seem to be in any discomfort (although she was getting a constant whiff of citrus) and we were dealing with organic matter to just keep an eye on it and squeeze nasal spray up her other nostril over the next couple of days - basically, we would either force it out or it would start to shrink and fall out itself. As Tamra pointed out, thank goodness we were dealing with an orange and not a piece of meat which would take a while to begin to dissolve. Good news is that the orange peel came out this morning. Hopefully we won't have any more episodes like this - although the doctor did say this was somewhat common for this age and warned me that if she put something up there once there is a good chance that she will do it again.

Other than the orange peel, we have been having a pretty good week. Kerala really enjoyed the disco last week and we were honored by going with Henry who won the dance contest for his age group with some pretty cool moves. Kian is starting to crawl on all fours - he still prefers the inchworm crawl but it seems likeeach day he is crawling more and more. He is also getting much better at his solids.

6 month/2.5 yr Updates

2009-09-16T20:47:00.000-05:00

We had Kerala's and Kian's 2.5 year and 6 month doctors appointments yesterday. Both kids are doing really well. Kian was such a good little guy the entire appointment and a lot of times when the doctor was checking him out he was just laughing and having a good time. I scheduled their appointments at the same time and Kerala asked that Kian go first, which really helped Kerala since she saw that Kian was not being hurt by the doctor so her appointment was a lot smoother than normal. As for stats, Kian is my big boy and Kerala my tiny girl. Kian is just under 18 lbs and is still 90% for height and his head circumference is just one inch smaller than Kerala's. Kerala is petite but the doctor isn't worried since she is doing great developmentally. Overall, a fabulous appointment.

We have enrolled Kerala in an art class (painting 101) and I must say this is the best class we have ever done. Kerala was so engaged the entire class and was just really excited about it (she has actually been talking about hte class the last two days). For our first class, she did a color wheel and learned all about mixing colors. I am really happy this class is on Mondays since that is my day off when I return to work next month.

As for Kian, he is still inch worming along. He still gets on all fours and rocks, but his mode of transportation for now is the inchworm. He is getting quite good at moving from a tummy position to sitting up and has been babbling up a storm. We have also increased his solid consumption so he has two solid meals a day. Today he gobbled up all of his rice cereal and pears. I think we may start him on a veggie tomorrow.

I am excited about this coming weekend - we are going to a disco with the kids. A local concert hall is having a kids' disco which should be a lot of fun.

Swinging at the Park

2009-09-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

Kerala has two favorite activities at the park - swinging on her tummy on the big kid swings and "pushing Silas in the swing." I put pushing Silas in quotes because she imagines that she is pushing her friend Silas (I am pretty sure she has never actually pushed Silas in the swing although they have swung next to each other since they were babies). It's pretty cute how she will pretend to lift Silas into the swing and take him out. Kian is becoming fonder of the swings and seems to really like it when Kerala pushes him although we do have to remind her that Kian is too little for under dogs and not to push him too high.

Lately our conversations with Kerala have involved some pretty serious subject matter. We have been talking about how I am going back to work in a month and she has been asking some really good questions about it. The other day we were on a walk and she was asking if Emily, our new nanny, will take her to the park and I told her she would and then she asked if I would see daddy at work. I told her that daddy and I didn't work at the same place but that we would see each other for lunch sometime. She then asked if she could come to lunch with us. You can tell that she has been thinking about me working since she will bring it up at various times and ask questions about it. We have also been discussing her grandpas which was a topic I wasn't really prepared to discuss but she started to ask about where my daddy was. I tried explaining to her the best that I could that he was no longer with us. I know I didn't do the best job explaining, but for now she thinks her grandfathers are in the sky and was saying "cheese" to them on our way home from our friends' house.

Kian is doing really well. He has moved from a tummy position to a sitting up position a few times and is getting quicker with is inch worm crawling. He is also doing pretty well with solids. We started him on rice cereal which he seemed to do pretty well with and then moved him onto bananas (did not like) and apples (seems to tolerate slightly better than apples). I am also happy to report that I finally have gotten him on a nap schedule where he takes his naps at home. Right now he will take an am nap around 9:00 at home and wake up around 9:45 or so. Once he is up we are out the door doing some morning activity. He then goes down right after Kerala finishes lunch and will generally sleep 1.5 - 2 hours. If he takes a shorter afternoon nap then he will typically nap again late afternoon but overall it seems like he is moving to two naps a day. His bedtime has also been pretty smooth - he is usually in bed by 7:15.

Happy 6 Month B-Day

2009-08-27T21:39:00.000-05:00

Kian turned 6 months today. He is doing really well. We celebrated his birthday with a trip to the Children's Museum with Kerala and three other little ones - one of them Kian's age and the other two kids are from Kerala's Spanish class. Kian really liked the crawling only areas and was super psyched to see himself in the mirror. It was pretty difficult managing him at Kerala in those areas though because Kerala could not understand why she couldn't go and play with Kian. Kian is getting faster with his inchworm crawling and is doing really well with sitting up. We are going to start him on solids this weekend, so we will see how that goes. I think he is going to pretty psyched since he is always eyeing what we are eating.

Kerala is doing pretty well. I say pretty well because we have been dealing with some major temper tantrums lately. The worst one was Sunday when she had a meltdown at the zoo because I made her hold my hand in the parking lot of the zoo. We have had similar meltdowns over the last couple of days - another one for holding hands in the parking lot, being upset over time outs for hitting Kian, etc. I have talked to other mother's of 2 1/2 year olds and, forunately, I am not the only one going through this. On a really positive note, Kerala used her potty five times yesterday. Today we had some set backs and she used it only once, but that's okay. We are making progress with potty training and I couldn't be happier with how she has been doing.

As far as some cute Kerala stories, every morning when she sees Kian she will say "Hi Kian. How are you? I am good, I am fine." If you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she responds with "I want to be a firefighter." Also, if you ask her what she is saving her money for she will say "I am saving for college."

First Teeth

2009-08-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

We are excited to report that Kian's bottom two teeth are popping through his gums. I had no idea that he was teething since he really hasn't been fussy. In fact, the only way that I discovered it was when I was looking at him while he was laughing and saw two white spots on his gums. Also, Kian has started to inch worm crawl. He basically will propel himself forward to get things that he wants. He still gets up on all fours a lot, but he hasn't made much progress with figuring out how to move everything together for a traditional crawl. He is still a happy little guy and will laugh at anything.

Kerala is doing really well. Every day I am amazed by something new she has learned. I am proud to report that she has learned her phone number. She has also been really into reciting stuff from her spanish class. She will line up her animals and sing "como te llamas?" like we do in class and will respond by saying "me llamo duckie" etc. It's pretty cute. She is getting to have quite the imagination as well. Tonight, she was driving us on a train to Paris to see Madeline and then to New York City to see Ellen. At both places, she pretended like we were eating a chocolate dinner. She is such a funny little person.

Troy and I have been really busy the past few weeks with putting our condo on the market. We have finally outgrown our condo and need to move to a house. I am going to be really sad when we move out. We are checking out houses this weekend and hopefully the process of selling this place and purchasing a new home will be smooth. It is pretty hard keeping this place picked up with two little ones and then being out of the house when people come to see it. We are generally out and about each day, but it seems like the times that are most convenient for the prospective buyers are the times that we would normally be home for naps/meals.

Siblings

2009-08-06T22:22:00.000-05:00

Kerala has been really psyched about sitting up with Kian lately. Kian is getting to the point where he can sit up by himself for short stretches of time and for a very long time with a bit of assistance. Yesterday, Kerala really wanted to hold him in her lap but seemed to be a bit surprised about how big he has gotten. It's crazy that he looks almost as big as her and he is only 5 months old. The two of them wear the same size disposable diapers and he is one size down in cloth diapers.

Kian is doing really well developmentally. Over the last couple of weeks he has been super happy about being on his hands and knees and over the last week or so he has started to rock back on forth on his hands and knees so I don't think crawling is too far off. He still doesn't seem to have the strength or coordination to start crawling but you can tell he is eyeing objects and trying to figure out how to get to them. We really need to watch out if an object is in his radius because he is quite good at scooting in circles and inching a bit to get to things. Kian has also been laughing like crazy lately - if you look at him and exclaim "Hey, look at you!" he will laugh so hard - it's the kind of laugh where you expect him to start crying or wet his pants.

Kerala is also doing really well. She has been pretty excited about the big girl pool and is getting more and more adventurous. Also, we got Kerala her first doll house and she loves it. It's pretty cute when she plays with it because she uses it more as a garage for her trains and cars and kind of ignores the people and furniture. Although, she does make the daddy of the house go to work every day.

Tomorrow we are off to have a play date at the pool with our friends Jonah and Kate and possibly Ella and Natalia.

A Trip to the Beach

2009-07-28T14:59:00.000-05:00

Kerala and Kian had their first trip to the beach this past weekend. Unfortunatley, I did not take any pictures while we were on the actual beach since we had our hands full with the two little ones. Instead, you get to take a look at a photo of Kian in his favorite position and Kerala and Daddy at the pool. We had a great trip and really enjoyed getting away. It was particularly wonderful since we got to spend quality time with Troy who has been working a ton in July.

The kids did pretty well on the actual beach. Kerala spent most of the time digging in the sand looking for rocks and racing up and down the beach with her buddy Sean. She also liked laying down and letting the waves hit her legs. Kian spent most of his time in the sun tent that Brandy lent us. Unfortuantely, he wasn't too psyched about it so we ended up heading back to the house we rented earlier than I had anticipated.

On the trip, Kerala also had her first ice cream cone. It was awesome because we were walking down the street and Kerala kept going up to random people telling them to look at her ice cream cone. She looked pretty adorable eating the cone that was about half her body size.

The only difficult part of the trip was sleeping. We were all in the same room, so trying to get both kids to sleep and not wake each other up was a bit of a challenge. Sleeping definitely got better as the weekend progressed - our first night Kerala kept slamming the bathroom door waking up Kian and then telling me she thought he might be crying. All in all it was a successful trip and we are hoping to go back next summer.

We are still making progress with potty training. Last night Kerala kept delaying going to bed by going to the potty. It's a difficult balance because we know it's a delay tactic but at the same time she will sit on the potty and go. It's pretty cute when she goes potty because if you are standing in the door way ready to help her she will tell you to "leave my alone" instead of "leave me alone."

A Case of Pink Eye

2009-07-15T22:18:00.001-05:00

We have our first case of the pink eye at the Smerry household. Kerala's left eye started to ooze this morning (right in the middle of Spanish class). We talked to the doctor and now we are on antibiotic drops. Unfortunately for Kerala her eye has gotten worse as the day progressed and is now really swollen and puffy. Fortunately, it is suppose to clear up pretty soon with the drops. Pink eye is not pleasant and I hope we didn't pass it on to any of the kids in her Spanish class. So far Troy, Kian and I are all okay (knock on wood).

On a positive note, we are making great progress toward potty training. I was talking to a friend last week about how it seemed like potty training would be a long way off, but since then Kerala has been really psyched to wear underwear and she has gone in the potty at least once a day since last Thursday. All very exciting. She was pretty cute today after she pooped in the toilet she started to dance and sing her potty song which goes something like this...

Kerala goes poo poo in the potty
Kerala goes pee pee in the potty
And when she is done with her fun,
she wipes her bum, washes her hands, and does the potty dance, dooh dah dooh dooh.

I can't really do it justice, but it is pretty darn cute when Kerala and her daddy sing the potty song. The other positive note is that Kerala is doing great in the pool this summer. She consistently wants to go in the big girl pool and is doing really well kicking and moving her arms. She also loves to hang on the side of the pool and practice floating.

Kian is doing really well. We have been practicing sitting up with him and he seems to be getting stronger each day. He was doing a great job sitting up in the bath tub today and making a big mess splashing. He is still the happiest little guy and seems to really enjoy being outside every day. He has been doing a ton of tummy time at the park when we are having picnics with our friends. Also, this past week he had his first swing in the baby swing at the park. He seemed to love it, especially when Kerala was pushing him. He just lit up every time he got close to her. The only trouble was that Kerala wanted to push him a bit higher than I was comfortable with.

I don't know what we have in store for tomorrow. Usually, we head off to music class but Kerala will still be contagious until about 5:00pm tomorrow night so music class is out.

Kian's 4 Month Check Up

2009-07-01T23:22:00.000-05:00

We had Kian's 4 month check up today and things went pretty well. He is still growing very well and Troy is very proud that he is 90% for height. His weight growth slowed a bit, but the doctor said that was normal and was very pleased with his weight. She was also very impressed with all of the milestones he has reached and kept commenting on his strength. The only downside to the appointment is that Kian is starting to get a bit of a flat spot on the right side of his head. The doctor said that she was not too concerned with it and there was definitely no need for a helmet, but she did suggest making sure he slept on his left side and to do some exercises. Overall though a very good appointment.

As for Kerala, she has actually been sick the last two days. She went down for a nap at 1:15 yesterday which was unusually early. When she woke up she was in really good spirits and asked if we could go to the park with Henry and Silas. So we met Henry and Silas at the park and had arranged for them to come over for dinner. On the way home from the park Kerala started to get really hot. When we got home she just wanted to be held and seemed to be pretty lethargic. I took her temperature and it was 100.3. As soon as we realized she had a fever, Tamra packed up the boys and at that point Kerala puked all over the place. Unfortunately, Kian started to make a beeline for the puke while I was comforting Kerala. He didn't get near it but of all times to show off his scooting ability. We had a low key day in the house - she was actually pretty psyched because she got to watch a ton of Curious George and drink Gatorade.

A couple of somewhat sad milestones with Kerala's language development. She no longer says "wa wa" for water or "balloonee" for balloon. Our little baby is growing up and while it is so exciting to see her progressing so well, it is also kind of sad because she is growing up so quickly. One funny note with her language development is that she is continuing to have little conversations with us. The one that stands out from tonight is while we were eating dinner Kerala informed me that our friend JT made the soup we were eating. I asked why she thought JT made it and she said because it was yummy. I don't know if I should be happy that she thinks my cooking tastes like JT's or sad that she thinks I can't cook and the only time we get yummy food is when JT makes it.

Finally, a lady at the park this past weekend told me that Troy should receive the father of the year award. She was sitting next to him while he was watching Kian and she was super impressed with how much he interacted with Kian. It was very sweet of her to comment on him. Troy is a great dad and I am very lucky to have him as a partner in raising our kids.

A Perfect Day

2009-06-22T21:34:00.000-05:00

Today was such a wonderful day with the kids. It started with a trip to Brookfield Zoo with our friend Tabitha and her little ones. The zoo was great, although I think the kids enjoyed the park at the zoo more than the animals. After the zoo, Kian and I headed off to a mommy and baby yoga class (which was suprisingly intense) and Kerala headed home with our summer nanny, Molly. After yoga, we had a playdate/dinner with Chrissy and Sean. The kids had a fabulous time at a local park followed by a dinner of hot dogs and shrimp on our deck. All in all, it was an absolutely perfect day. The only tears from my little ones were from a couple of skinned knees at the zoo. Other than that Kian and Kerala were in the best of spirits the whole day. Finally, we have had some beautiful weather and we are definitely taking advantage of it. Tomorrow we have music class with Kerala's buddy Ella which we will follow up with lunch out with the kids at a local cafe. I am loving this maternity leave.

