Kaia is ONE!

Kaia turned one last weekend and it gave me an opportunity to put my new Pinterest addiction to good use. Complete with tissue paper pom poms and personalized banners we celebrated Kaia's big milestone with over 60 people at our home.  Kaia continues to be the happiest, most personable baby on the block.  She was handed around all afternoon and never fussed.  She loved her first cupcake (though admittedly not her first sugary treat) and really seemed to enjoy being surrounded by our family and friends.

She wasn't at all overwhelmed by her birthday song.

I'm still cleaning up from the party and there are balloons and other decorations throughout our house.  Kenzie's birthday is this weekend, so half the work is done already for her party.

Pom poms are the gift that keeps giving...

Kenzie was an early talker (and she hasn't stopped since) and she seems to have taught little Kaia to follow her lead.  Kaia says nearly ten words consistently and tries new ones every day.  The last post showed Kaia's first steps.  After that day she seemed to make a conscious decision that she was going to stop crawling and be a full-time walker.  It was sometimes painful to watch how long it took her to get from point A to point B, but no matter how many times she fell she never crawled.  She would get back to her feet and keep trudging on.  Now she walks like a pro.  She has a bright, warm personality that makes it impossible to be in a foul mood when she's around.  She's our little troublemaker, too, always running to the stairs, toilet, dog food, etc whenever she sees an opportunity.

Some of Kaia's other talents include:

• understanding simple requests like "throw the ball," "give this to Daddy," "lets to find big sister," "that's too big, spit it out."
• dancing to the music.  Any noise can entice her to bounce up and down.
• hugging.  She will give hugs upon request and loves to hug her stuffed animals and Kenzie's babies.
• saying hi, whoa, Kona, ball, Daddy, water (wawa), arf arf (you know, what a dog says), and eat.
• signing more, all done, milk, eat, and water.
• finding her belly and toes.  She likes to eat her toes so we ask her to do that all the time (it's too cute).
• making us all laugh at her dinner table shenanigans.  She holds onto her tray with both hands and shakes her head (along with the rest of her body) yelling "ahhhhhh" the whole time.  The more we laugh the more she does it.  
• stopping to smell the flowers.  Although actually smelling things will take a while, right now she blows out her mouth when she "smells."  She smells real flowers and pictures of flowers in her books.
• climbing the stairs quickly.  Too quickly.  If we forget to put a gate up she knows it and will be on stair three (at least) before we can get to her.  (We could leave the stairs ungated with Kenzie because she had no interest in climbing.)
• doing laps.  She walks in laps around the kitchen island, and when she gets bored with that she does laps around the dining room table.  Seriously, the girl walks miles each day.
• "helping" me do the laundry or throw things in the trash.  She gets really excited to throw her dirty diapers in the trash.  
• making everyone smile.  She is a bright light in our lives, there's no doubt about it.

Step by Step

With most things Kaia acts first and thinks later.  She climbs with abandon and isn't afraid of anything (including her sometimes menacing big sister).  Walking has been different, though.  She's very careful, calculated.  Lately she has been venturing to take more unassisted steps.  

As you can tell from this first video, balancing isn't a problem for her.  She's been standing up on her own for a couple months now, but she rarely moves from her steady stance.

Last night she was adventurous. She walked around the playroom for a half an hour, only sitting momentarily when she fell.

Go, Kaia, go!!!!

Giraffes

We have four recent additions to our family.  Four giraffes to be specific.  Buckles, Boo Boo, Pinky and Frog are their names.  We take these baby giraffes wherever we go.  I have to open the hatch to let them jump into the car and remembering to let them out once we have arrived has turned into a new chore.  The other day while at the library for storytime Kenzie suddenly remembered that the giraffes were in the car.  I assured her that they were taking a nice nap and would be happy to see us when we were all done playing.  Then I explained to my fellow storytime moms that I am not, in fact, keeping strange zoo animals prisoner in my station wagon. 

The other day McKenzie asked me something about them, I can't remember what exactly.  Something like, "Mommy are the giraffes sleeping."  I responded with, "I don't know, honey, you're the one who can see them."  She got a real kick out of this.  She stopped short of laughing in my face when informing me, "Mommy, they're just pretend."

5 Reasons Why Kaia is Amazing

1 She's talking.  Crazy.  Last weekend she was saying "hi" a lot.  She is really good at imitating us, though, so we didn't really think she was saying it as a word, just a sound.  By the end of the weekend everyone was telling us that they were convinced she was using the word properly in context.  It took us a while, but Dustin and I now proudly agree that she is, in fact, saying hello to people she sees.  She will extend her arm, turn her palm up and say "hi" as clear as day.  She expects a response, too, and will say it again if the person she's talking to doesn't acknowledge her.  In the past couple days she's convinced us that she also says Kona's name.  I take her outside with me to play fetch with Kona and I say, "Go, Kona, go!"  Now, before I say it, she does.  It sounds more like, "go, go, go. Goa, Goa," but she is definitely saying both "go" and "Kona."  She'll also say "Goa" when Kona comes into the room. (Still trying to catch these on video.  She does NOT speak on demand.)

