Not Bananas About Bananas

Since K. seems to still be hungry after eating her fruit and cereal for lunch, I decided to add in some additional fruit and thought, "Why not use real fruit?" Since we had bananas, and I don't have to cook them in order to feed them to her, I ground up part of a banana to give to her. She Did Not Like The Bananas. I tried alternating bites of banana with the cereal. She made the most extreme "yuck" faces and made gagging noises (which I think are just for show). I tried mixing in part banana with part fruit and cereal, then alternating with bites of just her normal fruit and cereal. That didn't work, as she always knew which the "tainted" bites were. I tried reducing the amount of banana per other stuff, but like the story of the princess and the pea, she could still tell. I'll give her a week and try it again.

Temporary Happiness

K. perked up a bit this evening from her grumpy teething (see previous post) and even managed some smiles once Dad got home.

She got a new chair for the patio (thanks, Grandma J.) that she tried out after dinner. It's a bit cold today to go outside, so I put her next to the sliding door, so she could pretend to be outside. Actually, she really hasn't been outside much at all. I think this spring will be a shocker to her, in a good way.

Teething Troubles

K. is not having trouble, per se, teething. It is just a troublesome time, teething is. She has another tooth that has made an appearance on the top gums, and has been crying pretty much all week. My guess is that there are three more right behind it (well, not behind exactly--there's only one, a permanent one, behind it--the other three would be in line with it). I would have included a picture of her with this post, as I am accustomed to doing, but every time I turned on the camera, she burst into tears. I don't think the two are related.

I have figured out a reason that it seems like she takes long-ish naps but is still tired. Her actual time napping is short--she wanders around her crib a while before falling asleep, and actually wakes up much sooner than I though. She amuses herself for quite some time before crying. She plays with the little doll she has in there, turns on the music of her crib soother, and plays with the toys on her crib mirror. We have a set of surveillance cameras, mostly to watch from upstairs if we're waiting for someone to come to the door. B. was nice enough to set one up above her crib so I can see if she's asleep or not (as long as there is some ambient light in the room). I'm watching her now and she's holding her doll and talking to her (I hear over the monitor and through her door). In the afternoon, often she'll wake up after not very long, play a little, then fall back asleep. I think she's done sleeping for this afternoon, though, so I'm going to go play with her. See ya!

Now She's Cookin'

My friend C. and I traded some organizing for K.'s cute new kitchen, which she loves. The sink and stove and oven make noises, and that just thrills K.

I took some pictures of her "cooking" this morning, and she would play, turn to me and smile, turn back and play, then turn and smile again. She actually did it several times, like she was posing.

K. likes to play, and is comfortable playing on her own (especially if there's Mom or Dad nearby). She tends to get overwhelmed in groups or when things are loud. I'm not realy sure if that's just because she's not used to groups, or if it is just her personality, or if it is a combination. I've been trying to expose her to many things--we went to a fun playgroup on Monday and she's had friends over periodically. I'm not really sure what to do--if it is just her personality that makes her be overwhelmed, is it even fair to let her become overwhelmed? I've tried to give her a variety of experiences so far (we go to church, nursery, out shopping, to other people's houses), and we still do things she's uncomfortable with--I just try to let her sit on my lap if she cries. At this point, I'm just keeping on with the "adding to her life experiences" while trying to be in tune with how she's feeling. Any advice?

Here's some video of her playing:

Easter Smiles

Easter Grins

K. wore her cute polka-dot dress to church today. Of course, since Easter was so early and it was barely above freezing when we left, she wore it with a sweater.

K. and Mom

Easter Happiness

A very happy Easter to everyone as we celebrate our risen Lord! I look forward to K. being old enough to learn what Easter is all about.

Deep in Thought

K. and Mom

Today, K. and I went to an Easter egg hunt at the church. I was in a puppet show and couldn't bear to leave her at home all morning. She took a nice nap during the main program and completely missed the hunting for the eggs (but since she's not allowed candy, it wouldn't really have been that fun for her anyway). She's going to really enjoy next year!

Fancy Moves

As she gets increasingly mobile, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me when K. is able to do something new, but it still does. The last couple of days she has been crawling, sitting, crawling, sitting, crawling, sitting, crawling quite frequently. She is very confident in going to a sit from a crawl, and it seems like she went from trying it once to it being part of her repertoire. It's amazing how infants acquire skills!

Another new thing for K. today is that, while playing with her house (which seems to be a recurring posting on this blog: "the house this, the house that, blah blah blah--it's supposed to be a blog about K., not the house!), she kneeled and reached up to the numbers above the door. They spin and make sounds, and she sat (kneeled) there patiently and played with them for a while. She left, then came back, and remembered that she had used the porch light for assistance in getting herself up there. I know it's a very normal thing for a kid to do, but I am a proud mama nonetheless.