We had a great father's day and birthday for Troy this past weekend. We hosted a little picnic at a local park to celebrate Troy's b-day. Kerala had a ton of fun playing with her friends, Kian was pretty chill the entire time and loved being held by Chrissy.

The kids are doing really well. Kerala has been pretty funny lately before she goes to bed. She will ask that you lay in her bed with her and she just talks away. Every night she asks what do whales say and I will usually respond by saying "I don't know, what do you think whales say?" and she will say "I think they say hello." It's pretty funny. It's hard to believe that we are having little conversations with her since it seems like just yesterday we were in awe with the fact that she was putting two words together. Kian is still as mellow as ever. Today, he kept cracking up which was super cute. He definitley laughs a lot more than Kerala did at this age. With Kerala she would laugh at something but than it was hard to get her to laugh at the same thing twice while Kian will just sit there and laugh for no apparent reason.

Kian's 1st Trip to the Country...Kerala's 2nd Trip to ER...

2009-06-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

The family headed down for Kian's first trip to visit Grandma Smith. We had a great time although sleeping was a bit of a challenge. We tried to put a pallet of blankets on the floor for Kerala, but she was all over the place (see photos). At about 2:00 am she wanted in bed with us - it was a bit crowded so we didn't get a ton of sleep at night. In fact, I kept getting kicked in the head by Kerala. Fortunately, Troy's mom watched both of the kids in the am so Troy and I got to sleep in until 10:00am. That's the latest we have slept in since Kerala was born and it was bliss. We were pretty tired when we got back home and were looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. Troy and I had just put both kids to sleep and were sitting down on the sofa when we heard a huge crash from Kerala's room. We ran in and she was standing in her closet crying. When we turned on the light she couldn't open her eyes, so needless to say we were freaking out. We asked her what happened and apparently she was swinging on a hanger in her closet and fell. While she did calm down in about 10 minutes she still wouldn't open her eyes so we rushed her to the ER. They found two scratches on her pupil and gave us some antibotics to apply at home. Kerala seemed almost back to normal at the hospital and was enjoying her 9:30pm popsicle treat at the ER. While Children's Memorail did give us fabulous service, they prescribed an ointment that we were suppose to rub over Kerala's injured pupil. We tried to apply it once and it was horrible, so we headed to Kerala's pediatrician the next day and got some drops to use instead. Kerala seems to have made a full recovery. It was pretty scary and I was balling on the way to the hospital worried about my baby's eyes. Very sad.

On a happier note, we had a fabulous past weekend. We enjoyed having Grandma Perry, Uncle Ralph and Aunt Julie over Friday afternoon, friends over Friday night and two birthday parties. Kerala was pscyhed about all of the opportunities to eat cake. Kerala seemed to have a good time at the parties although she did get a little freaked out about the live music at her friend Jonah's party. It was sad because our friend had learned to play Kerala's favorite song on the guitar but Kerala wanted none of it. When Sean started to play the guitar for her she asked to go home. Thanks anyway Sean! Kian was great at all of the events. He did get a bit fussy when we went out for Indian food on Saturday night. Unforutnately, it seemed like everytime he would calm down the servers would clear plates next to our table and make a huge noise.

Kian is doing great. He now consistently rolls from back to belly - in fact, he really won't stay on his back anymore. He is really enjoying his mommy and baby class. He gets a huge kick out of it and it completely wears him out. It's really cute to see him just light up when we do the various songs and dances. I just can't say it enough - he is just the sweetest little guy.

A Fabulous Vacation

2009-06-04T20:52:00.000-05:00

Our first trip together was a great success. The plane ride going to Arizona was a bit rough. Kian slept (as usual) and Troy and I felt like we were playing defense the entire time with Kerala. She generally did okay, but there were a few points where she got pretty fussy and we did get a couple of not so nice stares from the couple in front of us. While we were in AZ we decided to invest in a portable dvd player and that seemed to help on the way back. The biggest snafu on the way back was that we missed our flight coming home. Unfortunately, I got the flight information screwed up and thought our flight left at 9:20 when it actually left at 7:00am. Fortunately, US Airways was very accommodating and we got on a 8:49am flight. I did feel like a scene from Home Alone with us running through the airport to get to the gate in time.

We started our trip in AZ with a visit to "Pump It Up." It's this crazy play place with huge inflatable slides and jumping places. Kerala really loved it - especially when Troy felt well enough to participate (he threw his back out the night before we left). When we got to Kim's house we had a quick lunch and then Kerala was off to nap. After lunch, Kim had a very fun activity of finger and feet painting. It was a ton of fun and Kerala really enjoyed herself. We even had Kian do a couple of foot prints.

On Friday, we headed over to Uncle Kyle's mom's house for a fun day in her pool. Kerala loved playing with her cousin Macline and has actually been asking about him since we have returned home. Again, Kian basically slept.

On our last day, we enjoyed a great day at the AZ Science Center, which included a visit to the planetarium. Kian actually really enjoyed the planetarium. He was awake the entire time and loved looking up at the stars. The only funny thing was that it was a toddler story hour and the presenter did not know his audience. He kept telling jokes that were a bit over the kids' heads and his stand up routine went on way too long. It was just funny because you could see all of these kids squirming in their seats.

While we were visiting Kim and Kyle's we were treated with gourmet meals every night. Kyle is a chef and Kim and Kyle let us pick the menu about a week before. Kerala had her first experience with scallops and loooovvvveed them. She ate about 1 1/2 scallops which is just amazing. Overall, it was a fabulous trip and we can't wait to go back.

Since we have been back we have had a break through with potty training. Tonight, Kerala asked to go potty three times and went all three times (although she was straining pretty hard the last time). It's crazy how fast the kids are growing up - I can't believe we are on the verge of potty training Kerala. Kian has rolled a few times from back to belly, which we are very excited about. He also will laugh a ton if you pretend like you are eating his belly.

First Vacation Together

2009-05-27T15:57:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, we head off to Arizona to visit my sister Kim and her husband Kyle. I am kind of dreading the flight with the two kids. Last time we flew with Kerala she was still using pacifiers and I think that helped a lot in getting her to sleep on the flight. We have packed a ton of toys for the trip (in Kerala's new Strawberry Shortcake backpack which she picked out) and hopefully we can distract her for the three hours it takes to get there. We are only going for a few days, but it will be jammed pack with activities.

We have been doing well. This past holiday weekend we had a bbq to attend every day, went to the park several times with friends and the zoo on Sunday with Grandma Perry. The kids are doing very well. Kian is starting to be up for longer stretches which is fabulous. He is still a happy guy and smiles a ton. He has also started to consistently laugh. Today he was cracking up at Target for no apparent reason - it was pretty cute. Kerala is really sweet with Kian - she has been practicing her ballet moves with him and loves to hold his hand. You can tell that Kian adores Kerala because he saves the biggest smiles for her. It's really sweet to see.

Kerala is doing great. The past three days she has napped which is terrific. In fact, both kids have synchronized their naps the last two days (yeah!). Troy did have some trouble with Kerala napping on Sunday. Basically, she took off her clothes and pooped right in front of the door. When Troy walked in to check on her he smeared the poop all over the floor. Before Troy got to the room, Kerala decided that she would clean up the poop which resulted in poop all over her hands. Thank goodness I was out of the house for that little adventure. The nice thing about the story is that we think she may be on the verge of potty training.

2 years, 2 months, 2 days; 10 weeks, 5 days

2009-05-13T13:22:00.001-05:00

Another rainy day - unfortunately, we were scheduled to have the kids photos taken at a park today by a friend of ours who is a professional photographer, but that had to be canceled due to the weather. Hopefully, we will be able to get the photos done next week.

The kids are doing well. Kerala has been practicing her ballet dancing at home and insisted on wearing her tutu over her jeans the other day. It was pretty funny. She was even trying to make Kian do some of the sitting moves. She was also hilarious dancing in her music class yesterday. She loves her little friend Ella and she kept holding onto Ella's hands and spinning her around in circles. Poor Ella though - she reminded me of myself dancing with Troy at weddings. Ella and Kerala were really sweet though. After music class we had a great time at the park with Ella and her nanny. Kerala kept wanting to do what Ella was doing. It is really neat to see their friendship. I especially love it when Kerala sees Ella and she screams "It's Ella!"

We have entered the "trying twos". I didn't want to write "terrible" because generally Kerala is great; however, we have had some major meltdowns. I think some of the meltdowns are attributable to her being tired since she has a hard time napping but also think a good portion is attributable to her age. She likes her autonomy so she has a hard time when you say no (i.e., "No Kerala, you cannot have chocolate chips for breakfast.").

Kian is doing really well. We had his 2 month appointment and he gained another 2 pounds and 2 inches. Troy is very proud that his son is 95% for height. We will see how long he keeps up his crazy growth. Kian also appears to be on the verge of laughing. Troy will get him going by tickling under his chin and he has the biggest smile on his face. You can just tell that he absolutely loves it. He is still a really happy guy. He loves to look at Kerala and has the biggest grin when she comes near him. Kerala generally is pretty gentle with him, although today she kept wanting to pull his toes.

We are looking forward to a visit from Kerala's old nanny, Ellen. She is due back in town tomorrow and we are scheduled to get together.

Rain, Rain, Rain

2009-04-30T22:21:00.000-05:00

Usually I like rainy days, but this is getting to be ridiculous. We usually head out to activities even in the rain, but today I just did not feel up to it. Hopefully, it starts to clear up soon and we can get some solid days in at the park.

As you can tell by the blogged photo - Kerala is in ballet class (technically, pre-ballet class). She will usually do a few activities with the group then come sit by us and then get back up and do a few more activities. She seems to get really shy in new settings. This weekend will be our third class, so hopefully she will feel a bit more comfortable. One funny thing about the class is that there is this little girl who antagonizes her. It's just funny because Kerala is usually the one that is doing the antagonizing.

We are still having trouble with Kerala's naps. Basically, I have accepted the fact that she will not nap during the day so if she does end up taking a nap I am super excited and surprised. We still do quiet time but we have moved Kerala's bedtime up to compensate for the missed sleep during the day. Today was one of those rare days that Kerala actually did take nap. It was pretty sad though because she fell asleep in her closet (her favorite play spot). I got a little freaked out because I had not heard her for awhile on the baby monitor and when I went to check on her she was curled up in this little ball in the corner of her closet. When I bent down to check on her I woke her up and she immediately stood up and said "I must play!" and then burst into tears because she was tired. She went to sleep a few minutes later in her bed and had a glorious 1 1/2 hour nap.

Kerala is getting pretty sassy with her language. Yesterday she said "Mommy stop talking" and today she asked me to stop singing :(. She also is pretty funny with how she asks for certain things (i.e., "Mommy I need more tickeling"). She also has no qualms about telling you to leave the room if she wants to be alone with either mommy or daddy and will often ask us to put Kian down.

Kian is doing really well. He is still a really happy and easy baby. He loves to grin and is getting really good at rolling from stomach to back. The other day he kept rolling from stomach to back and Kerala thought it was the funniest thing and would ask him to do it again. Kerala has been really into holding and touching Kian lately. She will hold his hands when we read books together and try to hold onto him if we are all dancing. Unfortunately, she has also tried to pick him up a few times. Kian just smiles at her and is generally pretty psyched about his big sister.

2009-04-14T22:21:00.000-05:00

Things have been going well around here. Kian had his one month dr's appointment and is doing great. At his one month appointment he had gained a bit over 3 lbs and grown 2 inches in length since birth. He is generally a pretty happy guy, although tonight he has been a bit fussy. This past weekend we got out Kerala's activity mat which he has been super psyched about. He rolls back and forth and has rolled from tummy to back a couple of times. He seems to be really close to going from back to tummy, he just gets hung up on his arm. I am starting to figure out his sleep patterns - basically he likes to sleep every hour or so. They are generally cat naps of 30 - 45 minutes unless we are out or if someone is laying with him - then he will sleep up to 3 hours. I haven't found a consistent time to put him to sleep at night yet, that's something we are working on. If we put him down he will start crying unless we are with him so a lot of nights he will sleep in our arms until we go to bed.

Kerala is doing really well. She is at a really fun age language development wise. Yesterday, we were eating lunch and she said "So mommy, how are you?" She also yelled to Troy as he was leaving the house "Peace out yo!". Her other funny thing lately is to be doing something and then pretend call her music teacher Mary to let her know what we are doing. Today we were finger painting and she held her hand up to her ear as if it were a phone and told Mary that we were finger painting. Unfortunately, she had paint on her fingers which then got in her hair.

We had a great Easter around her. Kerala was pretty excited about coloring Easter eggs and finding them the next morning. When we told her to find the Easter eggs she said they were in the refrigerator which was pretty funny. She was very excited about her basket and the chocolates that the Easter bunny left. Kerala had been asking about underwear lately so the Easter bunny included some in her basket, but unfortunately he/she accidentally picked up boy's underwear rather than girls. Kerala got to go on an Easter egg hunt with her buddies at our friends' house and we wrapped up the day with a visit with Grandma and uncles. Overall, a terrific day.

Updates

2009-03-30T22:52:00.000-05:00

Okay a quick update....Everyone is doing well. We had Kerala's two year and Kian's two week appointment this past month. Both kids are doing fabulous. Kerala gained 2 lbs since her last dr's appointment, which was great news. She is 50% for height and head and 10-25% for weight. The doctor was very pleased with her verbal and physical development. Kian also had a fabulous appointment. He was about 9 lbs and had gained an inch and a quarter in length since he was born. We don't know his percentiles (I think we find those out at his 1 month appointment). The doctor said because he was doing so well with weight we could just let him sleep through the night if he wanted to. Unfortunately, he has not wanted to but we are still getting plenty of sleep around here. The only negative to his appointment was that he had a rash on his face which the doctor said could take a couple of months to go away. Since Kian's appointment he has started to smile a lot and is making the adorable baby cooing noises. He still sleeps a ton - honestly, this is the most mellow baby ever. We have Kian's 1 month appointment this weekend, so we will update with stats.

This past weekend we finished Kerala's birthday celebration with two birthday parties. My sister Kim flew in to help us out with the parties and help us get organized in general. While we had a busy busy Saturday, Kim and I were able to get some great sister time in on Sunday and let Troy take care of both kids for a couple of hours. Kerala was a bit overwhelmed at first with the parties, but she eventually warmed up and had a great time at both. Kian basically slept the entire time at the parties. It wasn't until everyone left that he put his party hat on and we had one of the worst sleeping nights with him since he was born. Generally, he will wake up once or twice during the night; however on Saturday, it seemed like he was up all night long.

We are still struggling with Kerala's napping. Kerala seems to want to nap about half of the time. I thought maybe her napping correlated with the level of activity she had in the morning, but I don't think that's the case since she walked over a mile this morning and did not want to sleep at all. The doctor was fine with her not napping, but did suggest moving her bedtime up if she seemed tired.

