just us.

sweet words

on Alcatraz Island, 3/23/16

Keira said something unexpected to me last night.

I can't remember exactly what we were doing (blame it on mommy brain...it was only yesterday!) but it was her, Karter and I.  She said that I should find a babysitter, so that Mike and I could go out on a date, without the kids.  When I asked her why she thought that, it was because all I ever do is stay home with Karter and take care of him.  I told her it was very nice of her to think of me and her dad and to care about us in that way.

She continues to surprise us with things she says and does.

Keira recently tried (and liked!) some "new" foods: black pepper beef, peking duck, pork chops (Mike makes them good) and mochi ice cream.  If you know her, you know she is a bit of a picky eater.  We encourage her to try different things all the time, and if she decides she doesn't like it then it's fine.  At least she tried them!  We hope to introduce Karter to all sorts of different food, it'll make going out to eat so much easier!

February favorites

Lots of milestones this month so far.

 

Keira turned 7!  We celebrated with donuts and presents.  Legos still rule, Shopkins are the latest fad and jewelry is always a favorite for a budding fashionista.

 

We've managed to keep Karter thriving for a whole 2 months now!  He's wearing size 1 diapers, and is starting to outgrow his 0-3 month clothing.  At his 2 month appointment, he weighed in at 11 pounds 1 ounce and was about 22 inches long.  I think his head circumference was 15 inches or so.  He's got a mild case of dry, scaly skin (particularly around his eyes), but we've been slathering him in Cetaphil cream a few times a day and it seems to be helping.

 

Karter has become more responsive to us now too.  He'll smile and coo when we talk to him and it's got to be one of the best things ever.  Especially when it's 2am and mama is tired, that sleepy grin after being fed just melts my heart.

 

Keira lost another tooth last night, it's her fourth one since Christmas!  She was chomping on a chocolate covered strawberry when her tooth fell out, and it's left her with quite the interesting grin.  She's been eating from the side of her mouth for the last 2 months since she's got no teeth to take real bites!  She's still doing hockey, and Mike has started working with her on her stick handling.  She's gotten pretty good at skating, we just need to get her handling skills in order.  And only our girl would practice in a watermelon tutu dress.

We've started working on tummy time with Karter, and Keira is quite the cheerleader when he is doing it.  She is still very much in love with her little brother and fully embraces her role as Karter's big sister.  We're constantly reminding her about personal space, but we should probably enjoy this now, before the bickering begins.

And if you couldn't tell, Karter has got himself a nice bald spot on the back of his head.  Keira never had one, but now that Karter does, it makes me sad!!  He tends to turn his head side to side a lot, and now he's bald.  I was even afraid that he would rub it raw, but his pediatrician said she has never seen that happen.  I guess babies with no hair have the same issue and they survive.

All in all, we are living each day one at a time.  I don't plan on going back to work until April, so I am making the most of my time home with Karter, Keira and Mike.  I won't have another moment in time like now, so I'm savoring each moment while I can. 

constant change

Keira and Karter, lying on the couch as he tries to fall asleep.  January  25, 2016

There's one thing that's for sure when having a newborn.

Things are constantly changing.  Just when I think I have him figured out one day, it doesn't apply the next.  Take, for example, getting him to sleep.  Most babies like to be swaddled because it mimics being in the womb.  We swaddled him for the first few weeks and realized he like having his hands free.  It seemed he slept better when his hands were up next to his face.  So we went with that.  We'd have to rock him, sing to him, sometimes for what seemed like hours at a time.  As of late, we've started swaddling him tight again, with his arms down by his sides.  He hates it at first, but it tends to get him to sleep faster (when he's ready to sleep, that is).  The pacifier is sometimes used to calm him down, and when he's done with it, he spits it out.  There are some who have shared their opinion about the use of a pacifier, but if we need to use it, we use it.  So far, Karter doesn't seem to be the kind of kid that MUST have it, so we're just going with the flow.

