Happy New Year

 

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

 

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...

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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.