One final note, our Kerala's nanny Ellen left us this past month to return to school. It was a very sad day at the Smerry household. Ellen was such a terrific nanny and really cares for Kerala (as evidenced by the fact that she called Kerala on Sunday all the way from Guatemala!). We are still adjusting to a Smerry household post Ellen but I think overally we are doing well.

Transition, transition, transition...

2009-03-12T15:51:00.000-05:00

Kian will be 2 weeks old tomorrow and we are still getting used to having a newborn in the house. Kian is a very mellow baby so the transition has not been too difficult for Troy and me, but Kerala does have her moments. If I am holding Kian she will ask for someone else to hold him or if it's just the three of us she will say "Mommy hold Kerala" or "Mommy hold you." We are working through it though and she is generally pretty psyched about Kian. She loves to help change his diapers. It's pretty cute because she will act as my assistant handing me the wipies or diaper. I don't know if her love for changing diapers is the reason she always goes up to Kian and smells him and says "poopie diaper." We are also still working on Kerala being gentle with Kian, but for the most part she has been doing pretty well.

Not only are we transitioning Kerala with a new baby in the house, but we also had to move her out of her crib. About a month or so ago she had climbed out of her crib by piling her stuffed animals together and using them as leverage. We took out all but two stuffed animals in hopes that that would delay the bed transition for a bit. Unfortunately, she climbed out again last week and actually hurt herself in the process by falling. Nothing serious, just a bruise so we were lucky. This past weekend we moved her into a big girl bed and she has been doing really well overnight and it's kind of hit or miss for naps. Yesterday during her nap she turned her room into a disaster - she took out all of her books, all of her cloth diapers, took off hte changing table pad and a lot more. Ellen and I kept going in and tell her that if she wasn't tired she still needed to do quiet time. Today has been better - she has been asleep for about two hours.

As far as Kian, he is doing really well. He is nursing well and had surpassed his birth weight at his 4 day visit, so the doctor was very pleased with that. He is quite the sleeper - it seems like he is typically up for about an hour in the morning and then an hour or so in the late evening. Other than those times and when we change diapers and nurse, he is asleep. I keep worrying about him because Kerala was not the biggest sleeper at the beginning. We have his two week appointment on Tuesday, so hopefully he is continuing to gain weight.

Check out the March photos - there are shots of the first of four b-day celebrations for Kerala. By the way, if you ask Kerala how old she will be on Monday she will respond by saying either 4 months or 2 (I am not quite sure where she got 4 months from).

Kian Ford Smith

2009-03-01T20:55:00.003-06:00

After much anticipation, Kian Ford Smith finally showed up - he was 9 days past his due date. Kian was born on Friday at 12:56 pm and was 7 lbs, 9oz and 20.5 inches long. About a lb heavier and an inch longer than Kerala was when she was born. Everyone is doing great and it seems like Kerala is adjusting really well to being a big sister. She was super psyched when Kian came home and not so psyched when I held him at first, but after some cuddly time with me she seems to have adjusted just fine and had no problems with I held him later in the evening or today, our first full day home.

Our birth experience was much different than with Kerala - mainly because of our fabulous midwife, doula and labor and delivery nurse. There were times that were even comical - such as me vomiting in the cab ride over to our dr's office while our cabbie was smoking a cigarette and the hospital receptionist repeatedly asking me why I was there even though I was having contractions in front of her. The labor went much faster as well and today, when I was speaking to my doula, she told me that she was very concerned that she was going to have to catch the baby because my midwife and nurse had stepped out of the room just before I was ready to deliver.

Kian is adjusting well to his new world. Right now he seems to be a pretty mellow baby. He seems to only get upset when you change his diaper or right before a feeding. We have his first dr's appt tomorrow so I am curious to see how he does.

We posted Kian's hospital and first day home photos in the February 2009 link so check them out.

Waiting, waiting and still waiting....

2009-02-22T22:34:00.000-06:00

Well, my due date was last Wednesday and we are still waiting for baby #2 to make an appearance. I have felt some contractions, but not anything major or consistent so I really don't feel like this baby is coming out anytime soon. I honestly do not feel like my due date was this past week. Kerala has been cute lately with the new baby - she will go up to my stomach and say "come out baby." I don't think she realizes what that will mean for her, but it is really cute.

We have been doing well other than waiting for the little guy/girl to arrive. We have been trying to keep our schedule as normal as possible, but ready to drop everything if I go into labor. Troy and I took Kerala to her soccer and music classes this weekend. She did fabulous in music class. She was really participating and even sang some of the songs. Usually she just taps a beat or plays the instrument, so it was great to see her so vocal.

As you can tell by the blogged photo, Kerala still is very into her "10 lb lovey", the duck. She loves that thing and if she can't find it she'll start looking around and say "where did duckie go?" It's really cute. She is constantly "making" food for duckie and will place a plate in front of him and say "there you go duckie!"

Kerala has been trying to imitiate her daddy and juggle. It's pretty funny because she will just move her arms up and down and then throw whatever she was "juggling". Kerala has also been very into dancing lately and last night her and Troy danced to about 8 songs in the living room. Troy was exhausted, but after every song Kerala would ask for more. It was a great activity to get her tired before bedtime.

We are still dealing w/ throwing food issues. The sticker chart was working well initially, but there were a few days this week that she did not receive any stickers at all. Today though she received 3 out of the 5 sticker chances and was very excited about the prospect of getting a sticker after putting her bath toys away.

Hopefully, we will be posting in the next couple of days w/ news about our new addition.

Counting Down the Days

2009-02-08T16:20:00.002-06:00

Well, Troy, Kerala and I are counting down the days until baby #2 arrives. We are about a week and a half from my due date. We have been trying to prepare Kerala for the big adjustment as best as we can and Ellen and her have checked out a lot of books from the library on new babies. Kerala's favorite so far is "Hello Baby". It is a bit advanced, but we are working through it - every time we get to the part about the baby in the amniotic fluid, she talks about how the baby is taking a bath. She still doesn't like the prospect of me holding other children - yesterday, when I asked if I could hold our friends' son, she just said "Mommy hold Kerala." So we will see.

Lately, we have been having some discipline issues with Kerala - I think it's just the onset of the terrible twos but it seems to be so much worse since Troy has been working a lot lately, so I have to be the disciplinarian (something I am not the best at). We have been trying to do a combination of incentives (i.e., sticker chart) and time outs. A lot of times Kerala will do something wrong and will simply say "time out." So she definitely gets that she is not suppose to do certain things, but the prospect of a time out isn't really a deterrent. Yesterday morning was an unusually tough morning when she threw her cereal bowl (cereal and milk included) from the table.

Also, Kerala did something today that I really hope we can nip in the bud. I put her down for her nap and about 20 minutes later I went it because she was making quite a ruckus. She had taken off her sleep sack and diaper and was running around her crib naked having a ball. I redressed put her back to bed. About 30 minutes later I went in again because I was afraid she was up to no good and she had taken off her sleep sack and diaper, but this time she also left me a little present in her crib. I changed her and the bedding and she finally went to sleep (although an hour later than normal, so we will see how she is this evening).

To end on a positive note, Kerala is doing really well otherwise. She loves her books and singing. A lot of times she likes to sit on her stool and read her books. If it's a book she really likes, she will often know a few words on each page from us reading it so often. One thing that I am always astonished at is her memory - the other day we were reading Olivia and she kept saying "it's a Degas" pointing to a picture of a painting in the book. Turns out it was a picture of a Degas painting - her and Ellen had been reading Olivia the day before and they were talking about how it was the same picture as from a book Kerala and her had checked out from the library called "Degas' Ballerinas."

Happy New Year

2009-01-07T22:58:00.000-06:00

We have not posted forever and it's my fault - I have been really busy with work and the holidays. Things seem to be back to normal now and I hope to get back to regular posting.

We had a great Christmas and New Year's. Kerala is super psyched about all of her new toys, particularly her Curious the George doll and the Elmo kitchen set she received. She was really into reading Christmas books and would walk around the house saying "ho ho ho Merry Christmas." She actually still likes to read her Christmas books and will occasionally say "ho ho ho." She did get to see Santa Claus. The first time she saw him she was super psyched. The second time, she was psyched from a distance but did not want to sit on his lap. The third time, she freaked out.

We headed out of town for New Year's like we always do. The start of the trip was somewhat rough since Kerala threw up the first day all over Troy, me, her stuffed monkey and our bed. We debated about coming home, but ended up staying since she seemed fine after sleeping for a few hours. Fortunately, no one else got sick on the trip. We had a great time with our friends - we all shared a house and it was a blast. A little hectic with five toddlers/little children running around but fun.

Kerala still gets really upset if I hold another baby. Over New Year's I would try to hold Todd and Brandy's 3 1/2month old son and Kerala would generally flip out and ask to be held by me. At one point, Troy picked her up and said that Daddy would hold Kerala and mommy would hold Emmett and Kerala responded by saying "Daddy hold Emmett." Hopefully, she will improve over the next month and half - otherwise I think it will be a pretty rough transition with the new baby.

Kerala is doing really well verbally. She is constantly singing songs and will try different voices out when she sings certain songs. For some reason she thinks that Frosty the Snowman should be sung in a deep voice. Favorites of hers include the ABC song, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus and Open and Shut. Kerala has also been memorizing her favorite books. She is getting to the point where she will finish sentences for you when you read a story to her and pause. Her Spanish has also developed quite a bit, she knows the words for mouth, eyes and will count to ten in Spanish although she skips dos and tres.

Sorry that this is kind of a rambling post, but I thought I would try to post something so everyone didn't think we abandoned the board. We have posted new photos to a December folder, but I need Troy to fix the blog link which I will have him do in the next day or so.

19 months, 3 weeks, 3 days

2008-11-09T22:47:00.000-06:00

Kerala had a fabulous Halloween. She was really into the trick or treating as well as our friends' Halloween party. Kerala's trick or treating adventure started off with her going up to several houses and saying tick or treat but then, much to our dismay, walking away before they gave her any candy. Eventually, she started to let people put candy in her pumpkin bucket and she was super psyched about the full size milky way bar that someone gave her. She walked down the street with a death grip on it. She didn't get to eat any of the candy (I know, we are strict), but she did enjoy pretending like she was eating candy. She had an empty box of nerds and would take "pieces" out and pretend to eat the candy. With Halloween gone, we have been talking up Thanksgiving. If you ask Kerala what she is going to have on Thanksgiving she will respond by saying "turkey."

In my last post, I mentioned how we were going to get a training toilet for Kerala. Well, we did and she was psyched about it for about two days (she even used it a couple of times). Since then, she really doesn't want to have much to do with it.

Kerala's Spanish classes are going really well. She has been consistently saying por favore, gracias, aqua and hola in class. The last couple of days when I have asked her about Spanish class she will respond by saying "hola." There are two slight problems with the class: 1. it is an hour long and Kerala, along with the other toddlers in the class, just doesn't have an attention span for a full hour class and 2. parents are required to participate, which makes it difficult for someone who does not speak Spanish at all. Despite those two problems, overall I think the classes are really good for Kerala. We have enrolled her in another semester and we will see how it goes.

Kerala has been into singing lately. She loves to sing row, row, row your boat and wheels on the bus. Also, in music class yesterday, she was really into dancing with this other little girl. They kept holding hands and trying to do the twist during the free dance. It was pretty funny because the other girl was a year older and definitely grasped the concept of doing the twist and Kerala really just liked holding the other girl's hand. Kerala has also been really funny with this girl in class who is really shy. The girl will generally sit in the corner and Kerala will go up to her and try to hold her hand or hug her. In the last class, they ended up tickling each other which was pretty cute to see.

A long, long, time...

2008-10-15T23:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, it has been forever. I usually do the posting and the past month and half have been the busiest workwise since I returned from maternity leave with Kerala. I still generally get home for dinner and bath and take Mondays off, but it usually means that I work after Kerala goes to sleep until the wee hours. Needless to say, I have not felt like blogging at 1:00am. Anyway, I wanted to give a quick update and I promise to post more this weekend since we have a ton of photos to download. Also, Heather and Hannah - you guys will be getting your birthday presents shortly - not only have I been working nights, but most of the time on the weekends when Kerala is not sleeping so I haven't been able to send the presents off to Korea.

Our Trip to AZ -
It was a great success. Kerala was fantastic the entire time. The plane rides were smooth (except when US Airways tried to put her 5 rows back from us), she loved visiting with her Aunt Kim, Uncle Kyle and their two laboradors. Kerala would try to cuddle with the dogs which was pretty cute. We had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back (although we may not schedule another trip in August since it was hot)!

Kerala Update -
Kerala is doing great. Her 18 month appointment went very well (except for the shots which are always sad). The doctor was very pleased with her growth and vocabulary. We did talk to her about some issues we have been dealing - particulary, Kerala biting and hitting and we havve been working on trying to curb those issues. She has also been throwing food a lot, which is something that seems to be escalating.

Kerala is talking a storm and is putting together little sentences. Her latest (and the funniest by far) is her walking around the house saying "Shoot man!" Don't even ask how she came up with that one. She is also very interested in the potty, so we may get a little potty seat for her this weekend. The other day she had her stuffed animal go potty - unfortunately, that entailed her repeatedly dumping the kitty in the toliet while saying "pee!"

Finally, Kerala, Ellen and I are enrolled in Spanish classes. I take Kerala on Mondays and Ellen takes her on Fridays. If you ask Kerala to say "hola" and "adios" she will, but I don't think she knows what she is saying. Ellen said at her last class Kerala had some very promising babbling!

Family news-
Troy passed the bar exam! Not that we had any doubts, but it is a relief to have that behind us. Finally, for those of you who I have not been able to get into contact with, Kerala is going to be a big sister. I am due in February, so they will be about 2 years apart. We have been inspired by friends and have decided not to find out what we are having.

17 months, 2 days

2008-08-18T21:16:00.001-05:00

Yes, it has been forever since we posted. Kerala is doing great (although she did have a really fussy weekend). We headed up to Appleton, WI to visit one of Troy's college roommates. Kerala had a pretty rough time sleeping over the weekend, which makes me a bit nervous for our trip to Phoenix. Kerala used to sleep great in the car, so we would plan our trips around her sleep schedule. This was the first trip with her car seat facing forward and she just couldn't fall asleep, so halfway up to WI we had to pull over and turned her car seat around. It was really sad because within minutes of us being on the road she was asleep. The other not so great aspect of the weekend was Troy's college roommate teaching Kerala how to throw food at a restaurant. We are working on re-teaching her not to throw food.

Kerala has been super into the alphabet and numbers lately. She gets really excited and starts to dance everytime she hears the alphabet song and will throw in what sounds like letters at various times. Her favorite letter by far is "A" and if you ask her what a letter is she will say "A" regardless of what letter you are pointing to (although she did correctly point to B, T and Z about a week ago but hasn't done it since). Also, if you ask her to count she will generally say "two, three." Her newest thing is to say "hi baby" to anyone she sees. Troy and I took her for a walk this evening and she said "hi baby" to hipsters, elderly people, babies, you name it. It's cute though because she is kind of putting words together. We also realized that she is getting very good at repeating what we say.

