Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

Sunday, September 19, 2010

First Tooth! New Playroom! Grandpa's Birthday Boat Trip! Goofing Around!

Kyra's new playroom!
Playing with a present from Grandma Linda
Playing with her Julius sock monkey from "Auntie Amanda"
(Amanda, thanks again for that! Kyra loves it!)
Practicing her not-quite-crawling skills
Celebrating Grandpa's Birthday on a boat cruise around Balboa Island
Kyra loved the boat ride!
Playing around with Aunt Jen!
Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Chewing on her first cucumber!
Modeling one of her many adorable knit hats!
Kyra LOVES licking the condensation off of cold drinks!
Napping in her "Girl About Town" stroller
(for quick walks around the neighborhood)

Kyra has been a busy girl!

FIRST TOOTH!
Kyra finally cut her first tooth a few days ago! I've been trying to get a picture, but it's so tough! Her very special first tooth has set up camp on her bottom gums (the bottom left, specifically), and it'll probably have a few friends joining soon! I have a feeling she's going to get some more teeth soon, but we'll just have to wait and see. Luckily, Kyra hasn't been too cranky or uncomfortable, but she really doesn't like it when Mommy tries to open her mouth to check things out!

NEW "PLAYROOM"!
In anticipation of Kyra crawling soon, we had been wanting to set up a gated play area for her. Well, it's all set up and she loves it! We've been filling it with toys and activities, and the space is big enough for a couple of adults to sit or lay down in there with her. Kyra likes to sit up and play with her toys (we have to put her in a seated position - she's still figuring out how to pull herself up to a sit on her own). She can also roll around freely and move around the space quickly. She'll have plenty of room to crawl around in once she actually starts crawling. And thankfully we'll have a safe place to put her once she's really on the move!

GRANDPA'S BIRTHDAY BOAT CRUISE AROUND BALBOA!
Yesterday afternoon, Kyra got to go on her first real boat ride. She's been on the Balboa Ferry a couple times, but this was her first electric boat ride around the island. We were celebrating Grandpa Phil's Birthday, and Kyra had such a great time! She got to play with her cousins Mia and Maddie and her Aunt Jen, she saw (and heard!) a gathering of lounging sea lions on a docked boat, and we even saw an adorable swimming golden retriever who repeatedly dove off of the dock and then swam back to shore.

FIRST CHUNKS OF REAL FOOD!
Kyra loves to eat her baby foods (except for peaches, which she has decided she's not too fond of), and we're hoping to follow the "Baby-Led Weaning" technique of teaching her to feed herself and make her own choices when selecting healthy foods. This method is thought to get babies interested in a wider variety of foods, particularly healthy foods, and helps them decide for themselves what they like and don't like, and it also helps them learn when they're full and ready to stop eating. We're starting out slowly, letting Kyra munch on slivers of cucumbers and steamed green beans. She has enjoyed both, particularly the cucumbers! Mommy gets a bit nervous when she quickly bites a chunk off and swishes it around in her mouth, but it's easy to see that she really enjoys this small accomplishment in her newfound world of eating!

DISCOVERING COLD DRINKS!
Kyra has discovered something that most of us don't pay much attention to at all: condensation! She has figured out that Daddy's ice-cold Diet Coke's have condensation surrounding the can/cup/bottle/etc., and she has become completely enamored with sucking up the cold liquid on the outside of the drink! A couple of times, she's actually almost pulled the entire drink right down on top of her (those of you who know Geoff know that he doesn't typically opt for the "small" when it comes to ordering beverages)! Luckily, we haven't had any spills yet.

STROLLER NAPS!
All of this playing and excitement can be pretty exhausting! Kyra still refuses to nap in her big stroller, but she has been known to catch a few Z's in her smaller "Girl About Town" stroller. We named it that since, so far, we've only taken this stroller out for shorter trips around our local neighborhood. The bigger stroller gets carted around all over the place, but I store the smaller one in our coat closet and it's quick and easy to pull it out if the bigger stroller is still in the trunk of the car. Apparently Kyra is quite comfy in her "Girl About Town" stroller!

MORE FUN IS COMING UP!
Kyra is looking forward to a big celebration next weekend - her friend Jake Balice is turning 1 year old and his parents are throwing him a big "pumpkin patch" party! Jake's Mommy (Kyra's "Auntie Amanda") has been working very hard on this party, so we're all excited to see it finally come together! I'm sure there will be some cute photos to share with you!

Monday, September 6, 2010

"Big Girl" Car Seat!

Goodbye infant car seat...
...Hello "Big Girl" car seat!
On Monday, Kyra tried out her new "Big Girl" car seat! If she looks a little stunned, that's because she had just woken up from a 2 1/2 hour nap, and then we quickly whisked her out of the house and into the car. She loved her first ride in her new seat - it's quite plush and cozy! She's got a matching seat in both of our cars, so she'll be riding in style wherever she goes.

It's a bit sad to think that our little girl has already taken her last ride in her infant car seat (the seat she came home from the hospital in, where she looked so tiny!). But it's nice to know that she once again looks little in her car seat. She'll be using these Big Girl seats for many years to come, and I know there will come a time when she definitely won't look so tiny in her seat anymore! It's so hard to believe that Kyra will be 7 months old later this week (Saturday). Where are the days going?

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Shoes, Hands & Knees, & Diapers, Oh My!

Kyra's first time wearing shoes all day!
Soft shoes handed down from Kyra's cousins!
Smiling during playtime! Such a little grinner!
So darn cute!
"But wait until you see what I can do!"
Knees up...next comes hands!
Hands & knees! If only you could see her rocking back & forth!
Kyra has so much fun playing on her hands & knees!
This little kiddo doesn't sit still for long!
Time for a snack before dinner...

Kyra wore shoes today for the first time. She's put them on before, but only for brief periods of time. But now that she's really working on her scooting abilities, and she loves to stand up when held, I figured I should start getting her used to shoes. So she wore them pretty much all day today and seemed to enjoy them.

She's trying out more solid foods. So far, she's had sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, green beans, sweet peas, apples, and today she tried bananas for the first time. Yesterday she seemed a bit constipated. But rest assured, so took care of all that today! Oh my goodness - I thought we had somewhat overcome the "poopie blowouts." Well, that's NOT the case. Kyra decided to have 3 diaper fiasco's today! At least there's one positive outcome here - she's got plenty of cute clothes to get her through these rough moments!

She's getting better and better at getting up on her hands and knees. She loves to prop herself up, and then rock back and forth. She's working on her forward momentum, but isn't crawling yet. She seems to have figured out how to scoot herself backwards, but we think she's actually intending to move forward but ends up pushing herself back. She's working on planting her feet though. Time to start baby-proofing our house!

Lastly, Kyra's Grandpa seems to have discovered a funny little trick. Apparently Kyra quite enjoys it when her Grandpa and her Daddy clear their throat. The simple act of throat clearing sends her into a giggle frenzy! So adorable! This afternoon, Geoff was playing video games (shocking, I know!) with his big headphones on. For some reason, we think the headphones scared Kyra, since Daddy didn't look like Daddy anymore, and she suddenly started screaming and crying uncontrollably for around 10 minutes. When regular Daddy Geoff (not headphone-wearing alien-looking Daddy) picked her up and held her, she suddenly quieted down and even started smiling at Mommy and her kitty Zoe. A minute later, Geoff cleared his throat, and we suddenly had a cute little baby laughing hysterically. We'll definitely take hysterical laughter over hysterical tears!