Busy December

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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.