So we leave soon for our trip to Phoenix. Thanks everyone for your input. Our plan of action is to give Kerala a new toy every 30 minutes or so (hopefully longer if she doesn't get board with the toy). The toys will be farily small, but things to keep her busy. Our friend Lara has also lent us her portable dvd player, so we will use that when she gets fussy. We did end up buying her a seat, so hopefully the fact that she is in her own carseat will make the flight a bit smoother. Troy and I are prepared for a rough flight. I will try to post in the next few days since we have over 300 photos that I need to download from our camara.

16 weeks, 1 week, 5 days

2008-07-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Kerala has had somewhat of a rough past week. As you can see by the July photos, she had a bit of an accident that left a horrible mark on her face. She fell at the pool and got a cement burn. Fortunately, it has significantly faded since it happened last Wednesday. I am still a bit worried about scarring - particularly, since two parents totally freaked me out about the possibility of scarring. Don't people know that I am a paranoid mother? Anyway, we spoke to the nurse at Kerala's pediatrician last Wednesday and she said that it most likely wouldn't scar because Kerala's skin is so young. I have been trying to have Kerala avoid a lot of sun to minimize the possibility of scarring.

Kerala also has had a horrible time sleeping lately. Kerala used to sleep about 11 hours at night and then a 3 hour nap during the afternoon. For the past two weeks, she seems to be pushing her nap back so that she was consistently going down at 1:30 rather than her normal 1:00. This past weekend, she went down at 3:00 and then 2:30 which is not ideal. Today, she did not take a nap. Every time I would go into her room she would look up at me and say "hi!" We finally gave up on the nap, but on our way home from dropping Troy off at his hotel for the bar exam she fell asleep. I ran into a mom in the neighborhood that I regularly talk to and she told me that her son does the same thing whenever he is teething. It seems like Kerala is getting two new teeth, so hopefully our sleep troubles will go away. All, I know is I am exhausted - I usually use Kerala's nap time on the weekends to catch up on my own sleep. It's been rough.

As far as some positive news about Kerala, she still is developing a vocabulary. The latest three words that I can recall her adding are hose, pool, and door. She is also really funny with saying "hi" and "bye-bye." We will walk around the neighborhood and she will waive at people and say "bye-bye." Last week, she kept taking my cell phone and our home phone and taking into it - every few seconds she would say "hi" into it. Kerala is also pretty funny with her stuffed animals. She consistently tries to share her milk with her duck and the other day I gave Kerala some cheese that she tried to feed her duck and would say "mmmm" when the duck was "eating" the cheese. She also likes to try to diaper her stuffed cat, but she hasn't quite figured out the cloth diapering system. Although she does know that you need a liner, a shell and some rice paper which is pretty funny.

For a family update, Troy is off to take the bar exam. He has been studying really hard and I can't wait for this to be over for him. So everyone keep Troy in your thoughts tomorrow and Wednesday. For me, my most exciting news is that I am officially reduced hours at work. Generally, this means that I don't go into the office on Mondays. It's been great to have another day with Kerala at home. Finally, Kerala will be going on her first plane trip this month. If anyone has any advice on how to get a toddler through a 3 1/2 hour flight, I would love to hear it.

15 months, 3 weeks, 6 days

2008-07-13T22:16:00.000-05:00

Our biggest news to report is that Kerala can feed herself with a spoon. Sometimes, as you can see, it gets pretty messy - but she seems to have caught the hang of it. She was actually really messy in this photo because she would clap for herself in between bites and there were a few bites where she didn't get all of the oatmeal off the spoon. She has also added spoon to her vocabulary - although she refers to it as poon. Troy and I have been keeping a list of her words and she is up to just under 50. It's crazy - she will be using a word and we just don't realize it. Her pronounciation of some of the words is pretty cute - for instance, for coloring she refers to it as caracol. I don't know how she got that from coloring, but she will say caracol and then get out her pad of paper and go to the drawer where we keep the crayons. We are also proud to report that she has been signing and saying "thank you." You have to tell her to say it after you do something for her, but it's a start.

Kerala has a new game that she loves to play - hide-n-seek. The only thing we have to work on is teaching her to hide in different spots. If you ask Kerala to hide, she will run to the kitchen door and hide behind or stand next to the curtain. If you are trying to find Kerala then you have to go through our first floor and call out her name until you get to the kitchen door and then you tickle her. She thinks its really fun and signs for "more" so that you typically play it for 15 minutes or so which is an eternity in toddler time.

That's about all we have to report. Kerala gets to be more and more fun each day - she is laughing more and overall a pretty happy baby.

15 months, 1 week

2008-06-23T22:06:00.000-05:00

Kerala had her well baby visit last week and it went really well. She jumped from 5% to 10% in weight and the doctor was really pleased with her weight gain. This is the first time since she was a tiny baby that she has jumped up a weight category, so I was pretty psyched. The doctor was also pleased with Kerala's language and general development. Kerala's latest two words are "flower" and "Elmo" (although she also refers to a Cookie Monster doll as Elmo). We are not really sure how she picked up Elmo since she doesn't watch tv, but she does have an Elmo doll that she loves which I guess we have called Elmo. The doctor also noticed that Kerala is getting her molars in, which may explain why she has been waking up at night (last night she woke up at 1:00am and 4:00am). I couldn't have been happier with the appointment, although Kerala wasn't psyched - she basically cried the entire exam and only seemed to briefly calm down after the doctor left the exam room and before her shots (poor girl).

As you can tell by the photo, Kerala has been getting some time in her baby pool. She also went to the local pool once and had a blast. Kerala is still pretty obsessed with her doll stroller. She now tries to lift the stroller up the stairs - fortunately, she can only lift the stroller onto the first stair. She also will roll over you if you are sitting or lying down in her way. Finally, Kerala's new thing is to blow on or tickle your belly to make you laugh. The other night she kept blowing on Troy's belly before bedtime and was getting the biggest kick out of it. Every time Troy would start to laugh, Kerala would laugh and fall down.

14 months, 4 weeks

2008-06-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

I know, it has been forever since we last posted. Troy has been busy studying for the bar exam, Kerala had a bad cold and fever and I was busy with work. Things are a bit better now, although I do have to work this weekend.

We have Kerala's 15 month appointment this week and, suprisingly, I am not dreading the weigh in. Kerala is tiny and I get really anxious prior to her weight check. Tonight though we weighed Kerala on JT and Tamra's scale - Troy stepped on the scale and weighed himself and then he stepped back on with Kerala. The scale said she was over 20 pounds! I didn't believe it, so I weighed her again and we got the same result. We will see on Tuesday just how accurate their scale is. If she is over 20 pounds, then that means she gained over 2 pounds since her last check up. I do think she has been eating better thanks to Ellen who has come up with some very creative and delicious recipes.

Kerala has been doing really well with developing her verbal skills. Today she started to respond with "ooh, ooh" when you ask her what an owl says. She also loves to say "uh oh." The other day she said "uh oh" when her friend dropped her water. She also went over and handed it back to her friend! Last Sunday, I swear she said something that sounded like strawberry, but she hasn't repeated so I am not going to count that one yet. All in all, she is up to about 20 words or so. The crazy thing is we don't know how she picks up some of the words. For instance, a few weeks ago in bath she kept pointing to my hands and saying "bubble" when I was soaping her up. Troy and I really don't recall saying "bubble" a lot, but I guess it only takes one or two times and she will pick something up.

14 months, 1 week, 3 days

2008-05-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

Thank you everyone for your responses regarding milk. I received a number of great suggestions and Kerala's milk intake is getting better. Unfortunately, we have to add Ovaltine to her milk to get her to drink it, but at least we are getting somewhere. Today, she was actually really excited to get her milk, which is such a nice change. Her improved milk intake has made up for her not so great appetite the last couple of days.

This past weekend we bought Kerala a doll stroller that she absolutely loves. She saw the stroller at a bbq on Saturday and was quite obsessed with getting her hands on it. I ran out that evening and picked one up for her and she has been playing with it ever since. It's pretty funny because it's the same brand and style as her actual stroller. She looks pretty cute walking around with it. She usually puts either her duck, a doll or my phone and a sippy of water in the stroller as she pushes it around. Unfortunately, she now wants to push everything around - today at the zoo, she insisted on pushing her stroller rather than sitting in it or walking with us. It made some slow going, but we still had a good time. She got very excited when we saw the dolphins and elephants, but other than those animals she didn't really want to have anything to do with animals.

Over the past couple of weeks, Kerala has added quack, tree and bowl to her vocabulary. When you ask her what a duck says she will generally respond with duck and when she picks up her duck she usually says "quack quack." She also seems to be having conversations with herself, which are pretty cute. I can't wait for her to really begin talking because she sounds like she has the sweetest little voice.

13 months, 3 weeks, 4 days

2008-05-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

I know we have not posted forever. Things have been somewhat hectic and Kerala actually has not been feeling very well the past few days. She had a somewhat high fever towards the end of last week and, while the fever is gone, has been super super cranky this past weekend. We did make it to music class yesterday and Kerala had a special treat with a visit from my friend Tania. Tania and I became friends in 4th grade and she has been traveling around the world for the past 2 1/2 years. Kerala got to meet Tania and received a beautiful dress from Ethiopia.

Kerala continues to do well with developing a bit of a vocabulary and knowing her various body parts. This past week we realized she would point to her hair and feet if you asked her where they were located. Also, when you ask her what a horse says she will respond with "neigh neigh." Occasionally, she will also respond with panting if you ask her what a dog says. With respect to words, she may say a word a few times and then not say it again for a while. It does seem like most of her vocabulary is based on food - wa wa (water), apple, nana (banana), cracker, cheese, chex, and kix. We have also been working on high fives, which she seems to be getting somewhat.

We are still trying to figure out the sippy cup thing. I think I mentioned before that she takes water just fine, but refuses to take milk out of the sippy cup. This has definitely been a more difficult transition than when we transitioned her from nursing to the bottle. I am actually quite stressed about her milk intake. We still do a couple of bottles and are supplementing with extra yogurt and cheese, but the whole thing has me a bit freaked out so if anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear them. Today I sent to Target to get some different sippy cups to see if that would work. A number of people suggested using the sippy cups with the straw, but Kerala is having a difficult time figuring out the straw thing. We will keep plugging away, but beware Ushma (my roommate from college who is now a pediatrician) you may be getting a panicked call from me shortly.

As far as general family matters, this week is a very exciting week for the Smerry household - Troy is graduating from law school! We are so excited. Unfortunately, this does mean that he will have to start studying for the bar shortly. His graduation is this Friday. Northwestern does allow parents to bring their kids across the stage when they receive their diploma. While seeing Kerala up on stage would be adorable, the ceremony begins at 1:00 which is when Kerala goes down for her nap so she will miss it.

13 months, 5 days

2008-04-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

We all had a great weekend. On Saturday, we went to Kerala's music class where she had a blast running around. We finished the day off at Henry's and Silas' birthday bash. Kerala had a great time playing with all of the little ones. Unfortunately, I didn't take a ton of photos, but check out Kerala and her bud Valerie Violet in the April photos. Kerala was sporting her new party dress that her Auntie Heather, Uncle Ryan and Cousin Hannah bought her for her birthday.

Yesterday, we took advantage of the fabulous weather with a trip to the park and a walk. We spent an hour (which in toddler time is an eternity) at the park. We had a great time and Kerala got to hang out with Silas and JT. On our evening walk, Kerala walked the entire time. She did fall a couple of times, but she got right back up. She was super psyched by the puppy that she met a long the way and even tried following the puppy when his owner and him started to go off in a different direction.

The only mishap from the weekend was when Kerala was flattened by a little girl in music class. Both Kerala and the little girl were running around and Gracie (the little blue eyed linebacker) ran into Kerala knocking Kerala down. Kerala was fine - I think she was more shocked than anything else. I felt really bad for little Gracie - she kept asking her mom if she was going to receive a time out.

Lately, Kerala has been doing the cutest little dance when we sing "Five Little Monkeys." During the song, Kerala will tap her head when we sing "one fell of bumped her head" and she will point her finger as if she is saying "no" when we sing "No more monkeys jumping on the bed." It's so funny how she picks things up. I always tap her head when I sing the song to her, but I didn't realize she was making the connection between her head and the song.
Kerala has also added "apple" to her list of words and today she pointed to her "mouth" when I asked her where it was.

1 year, 3 weeks, 5 days

2008-04-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

Kerala and I have had a fabulous week. I have been home on vacation and Kerala and I have had such a blast. We have been really really busy with trips to the Nature Museum and the Children's Musuem in Oak Park. Kerala really enjoyed the butterfly haven at the Nature Museum and was enthralled with two dead butterflies. The Children's Museum was okay, but I don't think we will make the trek out there again. We also went to story time at a local book store. Unfortunately, Kerala did end up making a little boy cry during story time. He seemed to be a pretty sensitive little guy, but I did feel pretty bad about it. She didn't hit him, just yelled at him. While we can't really reason with her, we have been trying to say no. She clearly understands no as evidenced by her repeatedly telling me no when I was trying to put a diaper on her tonight.

Kerala has picked up a number of new skills this past week. She is now quite capable of climbing on furniture. Unfortuantely, today she has been trying to climb onto the window sill, which is problematic. She seems to be doing well with her communication skills. She typically points to her nose and tongue if you ask her. We have been working on belly and cheeks, which she seems to be figuring out as well. She also responds with what sounds like "moo" when you ask her what a cow says.

As far as food, let's just say Kerala enjoys somewhat spicy and flavorful foods. Troy made chili this week and I thought that there was no way she was going to eat it because it was too spicy. She gobbled it up and seemed to really enjoy it. One of her favorite dinners is this dish called the Chila Fry that we get from a local mediterannean restaurant. It's pretty fun to expose her to different foods and see her reaction.

1 year, 2 weeks, 4 days

2008-04-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

Well, it isn't easy managing a blog and being a working mom - so that's why I haven't posted lately. Kerala has been doing fantastic. She primarily walks now, which is quite exciting. She loves to walk down the hallway carrying something (usually a box, a ball or these two huge red plastic pot holders that flop while she walks). She also seems to be doing pretty well with developing a vocabulary. While she isn't consistent, she seems to trying to say new words everyday. Yesterday during breakfast she kept looking at Cloud and saying what sounded like Cloud. Also, in the last two days it seems like she is pointing a lot more, which is helpful for us to figure out what she wants (although, sometimes she just points for the sake of pointing).

The only down point in the last couple of weeks was Kerala getting a fever. Last weekend she had a pretty high temperature Saturday and Sunday. This resulted in some restless sleep over the weekend for the whole family since Kerala was up quite a bit during the night. While her fever went away on Monday, Kerala did not resume sleeping through the night until last night.

As you can tell by our photos we are still trying to get organized with all of the fabulous birthday presents she received. Her favorite toy lately has been this duck that sings the chicken song. She just hugs that thing as soon as it starts to sing. Because of space constraints, we are going to have to rotate her toys, so some of her birthday toys will be going away for about a month.