I'm not sure if all babies are like this, but Karter wasn't hugely fond of being in his carseat (Keira was the same).  He'd cry just moments into being in one (insert use of pacifier here), but once it was moving (whether we were carrying it to the car, or the car was moving) he would be fine. Shopping trips (or any trip in general) where he would be in the carseat was like a mad dash to the finish line.  Get what we needed and be done.  But now, it's the opposite!  Just yesterday, I managed to go to work to drop off a prescription for Keira, get some light shopping done, and chat all without him waking up.  And today, I got his birth certificate and stopped at the union office to turn in some paperwork, and cleaned out the car when I got home ALL with him sound asleep in his seat. 

Who are you child and why must you always change the rules of the game?!

He's growing, that's for sure, and these early days are flying by.  Part of me still longs for the future days of being able to play with him and where he can entertain himself, but I know the day will come where I'll hardly remember him being this small.

He's starting to smile and coo, and it's those things that melt my heart.  I can hardly remember Keira being just a few weeks old, but I'm lucky enough to have another chance to soak in Karter's early moments.

things to remember...

before I forget:

Keira:

she lost another tooth on Sunday.  That would make her third tooth in almost a month.  The tooth fairy forgot to come visit two nights in a row.  But the fairy made up for that by giving her 2 bucks, instead of one.

I'm so amazed to see how much she's improved as far as her hockey abilities.  She's still taking private lessons with Coach Patrick, and he's helped her come a long way.

She got to go to a Kings game with Mike, Uncle Steve and cousin Matthew on Tuesday.  They enjoyed a nice (and free!) dinner as well as ice level seats.  Better yet, the Kings won!  And they had a meet and greet with players after the game, so they scored autographs on their jerseys and pictures too!

Keira is very loving towards Karter, and wants to give him lots of kisses and is always in his face.  I know it's a sign of love, but sometimes it's too much.  I guess we should enjoy it now before they bicker like cats and dogs!

Karter:

the darkening of his eyebrows and the curling of his lashes...just like his daddy!

he isn't the biggest fan of bath time.  Most of the time he cries, which is the exact opposite of Keira.  She loved her baths!

He tends to calm down when near a light source, like a window or the sliding door at home.  I think he's a sun baby.

Karter is using a pacifier that we had bought when Keira was an infant.  We found one that she liked and bought a bunch of them.  I didn't really want to introduce Karter to the pacifier, but it does help calm him down when needed.  He isn't dependent on one, which could be a good thing.  And never mind that the pacifier is pink!

Mike did a rough measurement of his length and he's about 20 inches long.  That's almost 3 inches in growth since birth!

Karter is normally a baby that likes constant movement, but after dinner last night he sat quietly for almost 20 minutes while we had dessert.  Mike and I were both amazed...it may have been due to the fact that he had farted a few times and left us a diaper blowout in the end!  We had to change his diaper in the front passenger seat (no bathrooms with changing tables available) and he had to wear newborn clothes home.

He has outgrown newborn clothing.  They're getting tight in the length for sure!

He is 6 weeks old today!

 

Karter, Karter with a K

Guess who slept 3 to 3.5 hours before waking to eat and then went right back to sleep??

this guy!!

1/12/16, 4 weeks 5 days

I've forgotten what having a newborn is like.  The biggest thing I am not a fan of is the lack of continuous sleep.  Keira didn't start sleeping through the night (i.e. 8 hours straight) until she was 2 years old!  I know we are in the early stages with Karter, but that extra hour totally makes a difference!

1/10/16, 1 month old

This past Sunday marked Karter's official first month of life.  We made it one month, holy cow!  When you're in the throws of day-to-day life, time seems like it goes slow.  But now that we are more than a month in, I can't believe it.  Quite honestly, there were times I wished the newborn phase was done, but I know it doesn't last forever.  Every stage is a challenge right?

 

some of my favorite pictures at the moment

Keira is loving her new role as a big sister, wanting to hold him constantly (even if it only last a few minutes) and smothering him with kisses.  She calls him "Fluffy" and has been since before he was born.  We haven't seen much jealousy from her with the baby, she just loves him tons.