Early Easter

Happy early Easter! Here is K. posing (well, she's not really posing, she's trying to get the funny thing offf of her head). A good friend of ours gave K. these ears, and I think they're darling.

My little chick and a little chick.

Reluctant Rabbit

" But Mom, I don't wanna be a bunny any more!"

At the Library

K. and I spent a little time in the children's library at our church. I wanted to take her in there sometime it wasn't crowded--she tends to get a little overwhelmed in large groups (gee, I wonder where she got that from--both of her parents are outgoing in large groups...oh.)
There's the most adorable red sectional there (it has shelves on the back, but you can't see those in the picture). She will soon be able to crawl up onto it on her own. I helped her up this time.She's going to have so much fun once she figures out what words are!

K. playing with a sea turtle--there's a beach/ocean theme in the library and several large, fun stuffed animals that she became friends with today.

Ideally, K. will pull some books off the shelf and bring them over to this 'browser' table to read them. For now, though, it's just right for her to practice pulling up on. She was very interested in the turtle rug on the top. And to K., all tables and similar hard surfaces are percussive items. Her hand is a little blurry because she was banging on the top of the table. She loves to sit upright, and has since she was itty bitty and couldn't do it on her own. I think she instinctively knows that this is how she'll eventually be most successful.

"Look, Mom, no hands!"

Laundry Time

It's laundry day today (well, every other day is laundry day with the amount of clothing and linens that an infant goes through in a day). I was tired of the laundry piling up while K. and I played, so I brought some into her room. She's looking forward to being able to help fold the laundry--I just know it--but for now she mostly played with the socks.

"Here's a pair of socks, mom. Are these the ones you were looking for?"
K. did something today that she's only done a little bit prior to today--she will take a toy (or in this instance, a sock), and carry it with her when she crawls. At one point she had a little pair of K. socks in each fist. It was so cute!

She sat in the basket for a little while, too, sorting socks. I think that will be one of the first things she gets to help with around the house--matching up socks with their mates.
"We're all done, Mom. What next?"

Not So Sure

This photo is a result of all of my hard work of smiling, laughing, making faces, and singing in an (obviously vain) attempt to get K. to smile for a cute picture. She's not really sure what I'm doing and is maybe a little annoyed. I bet she's practicing her looks for when she's a middle schooler.

Gettin' Ready for Sleep

K. is wearing a new-to-her pair of jammies passed down from a good friend. She's happy because she's hanging out with both Mom and Dad. We ran many many errands this afternoon and she was quite the trooper.




K. loves her Dad!















Here is K. reading before bed--we try to read to her (at the least) every night. We've been doing that since well before she had any idea what was going on. Now she is able to turn the pages by herself. This particular book has a mirror on each page so she can watch herself mimic the faces that the critters in the book make (especially when she's older and understands some of the words involved).

Don't Pinch Me!

Happy St. Patty's Day! We don't wear a lot of green (it's not a good color for either K. or myself), but K. didn't want the threat of being pinched for not wearing green, so we found a sash from a pair of her summer shorts and improvised an outfit for her.

K. is also sitting up in a chair, which was exciting for me (and I like to imagine, a little bit for her). In the next photo, though, it looks like she's holding on to the frame of the photo for a little extra support.

And although I put her up in the chair, K. does like to pull herself up to the chair without my help.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Miscellaneous Morning

Just wanted to say hello and good morning! We've had a leisurely morning playing around here. We can' t go anywhere (except maybe out on a walk--wait, just checked and it's 41 degrees. No walk for K.) because B.'s car is in the shop so he took mine to work. I think it's getting a new transmission. That will be pricey--imagine all of the diapers we could get for that amount!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Today after church B., K., and I went over to some good friends' house. Here are photos of K. and her/our friends. K. is especially fond of their cat (who we'll call T., to protect his identity also).

K. and her friend J. They like to play, especially peek-a-boo. That's Dad's arm in the side of the photo.

K. and B., hanging out on the couch:

Mom's Attempts at Sewing

I (J.) have made some more attempts at sewing and created a skirt for K. I didn't have a pattern so I made one off of a dress she has. I've been really putting the miles on my new sewing machine (though I don't really have a lot to show for it yet--at least things that are presentable enough to let others see).

She wore it to church this Sunday (though you can't really see them in the photo, her shoes are quite cute).

I also made a pair of 'bloomers' to go underneath the skirt. Here's a photo of her modeling them alone.