So lately I have been on a big kick about the family eating healthy. With Kerala eating what we eat, Troy and I realize that we are going to have to change our eating habits. While we aren't horrible eaters, we do order out a lot and tend to rely on very quick and processed meals for dinner. Lately, I have started to try to make meals the night before so that all we have to do is heat them up when I get home. Troy has been enjoying it, but Kerala wasn't the biggest fan of what I made this week - stuffed shells, stuffed peppers. Hopefully, Troy and I can come up with recipes that please the whole family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERALA!

2008-03-19T22:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, we didn't post on her birthday, but that's because we were busy celebrating it. Kerala had a fabulous birthday weekend. It started off with a visit from her Aunt Kim from Arizona. Unfortunately, Kim was at our house for all of two minutes before Kerala fell walking and cut her lip. This was the first time we have seen blood. Kerala is fine, but it was a bit scary.

On Saturday, we hosted two birthday parties for Kerala. It was pretty crazy and, I must say, very exhausting. Kerala did really well at both parties. She even danced to her favorite song while watching the video of herself dancing on tv - it was pretty funny to see to Kerala's dancing at once. She really enjoyed her cake and she would say "ooh" in between bites. Not only did she eat cake for the first time, but she also tried pizza and loved it.

Kerala was able to show of her new walking skills at the birthday parties. She is definitely very wobbly, but seems to be getting better at it each day. She has even figured out how to turn into her room from the hallway. We have a couple of videos of her dancing that we will post soon.

As far as other developmental milestones, Kerala is actually getting a small voculabulary. In addition to saying "cheese," she consistently says "dada" and "baba" (for bottle). She has said "mama" in the past, but that is not as consistent as "dada" and it seems to only come out when she is really upset. She has also said "shoes" when playing with her shoes and "moo" when you say the noise.

Finally, we had our 1 year doctor's appointment yesterday. As many of you know, I am always worrying about Kerala's weight. Troy and I were going into the appointment thinking she would be somewhere in the 18 lb range, but we were wrong. She is a bit under 18 lbs, but is still in the same weight bracket. The doctor wasn't worried at all and told us not to worry. The shots didn't go as well as they had in the past and she really hated her tb test.

11 months, 4 weeks, 1 day

2008-03-09T23:18:00.000-05:00

Well, we are down to our last week before Kerala turns one. The blogged photo is of Kerala and our cat, Cloud. Kerala LOVES Cloud and Cloud tolerates Kerala pretty well. Kerala has gotten into the habit of giving Cloud a hug everytime Cloud comes near her. We don't usually let Kerala pester Cloud, but Cloud does seem to come up to Kerala to antagonize her. Kerala has learned to play games with Cloud, which is pretty funny. Troy and I will help Kerala waive a string at Cloud and Kerala just cracks up everytime Cloud goes for the string. Also, Kerala likes to play catch with Cloud (for those of you who have never met Cloud, she actually does play catch). The only problem with Kerala playing catch is that she typically throws the wad of paper (Cloud's favorite catch toy) at Cloud's face.

Since our last post, Kerala has been making great progress towards walking - she has even taken a few steps on her own before toppeling over. She will generally try to walk if you hold something out for her that she really wants (i.e., cheerios, tv remote, phone). She has also been doing really well if you hold onto her hands. Kate, a friend of Kerala's and Ellen's, told Ellen that she doesn't think Kerala will learn to walk, but instead just learn to run. I thought that was pretty cute and sums Kerala's personality up really well.

Kerala's babbeling is really sounding more and more like words and it really does seem that she is trying to have a conversation with you. Troy and I also think she was saying cheese this evening. It really sounded like it and it wasn't the first time that I had suspected her of saying cheese. She was saying it during snack time. Kerala has also been signing "more" which is very fun. I must give the credit of her learning sign language to Ellen since Ellen has been really consistent with it. Troy and I try to be consistent, but sometimes we just forget.

Kerala is still working on her top two front teeth so she has been pretty fussy at times the last couple of weeks. Her top left tooth has broken through the gums, but we are still waiting for that top right which we can see just beneath the gums. Her recent teething has resulted in a horrendous runny nose.

11 months, 1 week, 1 day

2008-02-24T23:46:00.000-06:00

I know it's been awhile since we have posted. I have been really busy at work so at night I usually end up working after Kerala goes to sleep and haven't had time to blog. I am not complaining though because my job has been flexible enough so that I can come home and play, feed and put Kerala to bed. Since our last blog, Kerala has been mastering her push toy and everything else in the house that she can push (i.e., landrey basket, box of goldfish crackers, etc.). Kerala also figured out how to push her little monkey stuffed animal around on her push toy - it was pretty cute and, I thought, quite clever of her to figure out. She is also still obsessed with her books. At least once a day, she takes all of her books (and there are a lot of them) off of her bookshelves and reads them.

Today, we took Kerala to her first haircut - we did splurge and take her to one of those fancy kid hair places (mainly because we were afraid to cut her hair ourselves). Anyway, she did pretty well until about halfway through it when she decided that she just had enough and she wanted out of her little car chair. The first hair cut package included a film of tte haircut, which we watched when we got home. Fortunately, the experience wasn't too traumatic for Kerala as she was laughing at the film.

Kerala is in the process of having her two top front teeth come in. She has been drooling like crazy and pretty fussy. With the teething and her giving up her morning nap, there has been some major fussiness at the Smerry household lately. We still try to get her to take a morning nap, but we may be giving up the nap completely after her top teeth come in. We are hoping that the teeth have been interfering with her sleep schedule and that she will resume her am nap.

Also, I must say that I think Kerala may be going through a growth spurt. She has been eating her table food like lately (although she has not been drinking as much from her bottle). Today, for instance, she had 2 1/2 pancakes and a serving of fruit for breakfast and then another pancake and a good portion of a banana two hours later. Troy and I are kind of shocked at how much she has been eating lately.

10 months, 3 weeks, 5 days

2008-02-11T23:07:00.000-06:00

Well, it has been chilly in Chicago. On Saturday, we ventured out to go to Kerala's music class. We had the pleasure of bringing Henry, JT's and Tamra's almost 3 year old, to class. Both Henry and Kerala seemed to really enjoy the class. Henry told me that his favorite part was the singing and that it was super fun. Kerala's favorite part appeared to be playing the drums. She managed to play every drum in the classroom. On Sunday, we stayed in because it was way too cold to take Kerala out. We occupied our time by letting Kerala explore the textures of cool whip. She had a pretty fun time putting her hands in it and playing with it with a spoon. She did get to try a bit and, as evidenced by the photos, she seemed to like it.

Lately, Kerala has been fascinated by her books and flipping the pages. Given how active and on the go Kerala has been, I am amazed at how long she will sit and read books with us. She does flip the pages at warp speed, so we try to tell as much of the story or describe the pictures as fast as we can. It's pretty cute though when she is reading a book by herself, she will lay on her tummy and just flip and stare at the photos. She does have a couple of favorite books that she lights up whenever you read them or get them down from her bookshelves. Her favorite one for the past month or so is a dog book that she received for Christmas. The book is very interactive and lets babies feel different textures and make the dogs move - unfortunately, she has read the book so much that a couple of dogs are missing their heads and legs.

Kerala still is making progress toward walking. It seems like she will stand and bear crawl the most right before her bath after we get her out of her clothes. Hopefully, she will put together the fact that she can stand and wear clothes at the same time.

10 months, 3 weeks

2008-02-06T22:55:00.000-06:00

Lately, Kerala has been standing more and more on her own. She is able to get to the standing position by herself, but usually plops down after a couple of seconds. Last night, she stood for maybe 5 seconds and then fell on her butt. She is a really good sport about falling and rarely cries. Ellen also noticed that she may be saying her first word (or sort of word). Today, while making a bottle, Ellen asked Kerala what she was making on a couple of different occasions and Kerala responded by saying "ba ba." Ellen and I both refer to her bottle as ba ba, so this is very exciting. Kerala has also mastered her two favorite push toys - a little car push toy and a laundry basket. It's the funniest thing watching her push them around the house since she looks like a little penguin.

As Kerala is getting older she is getting to be more of a handful. She really likes to crawl under furniture or a couple of her toys. There is one toy in particular, her Leap Frog table, that she likes to crawl under. Unfortunately, once she is under the toy, she usually gets stuck. She has also figured out how to get out of her exercauscer. Troy and I relied on it as a place for her to play for about 15 minutes in the morning while we both got ready for work and school. The other day she figured out that if she leaned over far enough, she could shimmy her way out. Unfortunately, this means I have to wake up about 30 minutes earlier. Waking up a bit earlier normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for some reason Kerala decided to wake up at 5:30 am the last couple of days which is killing us. Hopefully, she will sleep in tomorrow.

Everything else is going well here. Troy and I have been pretty busy with work and school. Right now, Troy is studying for the patent bar which he plans to take in March - wish him luck.

10 months, 1 week, 1 day

2008-01-24T22:44:00.000-06:00

Since our last post, Kerala has been quite busy. This past weekend we had a three day weekend that was jammed full of fun activities. On Saturday, Kerala had music class and two play dates. The first play date was with our friends Deb and Chris and their son Felix. Kerala and Felix did really well together - it was one of the first times that I felt like Kerala was actually playing with another baby and not just doing her own thing at a play date. Kerala had a blast chasing Felix around and playing with Felix's puzzles (we need to order some for Kerala based on how much she enjoyed Felix's). After the play date, Kerala had another sort of play date at our friends JT and Tamra's. We shared a babysitter (Ellen) w/ JT and Tamra that evening and Kerala played a bit and then went to sleep over at JT and Tamra's while the adults attended Festivus (a party our friends host to celebrate Festivus from Seinfeld).

On Monday, we went to the Children's Museum with Tamra, Silas and Henry. Thank goodness we were going w/ Tamra because our car broke down on Sunday and Tamra was able to fit three car seats in her car. Henry, Silas and Kerala had a blast at the musuem - there were a ton of activities for Henry and a number of baby friendly crawl spaces for Kerala and Silas. Check out the photos from the museum to see Kerala standing on her own in one of the baby crawl areas.

Kerala has been cracking us up lately. She has been really high energy and fun. As far as milestones, she was bear crawling tonight, which means she was crawling using her feet rather than knees. We don't know if this means she is closer to walking or what - it was quite amusing seeing her crawl around with her butt in the air. Also, Kerala is standing more and more on her own, so long as what she is standing on is soft (i.e., our bed, the mats at the Children's museum). She won't really stand by herself on hard surfaces unless she is distracted by whatever she is playing with.

Our biggest issue with Kerala lately has been sleep (isn't this always our biggest issue?). She is sleeping really well at night - typically 7:30/8:00 - 7:00 w/ very very very little, if any, fussing during the night. The problem we are having is with naps. She cut out her afternoon nap 3 days last week. On Monday we thought we would experiment and try to cut out her morning nap so she would take a longer afternoon nap - that didn't work very well (actually she had a major meltdown over it). This past week Ellen has been experimenting with pushing her morning and afternoon naps back a bit. She has been going down around 9:50 or so for her morning nap and then not going down until about 3:30 for the afternoon nap. We have decide if this is going to work since it does mean that there are some days she doesn't wake up from her afternoon nap until after 5:00. So far this hasn't messed up her bedtime routine, so we will see.

9 months, 4 weeks

2008-01-13T23:12:00.000-06:00

As you can see by the photo, Kerala's two bottom teeth are coming in. They are above the gums, but not completely through yet. She is also working on one of her top front teeth. You can also tell by the photo that she is in a desparate need for a haircut. We are planning on getting it cut this coming weekend.

The weekend started off on a great note but ended on a not so great note. Kerala had her first music class with mixed age students. I was a bit nervous about how she would do since sometimes she gets a bit shy in new settings, but she did amazing. She was crawling all over the place, playing with the musical instruments and even crawled up to the teacher during the good-bye song and gave her a hug. After music class, Kerala got to visit with Grandma Sue and Connie, a friend from downstate. She had a very nice visit, but you could kind of tell Kerala was a bit out of sorts.

On Sunday morning, Troy and I woke up on our own without Kerala crying to wake us up. We were shocked that she had slept in and we started to think that maybe she inherited our love of sleeping in. Troy brought her upstairs at about 8:30am (almost 2 hours later than what she has been sleeping to) and after about 15 minutes of playing Kerala threw up all over us. We took her downstairs where she continued to be sick - it was not pretty. Both Kerala and I changed our clothes at least 4 times. After being up for an hour, she went back to sleep for two hours. When Kerala got up from her morning nap she threw up again - not a good day. Kerala was up for two and 1/2 hours and then took a pretty short afternoon nap. Fortunately she didn't get sick again, but she was still really out of sorts - tired, cranky at times, super cuddly at times. When we spoke to the doctor earlier in the day, she said there really wasn't much we could do other than pedialite, nurse her often, and introduce bananas, rice, apples and toast back into her diet slowly. By bedtime, Kerala was in better spirits, but still sick. Hopefully, she will be better tomorrow.

9 months, 3 weeks, 3 days

2008-01-09T22:52:00.000-06:00

I am happy to report that our sleep training is still going really well. At night, I can put Kerala down in her crib and she rolls over and goes to sleep - no fussing at all. Hopefully, this isn't a short lived phase. Troy and I are still shocked at how well this has gone - she really hasn't cried at all. I still rock her for a bit before she goes to sleep, but I generally put her down while she is a bit awake so she can learn to fall asleep on her own. Also, we have eliminated the night feedings, since she really isn't waking up for them now. Because Kerala is sleeping through the night, she is waking up about 45 minutes earlier. It's nice to have Kerala up a bit earlier in the morning so I can play with her for an extra 30 minutes or so before I head off to work, but some days I also really miss my sleep since I can no longer sleep in.

Kerala is now getting really good at waiving on command and she now consistently waives good-bye. This morning I was practicing blowing kisses to Kerala while she was eating breakfast and it really seemed like she was imitating me. Hopefully, she is picking up that as well. Her babbles continue to sound more and more like words and Troy, Ellen and I swear that she has said "daddy" twice when looking at Troy.

I am looking forward to the start of our music class this Saturday. Our last music class ended about 2 months ago. This class is for mixed age students, so Kerala will be in a class with 9 month year olds - 4 year olds. I am anxious to see how she does with the older kids. Usually she is fine w/ older kids. In fact, she tends to freak someone of them out because she chases them around or grabs onto them. Over New Year's she had backed Rollie and Henry (both 2) into the corner of their little play school bus - it was quite funny.

Below are some links to some additional videos Troy made. Don't worry everyone, someone was behind her during the stair climbing video (in fact you can see Troy's hand in places). Hope you all enjoy.