Keira was actually the one to give Karter his name.  All throughout the pregnancy and even while I was laying on the operating table being sewn up, Mike and I could not agree on a name.  We didn't know the gender beforehand, so coming up with names for either sex that we both agreed on never happened.  I can still remember lying there, holding our boy on my chest and asking Mike...so what's his name going to be?  We ended up picking 3 names we had thrown around and letting Keira make the final decision.

12/10/15, the first meeting

My parents picked Keira up from school and brought her to the hospital to meet her little brother.  Both sets of grandparents were there, but I asked Mike to bring Keira in alone so that we could have the time as a new family of 4.  We had our moment with Karter, but we wanted Keira to have hers.  I can still remember her walking into the room and looking gently for her new brother.  Mike handed him to her and she held him so lovingly and just stared and talked to him gently.  We gave her our 3 options for names (Adam, Aaron and Karter) and asked her to pick one.  So Karter it was.

Side note, Keira has been participating in various hockey clinics for a while now and she's starting to know some of the Kings players.  When we gave her Karter as an option, she said "I like Karter, just like Jeff Carter of the LA Kings!"  We told her that Carter is normally spelled with a C, but we would be spelling it with a K to match her.

Mike and I realized we may have just set our boy up for a lifetime of explanation regarding the spelling of his name, but it's not so unusual nowadays, right?  "My name is Karter.  Karter with a K."

 

Through her eyes

Occasionally, Keira will want to take pictures with our cameras so last night I let her have free reign.  It all started with a hummingbird she found out in our backyard:

which led to 50, maybe 60 more pictures, most of which are on the blurry side.

(Mike just built this outdoor bar, and installed that outlet.)

 

We may have to get her a digital camera to use so she can do more exploring...

It never ends

This is how we spent our Valentine's Day...in urgent care.

We've been there, done that with Keira and her colds/upper respiratory infections/allergies and this past weekend was not something we haven't already seen.  I had to work this weekend and would get periodic texts from Mike about how Keira was coughing so much and so hard that she would throw up.  If you ask Keira how many times she threw up, she'll tell you 6.

So 2 hours of our night was spent in urgent care, with pulse oximetry and back-to-back breathing treatments for the kid.  This doctor started Keira on both oral (short-term) and inhaled (during cold & flu season) corticosteroids, which is probably something that should've happened sometime ago considering her past history.  We are willing to do try and do anything if it means fewer visits to see the doctor.

She was better the next morning (thank God), but we still kept the activity level to a minimum.

There was no school Monday for President's Day, and her and I managed a short visit to Disneyland for some fun.  It was back to school today, business as usual...until I get a phone call from one of the secretaries at work that Keira was in the nurse's office complaining that her ear hurt.

So it's off to yet another doctor's appointment to make sure an ear infection hasn't developed.  She isn't a big fan of having her ears checked, and no matter how much we prep her for what is to come, it's always a wrestling match to let the doctor do their work.  I'm sure it'll be more of the same.

Pick and Choose

As much as I would like to just lay on the couch and watch everything saved on my DVR (Wahlburgers and Tiny House Nation are favorites right now), my time could be better spent with my girl and the things she does everyday.  

Every Wednesday at CDC (the before and after school care program she goes to) is Book Sharing Day, and the kids bring a book from home to share and read with friends.  Her teacher Mrs. Dulce had invited me a little while back to come one day and visit.  And today was that day.

It wasn't anything huge and showboat-y, but just kindergarten story time.  Keira didn't know I was there initially, but once one kid sees me (and they know I'm "Keira's mom"), my presence is no longer unknown.

I'm grateful for the opportunities to see Keira in her element, to be a part of her life at school.  Mike and I both work full-time, but I have the kind of schedule that allows me to devote 1 day a week to volunteer in her class (I'm assigned to reading and literacy).  I don't remember my parents volunteering a lot in school while I was growing up (they both worked full-time and not close to home), but they were there at all the concerts and baseball games and swimming lessons.  I hope I can do the same for my kid.

 

It's a goner!

Before...

...and after!

This would be her first "official" tooth lost!  The original first tooth was almost 3 years ago exactly, and we never got a visit from the Tooth Fairy because Keira swallowed it.