2 She's walking....with assistance.  For the past month or so she perfected standing up without holding onto anything.  She didn't have any real desire to move, just to stand and balance in one place.  That changed a couple of days ago.  She will grab onto her push car and walk her way around the kitchen with Kenzie steering her in the right direction.  She wants to move fast, too.

Please pardon the baggy shirt and over-sized sweats.  We don't get dressed up on weekends.  

(Okay, we never get dressed. up.)

3 She climbs. This one is a parenting bummer. Kenzie was never a climber and that made things easy for me. Kaia is into everything and wants to climb on everything from the dishwasher door, to boxes and stairs. The other day I caught her happily perched on the first step. She turned and smiled, so proud. Yikes.

This is her getting down from the stairs.  She was standing up on that first step!

4 She shares.  She'll gladly hand over whatever is in her hand or her mouth if we just hold out our hand and say "thank you."  It's really helped alleviate the stress involved with playing the What-Did-Kaia-Just-Sneak-Into-Her-Mouth game.

5 In just two months she will be a year old!  Wow.  That is the most amazing thing of all.

I am one of Pavlov's dogs

Many times each night  I find myself coming to consciousness about ten steps from my bedroom door, in the hallway to the girls' room.  It takes a moment to realize what I am doing, then I'll hear Kaia's cry or Kenzie's, "cover me please, Mommy, cover me" and I'll snap to reality.  Apparently, in my sleep, I jump at the sound of distress from my daughters.  Letting them cry it out or find their own covers might be the better choice if I ever want the cycle to end, but that's not how I've been trained.  Instead, I jump from my bed as if it's on fire and rush down the hallway.  Sometimes I wake in the hallway and don't hear any noise at all coming from the girls.  What's that about?

We use sleep training for Kaia to get her sleeping through the night.  Our method is to have Dustin go to her instead of me.  After a few nights she realizes that she isn't going to get what she wants (me) and will just start sleeping longer.  This works until the next cold hits or her next tooth pops through, then more sleepless nights and more sleep training. 

If it's possible to retrain a baby, how do you retrain her mommy?  

Man, I'm tired.

Cheep! Cheep!

We've been talking for a couple years about getting some backyard chickens and last night we took the plunge.  We purchased a variety of breeds to see what works best for us.  We got ten chicks, five of them we had sexed to ensure they are hens, the other five are a gamble.  One of them is a Jersey Giant and is already twice the size of the other chicks.  The odds are good that a couple of them are "Easter Eggers" and will lay colored eggs.

This is the Jersey Giant...roosters can grow as big as 15 lbs!

They will be great at helping us keep our extensive tick population off of Kona's back, will provide lots of entertainment for the girls, and, best of all, will (hopefully) lay lots of eggs.  

Dustin says we have to start saying things like "I reckon" and "darn tootin'" now that we are officially chicken farmers.  I say let's not get ahead of ourselves. I hope to share pictures of vast amounts of eggs later in the summer!

9-months-young

Our little Kaia boo is growing up so fast.  I swear McKenzie's first year didn't fly by like Kaia's has.  She had her nine month checkup last week and we were surprised to learn that she is actually smaller than Kenzie was at this age.  She looks like a little chunker to me.

According to the charts, 93% of babies Kaia's age are heavier than her.  Can you imagine bigger cheeks than these?

While some second-borns are content to sit by and watch their older siblings play, Kaia refuses to be forgotten.  She is a little troublemaker.  I'm constantly stopping her from climbing over the Candy Land board or puzzle or book that Kenzie is playing with.  I'll set up decoys so she'll have her own book or puzzle to climb on, but she's only interested in the one Kenzie is using.  She is always sneaking into the forbidden breezeway (where Kona's food and water are kept), or crawling to the one plant I can't seem to keep her hands out of.  She loves outlets and wires.  She's always on the move.  Whew.  She's busy.

It doesn't matter what room I put her in, the first thing she does is  leave.
She's cute when she's escaping, though, isn't she?

Dustin calls her Hoover because she find every single thing on the floor and sucks it up faster than we can get to her.  We'll see her pinching her tiny thumb and forefinger together and yell "no" or "eh-eh" to try and stop her, but we're never fast enough.  Instead we need to use all our might to pry her jaw open before she swallows said object.

She had her first bath by herself in the big tub.

Splash, splash, splash!
. 

 She's able to stand on her own and does this often.  She has learned how to fall gracefully

She made a canine friend and LOVES to spend time with him. He's pretty indifferent (unless she happens to be holding his tennis ball).