9 months, 3 weeks

2008-01-06T22:39:00.000-06:00

First of all, I apologize that we have not been posting very frequently. We went away for New Year's and have been trying to get back into the swing of things around here. Kerala had her first trip out of the state over New Year's. Every year we get together with friends over New Year's in Michigian. In the past we have rented three houses - the quiet house, medium noise house and loud house. This year we still rented three houses, but instead of the medium house it was the kids' house. In our house there were two other families and Kerala had a blast playing with all of the kids. We did have some trouble with sleeping while we were away, but it did seem to get better as the trip progressed. Kerala also had her first major injury (check out her nose in the photos). She was pulling up on our bed on the trip and fell and hit the bridge of her nose on the bed frame. We felt so horrible. Fortunately, she only cried for about 30seconds when it happened and the bruising is basically gone now. Poor girl.

Since we have been back we have done a bit of sleep training and (knock on wood) it has worked really really well. Troy and I realize that we can't go on forever rocking her to sleep, so we now put her to sleep when she is a bit drowsy and lately she has fallen right to sleep. Also, I have begun to cut out her night feedings. At first we were just going to cut out her 3:00am feeding, but last night she slept through the night completely (missing her midnight and 5:00am feeding), so maybe she has decided she doesn't need them either.

Since we last blogged Kerala has learned to waive when you say hello to her and, occassionally, good bye (although she typically claps her hands when you say good-bye). She is also babbling a lot more and I feel like some of the sounds she is making are sounding more and more like words.

One final note, my friend Kristy e-mailed me a very sweet story about her son Rollie. For those of you who know Troy, you know that he just has a way with kids. Kids just absolutely adore him and want to be around him. Anyway, Kristy and Dave and their two children, Val and Rollie, stayed in the kids' house over New Year's. Rollie who just turned 2 this past October really enjoyed playing with Troy over New Year's. Kristy e-mailed me to let me know that when she was tucking him in bed when they got back home from the trip she said "I love you Rollie" and Rollie's response was "I love Troy."

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

2007-12-27T23:57:00.000-06:00

Well, Kerala got her Christmas wish. Her bottom two teeth broke through her gums on Christmas Eve. They are still coming in but she is no longer in pain. Besides getting her two front teeth, Kerala also got a ton of cool toys, books and clothes. Kerala (with the assistance of Ellen) even gave us a present - an ornament with her hand print. We had a very successful first Christmas.

This evening we had a very very sweet musical moment. Troy started to play the piano and Kerala crawled over to it and got on her knees and started clapping. It was like she was Troy's audience and you could tell that she was really psyched to hear Troy play. Since we last blogged Kerala has had a number of milestones, including eating meat for the first time, figuring out how to climb the stairs (uh oh) and responding with clapping when we ask her to clap. She is also laughing more and more each day and it really seems like she is developing a pretty funny sense of humor.

Tomorrow morning we head out of town for Kerala's first New Year's trip. Have a great New Year's everyone!

9 months

2007-12-16T23:40:00.000-06:00

It's hard to believe that Kerala is nine months old today. She has grown so much since we have brought her home, it's just unbelievable. She still continues to clap and now is waiving a ton. She doesn't seem to waive when people are coming and going, but rather waives all of the time. We have only seen her waive in response to someone a few times. It's pretty cute though because you will be doing something like feeding her or changing her diaper and she is just waiving at you. She is still cruising around and has attempted to move along with my big exercise ball. We are thinking that maybe with the push toy she is getting for Christmas, she will start trying to walk a bit more. Also, she is progressing quite well with food lately - she is definitely very into finger food. She loves the Gerber puffs and cheese. I tried giving her hummus the last couple of days and let's just say she didn't seem to be a fan.

Also, it looks like Kerala might be getting her first tooth. She has a little bump on her gums and Ellen thought it looked a bit white. She has been drooling a bit more and has had a runny nose for awhile. Hopefully, she will have her first tooth shortly.

We had a really great weekend. Yesterday we headed over to JT and Tamra's for a holiday party. Kerala had a blast chasing all of the kids around and playing hide-n-seek with Henry. The blogged photo is Kerala kissing Carys at the party. The kids were surprised with a special visit from Santa at the party as well. Kerala did quite well on santa's lap, although she did tug at his beard. We had planned on doing our tree today, but we got about a foot of snow yesterday so the tree will wait until next weekend. We figure it's probably best to minimize the time we have with the tree in our house.

A couple more videos

2007-12-13T00:24:00.001-06:00

Here's a video of Kerala dancing to one of her favorite CDs.

And another video of Kerala showing off her skills on the piano. She's gifted.

8 months, 3 weeks

2007-12-09T23:24:00.000-06:00

I know it's been awhile, but we have been pretty busy around here. Troy is getting ready for finals and I had a pretty busy week last week at work. Fortunately, my new group at work allows me the flexibility to leave so that I can get home to have dinner with the family, play with Kerala and put her to bed. Unfortunately, that means that some nights I am up until the wee hours of the morning getting all of my work done. It's not ideal and I do feel like I am missing out on a lot, but we are making it work.

So we have added a new element to the blog - videos! Troy has been taking a ton lately and this is one of my favorites so far. As far as Kerala, she is doing awesome. This past week she started to clap and even wave a bit. She is also cruising around on the furniture. Because of Kerala's mobility and her ability to climb on things, we ended up ordering some new furniture so hopefully she won't be able to pull anything down. Sleeping is also getting better here (although right now it's almost midnight and we have had to go in and console her a couple of times already). Last night was the first night in a long long time where she slept through the night!

8 months, 1 week, 3 days

2007-11-26T22:51:00.000-06:00

It seems like Kerala is finally over the stomach flu - she finally has gotten her appetite back and is eating like a little piggy now (what a relief). While her appetite is better, her sleeping habits have gotten worse. We were at Troy's mom's for Thanksgiving weekend and she had a horrible time sleeping. I know part of it had to do with being someplace new, but her sleep habits have also been worse since we have been home. I have read that it is common for babies to go through separation anxiety when they go to sleep, so perhaps that is what this is. Kerala is definitely experiecing separation anxiety and stranger danger during her waking hours. She freaked out this past weekend when some salespeople approached us while shopping. They were telling her how cute she was, but she wouldn't have any of it.

While Kerala is a bit frightened by new people, she is really psyched about animals. Lately, she has tried to tackle our cat and is constantly chasing our cat around the house to try to get close to her. Poor Cloud use to be safe under our dining room table, but not anymore since Kerala is getting quite good at maneuvering through chairs. Kerala also experienced a couple of puppy licks on Sunday from our friends new puppy. She thought it was the funniest thing to have the puppy lick her hands and cheek - I will admit that I was a bit freaked out about it, but Kerala seemed to really love the puppy.

Kerala had a very successful first Thanksgiving. On Thursday, we had dinner at my mom's and Kerala had her very own sweet potato. On Friday, we had our second Thanksgiving dinner for the weekend and Kerala ate all of her rice cereal, a jar of baby food, and some white potatos that we mashed up for her. Other than sleep issues, she was in great spirits all weekend.

8 months, 2 days

2007-11-18T23:13:00.000-06:00

Well, the bug that Kerala got infected Ellen, Troy and me this past week. It seems like everyone is finally getting over it, but Kerala is still a bit under the weather. The doctor said that they are seeing a bug in little ones and it takes about a week or so to get it out of their system. Hopefully, Kerala will be back to her normal self by Thanksgiving. Because we were all recovering this weekend, we really didn't do much at all (although we did finally babyproof our staircase).

Kerala is mastering the art of pulling up and has started to learn how to get back down from the standing position. At the beginning of her pulling up phase she would basically get stuck standing up so that we either had to get her down or she would lunge off of whatever she was holding onto which was a bit problematic. Now she can basically go back down to a sitting position without too much difficulty. She will still occassionally let go of whatever she is holding onto to lunge after something (i.e., the cat, Troy or me).

We have also realized that Kerala is getting quite fast at crawling when she sees something she wants. Typically, you can tell that she is going to go after something because her eyes get really huge (i.e., the blogged photo) and then she makes a go as fast as she can.

7 months, 4 weeks

2007-11-13T23:15:00.000-06:00

Kerala has had a couple of milestones this past week - good and bad ones. The bad one was that she got her first case of the stomach flu. It was a very minor case, so it wasn't too bad. The other milestones are all pretty positive ones. She has learned to crawl while holding something in her hand. Normally, it's something small and she is able to move around no problem, when she tries to hold something like a 48 oz tupperware container (one of her favorite toys of late) she has some difficulty moving around. Her other big thing lately has been pulling up on everything. Troy had to move her crib mattress to the lowest level this past weekend, but unfortunately that didn't stop her from pulling up on the side of her crib this evening. Troy and I will have to figure out something since she if she falls while standing up she can get her legs through the crib slots. Hopefully, the fact that she is in a sleep sack will prevent her from attempting to pull up during the night.

This past weekend was our last music class for a bit and it was Kerala's best class ever. She was super vocal and seemed to have a ton of fun. It was also pretty funny to see her go after the toys that the teacher put down for the other babies - as soon as she saw the teacher take the toys out of the box, she attempted to make a beeline towards the other babies' toys.

Finally, I know our picture postings have been somewhat behind, but that is because we have been mostly shooting videos of Kerala. We will definitely get back into taking regular photos once the novelty of the video camara wears off - which I hope is somewhat soon for Troy since he keeps playing practical jokes on me w/ the camara.

7 months, 3 weeks, 1 day

2007-11-07T23:25:00.000-06:00

Kerala has been sleeping really really well lately. She has been taking longer naps during the day - about one hour in the am and two hours in the afternoon and has been a great mood when I get home at night. The other night when I walked into the house she started bouncing up on down on her knees because she was so excited. Getting her to go to sleep has also been a bit easier, but I think that's because we pushed her bedtime back 15 minutes so she is a bit more tired when we put her down.

Troy and I finally got a video camara so we can start uploading little films of Kerala shortly. It's kind of funny, we don't let Kerala watch any tv other than K-TV (Kerala-TV). She seems pretty confused seeing herself on the tv or computer. Troy took some great videos of her today crawling around and jumping (assisted by Troy). Her new fun game is for you to say "jump, jump, jump!" and then make her go really high in the air on the third "jump." It's cute because you can tell she is anticipating her big jump by the way she bounces her legs. It's really fun to do since she has this crazy big smile on her face the whole time.

7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days

2007-11-04T23:12:00.000-06:00

We had a wonderful weekend - very relaxing with nothing really planned. Troy attended his first music class with Kerala and me yesterday. Unfortunately, Kerala wasn't super into class. She did get excited when we played with instruments. My favorite part of the class was when Troy had to dance around in a circle with Kerala and then spin around in circles with Kerala and another dad and baby in the class. It was pretty cute. We have one more class and then we will be taking a couple of months off from music class. We are going to sign Kerala up for the next age group, but that class doesn't start until after the first of the year. In the interim, we will definitely listen to her cd's at home - her favorite one lately is her African Music Playground cd that Auntie Kim sent her. She gets so excited when the music starts and you start dancing with her.

Yesterday, we had to make a run to Kohl's and buy Kerala some warmer clothes for the winter. We got her a ton of fleece shirts and pants. Hopefully, we have stocked up enough so we won't have to make another shopping trip for awhile. We also finally ordered some babyproofing gates. As many of you knew, we have a railing around our stairway that is in need of some major baby proofing. We should have the gates in by next weekend.

The blogged photo is a picture of Kerala kissing her I am Sam doll. Kerala's big thing lately is to screech at the doll and then try to kiss it. I don't if she thinks it is a little person or what. It's pretty cute though because it really does seem like she is trying to kiss the doll and not bite his head off.

7 months, 2 weeks, 2 days

2007-11-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

I know it has been awhile since we have blogged, but we have been pretty busy around here. I really do want to blog on a more frequent basis, but sometimes it is just hard. Kerala had her first halloween yesterday - she was a mouse. We basically just had her in the halloween costume for photos. Kerala attended her first halloween party at a party hosted by our friends, Mike and Tiffany. There were five other little ones there, so Kerala had a blast. We stayed back at the house, while the other little ones went trick or treating.

Kerala has begun to interact with other babies a lot more. She will now squeal really loud if she is sitting next to a baby. At storytime this week, she grabbed the costume of a little toddler and once she got his attention she shrieked and kept shaking her head no. Unfortunately, the little toddler didn't understand why Kerala kept telling him no so he responded with some head shaking of his own.

Kerala is also starting to pull herself up a lot more on things. If she is playing at her leapfrog table she will pull herself from a knealing position to a standing one. We have to be really careful now because she has toppled over a couple of times in the process of trying to pull up onto things.

7 months, 5 days

2007-10-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

As you can see by the photo, Kerala loves to chew on everything. We thought her chewing was under control, but on Friday night she proved us wrong by biting off a piece of one of her board books. Fortunately, Troy was able to get it out of her mouth, but it was pretty scary. Sleeping seems to be getting much better. The last two nights she went down pretty easily. Last night I put her to bed with her still be slightly awake and she fell to sleep without a fuss. Tonight she cried for about a minute after I put her down and then went right to sleep. One thing that we have changed is that we have put something in her crib that smells like me. The first night it was a t-shirt. When Troy and I went to check on her she was sleeping hugging the shirt. When we checked on her again, however, she had the shirt covering her face which made me a bit nervous so we took it out. Now she sleeps with a burp cloth that I slept with a couple of nights. I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but I am hoping it does.

Kerala is progressing quite well on the crawling front. She seems to be getting up on a all fours a bit more consistenly rather than just army crawling. She is getting quite good at making a beeline for things that you don't want her to get. We definitely have to watch her!

7 months

2007-10-16T21:47:00.000-05:00

As you can tell by the blogged photo, we have a bit of baby proofing to do. Kerala is now quite the master at army crawling and was super excited to check out the blue light on Troy's computer. Fortunately, she isn't the fastest crawler, but we won't have long before her crawling is out of control.

Lately sleep has been somewhat of a problem for Kerala. At night she refuses to go down and it's quite a battle. I have been rocking her to sleep, but now she even gets really squirmy with me rocking her and it now takes about 45 minutes to get her to go to sleep. As many of you know, Kerala hasn't been the best sleeper and it seems to be getting much much worse lately. During the day she seems to nap okay - taking about a 45 minute - 1 hr nap in the am, 1 - 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon and sometimes a 20-30 minute nap in the late afternoon or early evening. We would like her to nap a bit more during the day, but she really isn't much for napping. Hopefully we will be able to resolve these sleep issues and by her 8 month birthday I can report that all is well with her sleeping.

We are still moving along with solids pretty well. We just wrapped up the trial run of peas and I don't think she was the biggest fan. She would eat them, but wasn't super excited about them at all. Tomorrow we are moving onto oatmeal, so we will see if she likes that better than rice cereal.

6 months, 4 weeks

2007-10-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

Check out Kerala in her very cute Illini outfit doing the field goal sign. We have two new games that we have been playing with Kerala. The first one is giving her rides around in the laundry basket. She gets super pscyhed if you move her in front of the mirrow. The second game is playing with our big blue exercise ball with Kerala. She really loves it if you bounce the ball or pretend like you are going to roll it over her.

Kerala is still practicing crawling - sometimes she will move really well, but most of the time she makes a couple of attempts at moving and then sprawls out on the ground. Her most recent activity has been doing the downward facing dog yoga position. She will get in a crawl position, but then raise her bottom really high in the air so it really does look like she is doing yoga.