I showed her a video a few week's back of a friend's son doing the whole "string around the tooth and a doorway" to pull out his tooth, and she wasn't amused then.  But for some strange reason the stars aligned, and she asked Mike if she could try it herself.  And if you know Mike and his fascination with conducting medical procedures on oneself, he was all over this one.  Thankfully, he didn't rush Keira into her decision and said whenever she was ready, he would be too.

His first attempt using dental floss didn't work, and Keira needed a break.  The next attempt involved fishing line and again, she dictated everything.  "Go! No, stop! Okay, now go!"  Mike went for it and the tooth was out!  He never mentioned the b-l-o-o-d because no good would've come from that, and she went about her merry way.  She called me at work to tell me and you could hear the joy in her voice.

 

We celebrated with dinner at Red Robin (her choice), where she wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy thanking her for picking up her tooth.  It's never too early to teach a kid some manners.

I told her the Tooth Fairy was like Santa (they're good friends I'm sure) and if she didn't go to bed, the Tooth Fairy would never come.  She placed her note, with the tooth in a baggie taped to the card, under her pillow and within minutes, she was out.  I even camped out on the bottom bunk to see if I could catch a glimpse of the Fairy myself!  But she must've waited until I fell asleep too before she came, because I never saw her.

I woke her up this morning, so we could both see if the Tooth Fairy left her anything.  Bedhead and all, Keira lifted up her pillow and found herself a 5 dollar bill!  (She thought it was a dollar, but I had her double check the number on the bill.)  I told her she can either spend it or save it for something bigger, so we'll see what she decides.  We're trying to teach her to save rather than instantly gratify, but at this age it's not a concept she grasps just yet. 

January 2015, thus far

I got an email from Typepad recently about resolving to blog in 2015.  I've let this thing go silent one too many times, and I hoping to get myself back to it at least twice a month.  Back in 2013, I aimed to hit the gym at least once a week and 2 years later, I'm still at it with 2 or 3 visits per week.  So if I can do that, then I can certainly blog a few times a month!

2014 ended much the way 2015 started: quiet and uneventful.  I had to work New Year's Day, so there wasn't going to be any staying up until midnight for me.  We celebrated East Coast New Year's with our neighbors, had cake and champagne and then hit the sack.

We renewed our Disney passes for yet another year, and have made 2 visits so far.  With Keira being in "real" school now, we don't have the luxury of going mid-week like we used to.

It's a good thing we have health insurance because Keira has already taken advantage of it!  The cold that she had before winter break (which involved a trip to the nurse's office, a call to 911 and a firetruck and EMTs!) never resolved itself when she returned to school 2 weeks later.  I gave her another week and the cough never went away and was sounding pretty wet (how's that for medical terms) which called for a Saturday morning visit to urgent care and amoxicillin for 10 days.  This girl can't seem to a break in the sickness department.

We started a bit of a home project that involves us being without our washer and dryer for a few weeks.  If I said that it was all starting off very smoothly, I'd be lying.  I realize that there is no construction project that doesn't have its hiccups, but when a major one occurs 2 days in, it makes for some really pissed off homeowners (that would be Mike and I if you couldn't figure it out).

This little bugger is turning 6 in a matter of weeks.  In keeping with the theme of her party, we have $32.40 worth of rubber bouncy balls.  We managed to get both carts to the car and fill up my trunk with them.  I had other favors in mind, but that would've involved spending a minimum $150, and I wasn't down for that. Besides, what kid doesn't love a ball?

Back in June, Mike had a cardiac ablation done that would hopefully take care of his arrhythmias.  He told me recently that it doesn't race anymore, in particular, after he has coffee or alcohol.  Which is a great thing!!  I guess it was a common occurrence, and was the main reason why he stopped drinking both at one point (not that he was an alcoholic or caffeine addict to begin with).  His doctor took him off the blood thinner a month or 2 ago, and he couldn't have been more excited about that.  He had just started playing hockey when the doctor started him on the warfarin, and he was told he couldn't do contact sports while he was on it.  He has another check up in a few months, and may be able to discontinue his other heart medication for good!

So that's that from our little corner of the world.  Let's hope I'll be back before long!