Kerala has been progressing very well with food. Although tonight she was not excited about food at all. She had a bit of rice cereal and then a couple of small bites of peas. I am not sure if she just didn't like the peas or was not really hungry since she really wanted to nurse right before dinner time. We will try peas again tomorrow and see how that goes.

6 months, 3 weeks, 1 day

2007-10-08T23:07:00.000-05:00

We have had a busy few days - a crawl, sweet potatoes and a marathon guest. On Thursday night, Kerala started to crawl a bit. It wasn't pretty, but she was on all fours and crawling a bit. She has only crawled on all fours a few times since, so hopefully it wasn't a fluke and she will be on her way. Even though she isn't up on all fours, she is learning to army crawl and to creep across the floors - she is definitely mobile which means we are off to buy baby fences this coming weekend.

Kerala has started to really like solids. She now gets super excited for her feedings, which is really cute. Similar to her cousin Hannah at this age, she will start to wave her arms in the air once she sees the spoon. Today wrapped up her three day trial of sweet potatoes and she is a fan. Tomorrow we are going to try pears, so we will see. The only negative to her increased interest in solids is that she is drinking less milk, which isn't good. Today, she wasn't really interested in the bottle at all and Ellen struggled to get her to take what she did. Hopefully, this is just a very short lived phase and she will be back to her usual consumption of milk.

This past weekend we had my friend Laura stay with us. Laura ran and finished the crazy Chicago marathon. Great job Laura! We had a very nice visit - Laura even watched Kerala for us Saturday while Troy and I attempted to install Kerala's fancy new car seat. Unfortunately, the car seat won and we had to ask our friend Tamra for assistance (thanks Tamra)

Finally, this past week Troy and I (mainly Troy) set a new record for photos. Troy took almost 400 photos of his little baby. Most of the photos were taken when Kerala was helping daddy fold clothes (the blogged photo is one of those - Kerala loves to munch on her wash clothes).
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6 months, 2 weeks, 3 days

2007-10-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

We have added a new element to the blog page to track our introduction of new foods to Kerala. I have also included her response. She actually did a lot better tonight with her rice cereal - this time we mixed it with water which she seemed to tolerate. We also tried a bit of very ripe avocado last night, which she did not seem to like at all. So far Troy, Ellen and I have mashed up bananas for her, but this weekend we may consider trying some commercial baby food to see if she likes it any better.

As you can see by the blogged photo, Kerala is getting really close to crawling. She is constantly up on all fours, she just can't figure out how everything works together. She has pushed herself backwards a couple of times, but usually she will move either her arms or legs and then collapse. She is getting really strong though - I am just amazed. Kerala has also began to kick her legs in the bathtub. Usually Kereala only splashes with her arms. Recently, she has realized that she can also splash by kicking her legs, which results in much much bigger splashes. The bathroom is truly a mess during Kerala's bath time. Finally, Kerala has added "da da" to her babbling vocabulary. It's quite cute - this morning Troy and I woke up to "da da da da da da da...."

6 months, 2 weeks

2007-09-30T23:29:00.000-05:00

Everyday we see signs that our little girl is getting bigger. Today, we had to move her crib mattress down two levels because she was starting to grab onto the side of the crib. We don't think she could have pulled herself up, but we didn't want to take any chances. Today, we also realized that we had to move up a level of diapers since she kept having accidents in her size two diapers. Kerala is also on her way to crawling - on Friday night she pulled herself all the way across our bed. She wasn't getting her bottom up, but she definitely has the arm strength so we don't think it will be much longer before we need to do some major babyproofing.

This past week, Kerala had a pretty funny experience at her story time. Apparently, she got so excited that she scared the two toddlers that were sitting in front of her. Ellen wasn't sure if she was excited over the story or the possibility of grabbing the two toddlers in front of her. I hope Kerala doesn't get the reputation around the neighborhood as a bully.

As far as eating is going, we introduced bananas to her this weekend. She seemed to like the bananas a bit more than the rice cereal, but that isn't saying too much. The doctor said that it's not that big of a deal if she doesn't eat the solids since we are just trying to introduce her to using a spoon and swallowing solids.

6 months, 1 week, 1 day

2007-09-24T22:42:00.000-05:00

Kerala finally had her first real meal of solids - and when I mean real, I mean she actually got a couple of spoonfuls of rice cereal. She still isn't psyched about it, but at least she is making progress. It seems like every day she gets a bit more cereal. She has been grabbing the spoon out of our hands and putting it in her mouth - unfortunately, in the process of grabbing the spoon she gets cereal all over her hands but that's okay. She does reach out to grab the bowl, but so far we have been able to keep that away from her.

The blogged photo is Kerala playing in the tray attached to her booster chair. Ellen had the great idea of filling it up with water and letting Kerala splash in it, which Kerala loved.

6 months, 1 week

2007-09-23T22:48:00.000-05:00

Poor Kerala has had a cold the last few days. She is super congested and it's just the saddest thing ever. Hopefully, she will get over it pretty soon. Despite the cold, she has actually been in pretty good spirits until the evening. Right around bedtime she gets pretty congested and fights (even more than usual) going to sleep.

Kerala has started to sleep on her belly a bit. Sometimes she will roll over onto her belly and wake up totally upset that she is on her belly, while other times she is perfectly content sleeping on her belly. It's pretty cute to see her pop the binkie in her mouth and then immediately her head falls to the bed - it's amazing how comforting the binkie is to her.

As far as food is going, we have made some progress. Kerala actually is super psyched about water now. She is able to drink from her sippy cup, which is super cute. She has even taken a couple of sips from my glass of water as well. Today, was the first day it seemed like she actually "ate" some rice cereal. It wasn't a ton, but she definitely got some of it in her mouth. Our doctor said that once Kerala has mastered the rice cereal we can add a fruit to breakfast and a veggie to dinner. Hopefully, we will be able to do that next weekend.

The blogged photo is Kerala on the swing at the park. She really enjoys swinging. She is a bit small for the swing, so we put a blanket behind her - otherwise, she is perfectly content. Poor Troy had to listen to me say "not so high" about a million times (I am a bit over protective). Also, check out Kerala and Silas at their music class in the September photos. Kerala and I are really enjoying the class, especially since Tamra and Silas are in it as well.

6 months, 3 days

2007-09-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

Check out Kerala in her cute hat that Ellen knitted for her. It's great because it's big enough so Kerala doesn't realize its on so she doesn't try to take it off immediately. Thanks Ellen - we love the hat! Kerala definitely looks like an urban baby in it.

Kerala had her 6 month doctor appointment today. The doctor said that Kerala is doing great and was even amazed at some of the things that Kerala was doing during the appointment. Kerala more than doubled her birth weight (yay!) and is back to her 75% for height. Her doctor said that we should introduce solids now - start with cereal and once she has mastered cereal add fruits and veggies. We tried cereal again today and Kerala was not a fan. If there is no food on the spoon she will play with it and stick it in her mouth, but once we add the cereal she doesn't want to have anything to do with the spoon. So something to work on. Ellen is going to try to give Kerala a bit of breakfast tomorrow and we will try dinner tomorrow night. The doctor also gave us the go ahead to make our own baby food (everything except for carrots and spinach). Depending on how well cereal is going, Troy and I may try to make up some food this weekend. The only down part to the appointment was the shots Kerala received. She has been a bit fussy today and now has a little bruise on her thigh from one of the shots. We have been giving her tylenol and hopefully she will sleep pretty well tonight. It was a bit difficult getting her down tonight even though she was clearly tired.

6 months!

2007-09-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Well Kerala turned six months today. In honor of her half birthday, we tried a bit of rice cereal for lunch. Up until this point, she had been exclusively nursed with a bit of formula this past week. She did not appear to like the cereal very much at all. She maybe took half of a spoon and then spent the rest of the time trying to avoid having the spoon near her mouth. It's funny because everything else she tries to put in her mouth, but not the spoon. We also tried giving her a bit of water, but again she was not super psyched about the water. She did enjoy throwing her sippy cup, so that's a start. Grandma Perry was able to witness Kerala's first "solid" meal today, so that was nice.

This past weekend, we enjoyed a really nice bbq at Chrissy's and Sean's. Kerala was super pscyhed to see her friend Valerie Violet. Kerala squealed at Valerie and kept trying to munch on Valerie's shoes, which was a bit odd. Lately Kerala has been obsessed with whatever has been on her feet (check out the pictures of her trying to munch on her pumpkin slippers that Grandma Perry got her). We wrapped up the weekend with a visit from Grandma Perry, which was very pleasant.

Also, thanks Chika for the post about Kerala's outfit. Believe it or not, we got that outfit for $.75 from the Salvation Army! Troy and I are going to head there this weekend to see if we can get some cute fall clothes for Kerala.

5 months, 4 weeks

2007-09-13T23:19:00.000-05:00

Lately, we have been able to explore Kerala's closet a bit more and put her in clothes 6 - 9 months old. Everything is still a bit big (some are really big), but it's nice that she is moving up in size. She does have quite the range - there are a couple of sweaters from when she was 0 - 3 months that she can still fit into, but for the most part she is in either 6 months or 9 months clothes.

Kerala has gone to sleep so well the last two evenings. When I put her in her crib she doesn't fuss at all, but instead goes right to sleep. Although I doubt it will, I hope this trend continues. I wish I could say that napping is going as well. Kerala had a particuarly rough time going to sleep during the day - some days she falls right to sleep and some days she does everything she can to fight sleep. Any suggestions for naptimes would be greatly appreciated by us (and Ellen)!

This week Kerala attended her first story time. A local children's shop hosts story time every Wednesday. Ellen said Kerala was fascinated by the other children there and the actual storyteller who was apparently very animated. Ellen and Kerala even picked up two new books that Kerala is really enjoying chewing on. One day she will love to read and not just eat her books.

Finally, I forgot to mention Kerala's new activity in the bathtub. If you trickle water from a cup right in front of her she tries to grab it with her hand. It's really cute to see her grasping at the water and trying to figure out why she can't grab hold of it. Also, bathtime seems to be getting more and more crazy with water splashing. We bought her these cups that she can fill up with water and she has gotten quite good and splashing the cups so that water goes everywhere (including all over Troy's face).

5 months, 3 weeks, 4 days

2007-09-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

Lately, Kerala has been trying to grab everything in sight - including the camara. If she is anywhere near the camera, she starts to do everything she can to move towards it, which is pretty funny to watch since it's a lot of wiggling around. Her interest in the camera lets us take some pretty good close ups of her.

Today, Kerala seemed to have a pretty rough day sleeping wise - Ellen has noticed that Mondays tend to be the hardest day for her, which is a bit sad. Overall she seems to be adjusting to Ellen really well and super pschyed to see her in the morning, but I think it is hard for her after we have been together all weekend. Although this past weekend, I didn't get to play with her as much as normally would because I get pretty sick and ended up having to go the doctor on Saturday to get antibiotics. Fortunately, my illness did not prevent us from going to music class with Tamra and Silas. It was really fun to go to music class with a friend - unfortunately, now someone I know will know how horrible my voice is.

5 months, 2 weeks, 5 days

2007-09-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

Kerala has officially moved from her infant stroller to her infant/toddler stroller. She seems to like it for the most part, although she does have a hard time going to sleep in it because it doesn't recline as much. We have been pretty busy since we last posted. Our friends, Joel, Chika and their two sons - Noah and Ren, were in town. Unfortunatley, I was unable to visit with them because I was working, but Troy and Kerala got to hang out with them. Kerala and Ellen went to yoga on Friday. Ellen said that Kerala was a big hit in the class. Over the weekend, Kerala went to a birthday party for her friend Camille who turned one years old - happy b-day Camille! On Monday, we headed to the zoo with a few other families. It was really hot and sunny, but overall a really good day. Kerala was great - she really didn't fuss much during the day.

I can't believe it, but in two weeks Kerala will be 6 months old! We are anxiously looking forward to her first meal of solids after we get the clearance from her pediatrician.

5 months, 1 week, 3 days

2007-08-26T22:02:00.000-05:00

So Kerala's hair has been growing like crazy lately ... actually, Troy just wanted to see what she would look like with a ton of hair so he borrowed some of mine. Kerala and I were actually napping during this photo shoot. Last week I completed my second week of work. It's been going okay - I try to leave by 5:15 or so, that way I can spend sometime with Kerala before she gets really fussy. While it's not ideal at all, I do get to spend about a hour and half with her in the am and then another hour and half in the evening.

We had a really good weekend. We went down to Bloomington to see Grandma Sue. Kerala was really good. Evening her sleeping wasn't so bad and that's something that we have been really working on this past week. A really pleasant surprise for us was the car ride. Both ways, Kerala was either happy and playing or asleep. There was never a moment when she was really upset in the car, so that was wonderful. We finished up the weekend at Grandma Phyllis' where we had a very nice dinner.

As far as Kerala is going developmentally, she is progressing really well. She can sit up for long periods without any assistance. She still topples over every once in awhile, but that's to be expected. Troy and I have also noticed that she really loves other children. Troy took her to yoga class this week and he said she was super psyched to see the other babies. Also, she got really excited to see herself in the mirror and to meet Grandma Sue's next door neighbor Ben, who is a year older then Kerala. It's really fun to see her interact with other children or herself, as in the case of the mirror - I would love to know what she is thinking.

5 months, 3 days

2007-08-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

Well, this was my first week back at work and it seemed to go pretty well. While I am at the office a bit more than I would like, I have been able to get home before Kerala gets too fussy in the evening and spend some quality time with her. Kerala really seems to like Ellen and Ellen has been doing a really good job at trying to get Kerala on a sleep schedule. We are still working on it, but hopefully over the next few weeks she will sleep on a more regular schedule.

This past weekend was very exciting for us because Kerala has really began to sit on her own. We have been using her bumbo chair for the past two months to help her with sitting, but this past weekend we were able to remove the support around her and let her sit on her own. She still tumbles over, but she can go some pretty long stretches and totally be fine. It's also nice to see her try to regain balance once she starts to tumble. It also seems like she is laughing a lot more lately. She really likes to laugh at big arm movements - it's pretty funny. We also enjoyed a play date with Silas, Henry and Tamra yesterday. Tamra took some really cute photos of Kerala and Silas doing tummy time together. I will share the photos once Tamra posts them. We finished the weekend with a trip to my mom's for dinner. Kerala was terrific despite being a bit tired.

Last Day of Maternity Leave/4 months, 4 weeks

2007-08-13T22:57:00.000-05:00

Well, today is my last day of maternity leave. I am not really looking forward to going back. I am a bit more at ease because we have a really great person watching Kerala. Kerala really seems to like Ellen and I think they will have fun together - I am just sad that I won't be around all of the time with Kerala.

This past week we went back to our yoga class. We had not been for a few weeks and I was a bit concerned about how Kerala would be in the class. Kerala had her best class ever. She did not fuss a bit and really seemed to enjoy the class. Also, Ellen and I attended an infant massage class for Kerala. Kerala didn't really nap very well before class, so she only enjoyed about half of the class. Also, this past weekend two of my sisters were staying with us for my Dad's memorial service. Kerala really enjoyed spending time with her aunties. Auntie Kim discovered that Kerala really likes it when you do cheers in front of her. Right now her favorite one is "Explode! Ignite! Kerala is dynamite!" Kerala laughs so hard when Auntie Kim does that cheer. She also enjoyed spending time with Auntie Heather because Heather knows absolutely every baby song ever written (and she sings a lot better than me).

Our goal for this week is to get Kerala back on a regular napping schedule. Right now she wakes up at 7:00 and then goes down about 8:00 or 8:15 and then after that she is all over the place. Wish us luck!

4 months, 2 weeks, 6 days

2007-08-05T22:39:00.000-05:00

As some of you may have noticed, we haven't been blogging a lot lately. As some of you know, my father has been battling leukemia for the last several months and passed away this past week after being in intensive care for the past few weeks. He was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after Kerala was born and it moved really fast through his system. I keep thinking about how my maternity leave started with the happiest event of my life and it is ending with the saddest event of my life. The blogged photo was taken back in June and is one of the last photos I have of my dad and Kerala. Troy and I will start blogging on more of a regular basis in the coming weeks.

4 months, 2 days

2007-07-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

Kerala had her 4 month appointment today. Poor girl - she had to have four shots. Other than her face turning beet red and crying for a few seconds, Kerala did really well. She calmed down as soon as we held her and was actually even smiling before we left the exam room. The doctor said she is doing great - she is steadily gaining weight and is still 25% for weight. Her percentage for height dropped from 75% to 50-75% but the doctor said she kind of expected that Kerala wouldn't be as tall as her initial measurements indicated. We also go the go ahead to use an exercauser with her. The doctor also gave us some tips on getting her to nap longer - basically Kerala will only nap for about 30 to 45 minutes if she naps in her crib. If I let her nap in our bed she typically will nap for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The doctor said to go ahead and let her sleep in the bed because it's probably just her signal that she wants to be close to me rather than be in a crib. The doctor also said that she thought this would probably pass when I go back to work. After the appointment, Kerala slept from 11:00am until about 2:30. When she woke up she was really fussy so I gave her a bit more tylenol because it seemed like her legs were really bothering her. She took two more naps and then went down about 8:15. We heard a couple of whimpers out of her, but she seems to be sleeping pretty well.

The last two nights we have tried to put Kerala down while she is still a bit drowsy rather than rocking her completely to sleep. Last night worked a bit better than tonight, but overall she seems to be getting better at going to sleep on her own.

I forgot to mention in our last blog that Troy made his own root beer. He is still working with recipes. The first batch was a bit strong and we really couldn't stomach it, but he is going to try again.

3 months, 4 weeks, 1 day

2007-07-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

We have had a pretty eventful weekend with Kerala. On Friday, we attended our yoga class. We were super happy to discover that our friend Jessica and her son Gabe were also enrolled. Kerala had a pretty good class - she got a bit fussy after some of the moves, so we sat out a portion of the class. On Saturday, we met one of my old colleagues for brunch - Kerala was wonderful at the restaurant. She only fussed when we were leaving. After brunch we headed over to our friends JT and Tamra's for a bit. Today, Kerala attended her first farmers' market - she was perfect the entire time. We finished up the weekend at my parents' house for dinner.

Kerala has been sleeping really well the last couple of days. For the past two nights she has slept in her crib the entire night (I usually end up bringing her to bed with us if she wakes up past 3am). She still wakes up during the night - but only at 11:00pm, 2:30am and then sometime after 6:30. On Saturday, she took a 2 hour nap in the late afternoon and went to bed so easily. Today, it seemed like she napped the entire day. Troy even got her to go to sleep on her own - I usually rock her to sleep. I don't know if she is getting into more of a routine or a growth spurt - but she definitely seems to be sleeping better. Also, her napping better during the day helps with getting her to bed at night - she normally screams before she goes to bed, but I think that may be because she has been overtired. Finally, I forgot to mention that Kerala has begun to really like her baths. She has been splashing like crazy lately leaving me and the bathroom wall sopping wet. It's been fun to see her go from hating her baths to actually enjoying. I think she is offically ready for water fights - so Jim come back (he claims to be up 2 to 0 against Kerala in water fights).

Tomorrow Kerala turns 4 months - I can't believe it! It's kind of sad because it means I'll be heading back to work soon.

3 months, 3 weeks, 5 days

2007-07-12T21:36:00.000-05:00

Kerala has been rolling like crazy lately. Up until today, she had only rolled from back to tummy once, but today she did it about 10 times in a row. It was pretty darn cute. Also, Kerala has learned to suck in air and make these crazy sounds. I am happy she did it during the day because if I heard it at 4:00am over the monitor it would have freaked me out. She is also giggling more and today I got a belly laugh out of her.

Since our last post, we went to our first pilates class. Kerala seemed to enjoy it a ton until she got a bit tired towards the end. For most of the moves, Kerala sits on my tummy so we can look at each other which she likes. On Tuesday, we had another music class. Kerala did really well - we went through the entire music class and dinner at Chrissy and Sean's without any crying. Also, during class Kerala was talking a ton - usually she is pretty quiet during the class, but this week she squealed a lot. Again, this week I had to sing in front of the class! On Wednesday, Troy's mom came for a visit. It was great - she cleaned our house and did our laundry in between playing with Kerala. Tomorrow we head off to yoga class with our friend Lara and her son Andrew.

3 months, 3 weeks, 1 day

2007-07-08T21:56:00.000-05:00

The family has a very busy past few days. On Friday, Kerala and I headed for another mommy and me yoga class. Kerala did really really well. The first class we attended she was hysterical for half of the class, but this class she was pretty content throughout the entire class. The class was really fun and I think I am going to sign up for an 8 week session. On Saturday, Troy surprised me for our anniversary (seven years!) by sending me to a local spa and then arranging for babysitters so we could head out for a quick dinner. We actually made it back in time from dinner to give Kerala her bath and get her to bed. Thanks to Todd, Brandy, Jim and Karin for babysitting again! On Sunday, we took it easy because it's so hot her (sorry Kim and Heather - I know it's not as hot as where you guys are). We didn't really go out until we headed to my parents for dinner. Kerala was really fussy at mom and dad's because she was really tired. She only took one real afternoon nap. When we tried putting her down for her later afternoon nap she refused to go to sleep. Fortunately, she did sleep a little bit at my parents and she went to bed at her normal time.

Lately, Kerala has been screeching really loudly when Troy kisses her cheek and neck. She seems to be enjoying the kisses although the screeching is super super loud. She is also raising her butt off the ground during tummy time which is pretty cute. We have attempted to get her to like tummy time a bit more by reserving her flower toy only for tummy time, which seems to help a bit. Kerala has also begun to stick one of her fingers in her nose - when she puts her two fingers in her mouth a third sometimes ends up in her nose. She seems to be a bit confused about whatever is in her nose. While it sounds gross, it's actually really cute. Tomorrow we are going to pilates with Jessica, Gabe, Tamra and Silas.

3 months, 2 weeks, 4 days

2007-07-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Yesterday Kerala and I went to her music class - I actually had to sing in front of the whole class! I was not so psyched about that given that I am tone death and there is an opera singer student in our class. Other than that, Kerala and I had a great class. It was the first year in awhile that we did not head down to see the fireworks in person - we did watch them on tv though (not the same at all). Troy didn't have to work today which was very nice. We went on a super long walk to check out a new organic pizza place. Unfortunately, it was closed. Kerala enjoyed the walk a lot - she was in her baby bjorn so she got to see a ton of stuff on the walk. Once we moved her to her stroller she fell right to sleep and stayed asleep until we got home. The three of us wrapped up Fourth of July with a bbq at our friends Heather and Stu's. It's crazy the difference a year makes - last year on the Fourth we had just found out we were pregnant and now we have our little girl!

3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days

2007-07-02T22:33:00.000-05:00

Since our last blog, Troy and I had a night out on the town, we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday and Kerala rolled from back to tummy (well, almost the whole way)! On Friday night, Troy and I attended a work function of Troy's at the planetarium. Kerala was in good hands - we had four babysitters for her! Our friends, Brandy, Todd, Jim and Karin agreed to babysit for Kerala - they even gave her a bath and got her to bed around her normal bedtime. According to the babysitting crew, Kerala was even kicking in the bathtub and having a ton of fun! Troy and I had a really nice evening out - it was great to meet all of Troy's coworkers. The last time Troy and I had a date night (or at least, non Kerala evening out) was when she was about 6 weeks old. While I do love spending every minute with Kerala, it was nice to get out.

On Saturday, my Aunt Anne and Uncle Don hosted a 70th birthday party for my dad. We saw a whole bunch of relatives and friends from down state. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos - the only photo I have is of Kerala in the lap of Larry, a family friend. Kerala was pretty fussy during the party because she was a bit sleep deprived - she usually sleeps in the car, but for some reason she was up for most of the ride out to my Aunt Anne and Uncle Don's.

On Sunday, the most exciting event of all occurred - Kerala rolled most of the way from back to tummy (check out the blogged photo). Up until Sunday, Kerala had only rolled from tummy to back. Sunday was her first day of rolling back to tummy - we took the advice of our friend Maureen and placed her favorite toy out of her reach and she rolled for it. Let's see if she keeps it up. Kerala has also been sitting really well and bearing weight on her legs. Tomorrow we are going to try to go to a mommy and baby pilates class at 9:00 and then our music class at 4:30.

3 months, 1 week, 4 days

2007-06-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

Kerala had a pretty busy day today - she hosted a playdate with two of her new friends, Jonah and Andrew. Both babies are about two weeks old and it was crazy to see the difference 3 months makes. Kerala was super happy and didn't really fuss at all during the playdate - a huge change from the first playdate she hosted. Kerala's busy day wrapped up with a dinner with our friend JT.

Kerala has officially moved from 0-3 month clothes to 3-6 month clothes. I am super psyched because she has a ton of cute clothes in this size that I have been dying to put on her. She can still fit into some of her 0-3 month clothes, but now she has a ton of more options, which is very exciting. Lately I have been trying to get Kerala to nap in her crib. Normally she won't go to sleep unless I lay down with her. Today, she did one of her morning naps in her crib and I am hoping that she will begin to take her afternoon nap in her crib as well. We still don't have much of a schedule, but I understand that babies don't really get on a nap schedule until about 4 months. I have been trying though to track when she seems to naturally be tired and hopefully we can work a schedule around that. Also, lately I have noticed that Kerala sleeps with one eye open - my friend Tiffany had noticed this before, but she didn't seem to do it around me until lately. While we seem to have our evening routine down pretty well, the last few nights have been pretty hard sleep wise. Kerala seems to wake up every two hours or so until about 3:00am. Hopefully, she will get back onto a longer stretch of time soon.

3 months, 1 week and 2 days

2007-06-25T23:23:00.000-05:00

Since yoga on Friday, we have been pretty low key. On Saturday, we went to a bbq at Todd and Brandy's. Kerala got to meet our friends Diane and Jim's son, Jack. Jack is 7 months old - so a bit bigger than Kerala. It's really neat to see the difference a few months make. Jack and Kerala took a couple of photos together, but other than that didn't really have much to do with each other since Kerala slept for a good part of the bbq. Over the weekend we have gotten a couple of belly laughs out of Kerala. Unfortunately for us, Kerala doesn't seem to laugh at the same thing twice - so we have to keep topping ourselves with funny things which is getting a bit hard. We have also tried to introduce a bottle to Kerala because Troy and I have a work function on Friday and I won't be around to feed her. It's been difficult but Troy was finally able to get her to take a bottle. She basically won't take a bottle if I am anywhere near her. Tomorrow we have another music class. I am looking forward to it because our friend Karin may attend as well.

3 months, 6 days

2007-06-22T22:52:00.000-05:00

Today Kerala and I had our first yoga class together. We met up with Tamra and Silas at a local yoga studio for mommy and baby yoga. Kerala seemed to really enjoy the first half of the class. The instructor taught us some stretches for the babies which Kerala really enjoyed. I taught them to Troy this evening and he spent about 15 minutes this evening doing yoga with Kerala. As I mentioned, Kerala liked the first half of the class. She got really fussy during the second half of the class. I was able to calm her down by sitting with her on an exercise ball and slightly bouncing. So many people recommended this to us and I must say it really does work - she went from screaming to sleeping in about a minute.

The other big thing of the day was that Kerala was laughing pretty hard at Troy this evening. He kept making these really silly noises and faces and she thought it was histarical. We have never seen her laugh like that so it was really sweet. Lately, she has been making a ton of new noises and is much more verbal. She has been so talkative that last night I thought she was awake at around midnight but it turned out to be her cooing in her sleep. It was pretty sweet.

3 months, 5 days

2007-06-21T22:56:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have had a pretty busy week since our last post. On Saturday, Kerala hosted a playdate for six of her little friends and their parents. We started at a local park and then moved to our house for a bbq. Overall, I think it was a success and everyone had a nice time. On Saturday afternoon, we visited with Grandma and Grandpa Perry, my sister and neice. After Grandma and Grandpa Perry's we headed over to our friends Cullen and Tabitha's for a birthday party for their daughter, Helen. On Sunday, Troy celebrated his first father's day. It was pretty low key - Heather treated everyone to lunch for father's day. On Monday, Heather and Hannah made the trek into the city to visit us. We had a really nice visit - I am sad to see them go back to California.

On Tuesday, we had a very exciting day - Kerala had a doctor's appointment and then we went to our music class. The doctor's appointment went really well. Kerala is still 25% for weight - but the doctor said that's perfect because she is maintaining her weight class, so no worries and we should continue to breastfeed. The doctor did confirm that Kerala has started the teething process. While she doesn't have any teeth popping in yet, her gums have started to thicken. Troy and I kind of suspected it since she has begun to drool a lot more and loves to have hard things pressed against her gums. Overall, the doctor said Kerala looked great. After her doctor's appointment we headed home to nap before our music class. We got to our music class a bit early and I had an opportunity to talk to the teacher about my tone deafness. It's kind of funny, I think our teacher feels like she needs to give extra attention to Kerala because I am such a horrible singer. This week we sung a couple of songs in front of mirrors, so Kerala got to check herself out which she enjoyed. We also danced a lot more this week - this class is killing me with all of the singing and dancing we are doing! After music class, Chrissy and Sean had us over for dinner - it was lovely.

On Wednesday, Kerala and I met up for lunch with JT, Tamra and Silas. It was especially nice because they treated! After lunch, Kerala, Tamra, Silas and I met up with our friend Jessica and her son, Gabe and headed out for a walk around Bucktown. We look pretty funny trecking around Bucktown since we all have the same type of stroller.

Today, Tamra and I went for pedicures. The babies were a bit fussy - but Tamra actually calmed both of them down. Today is also Troy's birthday - he had a work event so we will be celerbrating it this weekend. Tomorrow, Kerala and I will be doing a new activity - mommy and baby yoga!