Kai Boy

It's been a while (too long) since I last gave a good Kai update. With the end of Kai's school year fast approaching, I've been thinking back on the year to how much my little ray of sunshine has changed and grown over the course of the year. While I still think of Kai as being an overgrown toddler in a lot of ways, it truly boggles my mind that a short 7 months ago he was still a 2-year-old. Just look at how little he was on his first day of school:

He still wears that t-shirt, but it barely skims the top of his shorts now and those shorts fall just above his knee. 

Here are just a few of little things that make Kai seem like quite the big boy these days:

• He picks out his own clothes and dresses himself. Most days it goes better than this:

• He's can hold his breath under water for several seconds and swim 5-6 feet at a stretch;
• He's branched out from garbage trucks to whales and dinosaurs. He does an awesome impersonation of both;
• Now that he is older, Pappa loves taking Kai on adventures. Recently they went to a car show and ran the Rave Run together:

• He can identify all the uppercase letters by sight and sound. 
• He's mastered his balance bike and loves to go on long rides with Pappa
• Speaking of Pappa, Kai likes to call him "Yo. I swear it's a power play. Usually he will refer to Pappa as Yo when talking to me collusively. "Oh Mommy, did Yo do something wrong?" he will ask innocently when he senses that I am annoyed with his father (which totally NEVER happens....ever. Ha!)
• For months Kai's been climbing to the top of this big, fake boulder at a nearby park and for months he's been getting stuck up there because he can't get back down. I've been telling him that if he can't get down he shouldn't climb up, but he's been too afraid to jump despite my constant coaxing and reassurance that he won't get hurt. Well, thanks to Peter Pan, he finally mustered the courage and did a belly flop off the top of that 7(+) ft rock onto the sand below. He cried a lot, but luckily wasn't hurt other than having the wind knocked out of him. When I asked what he was thinking he said he was trying to fly. I responded, "You can't fly, Kai," and he came right back, "Yes I can, Mommy. I just fly down." Hopefully he'll stick to climbing up (something he's much better at) in the future:

• His "pet name" for me, on the other hand is "Mother"which sounds more like "mudder" when he says it. He uses this name begrudgingly when I am ask him to do something that he doesn't want to do like, "Kai, you need to go pick-up your toys first and then you can have a snack." "Ok, Mudder" he will reply as he plods off to pick up his toys. Hilarious!
• He is finally useful around the house. I have help with chores like vacuuming, wiping the table, picking up his room, fetching me cliff bars, and righting Ari when he topples over (the last one with mixed success...it's a work in progress).

• It comes as a surprise to some people that Kai loves the limelight at such a young age. Recently Kai had a chance to demonstrate his brazenness in front of a crowd at a church talent show. Most of the kids his age were a little squeamish about doing even a group number. Kai, on the other hand, did not bat an eye as the only solo act under the age of 6. He marched right up on stage, just as we had rehearsed, and sang his little song into a microphone and marched right back down as if it were nothing. My heart, on the other hand, was racing a mile a minute the entire time. 

Despite all this growing that Kai is doing, he still continues to be a little bundle of sunshine most days. He loves people and people seem to just love him. On his little school campus he is some kind of pseudo celebrity. Every adult and a lot of the kids all seem to inexplicably know who he is.

Then again--maybe it's not so inexplicable after all:

I like to think that when Kai's teachers describe him as a little ray of sunshine they mean it in more of a figurative than literal sense... but it seems pretty clear from the picture that either interpretation might be fair. 

As a three-year-old Kai continues to experiment with the intensity of his emotions. 

He practices being really happy:

And really mad:

But his temper tantrums seem to be tapering off little by little. And he is getting better and better at using his words, rather than his actions, to express his feelings. And luckily for me he is a really sweet and loving and happy kid most days with plenty of hugs and kisses for his mommy so I have a well of goodwill to draw from whenever he is being ornery and driving me crazy.

Ari - 9 months

I can't even tell you how many times I have sat down to write this entry, only to be interrupted. But here we are on the eve of Ari turning 10 months old and I am determined not to go to bed until I get this entry written and posted.

To be quite honest, Ari's 9th month of life was pretty miserable for the poor child. He caught a cold on Easter weekend that he just couldn't seem to kick. A week or so later he broke out in a fever and the following day he woke up wheezing so much when he breathed that it even made me nervous (and I'm notoriously nonchalant when it comes to my children's ailments). So I called the doctor and was able to get him in for an appointment that same day. The doctor listened to his chest for a couple of seconds before diagnosing him with Bronchiolitis (most likely caused by RSV, but that was not confirmed). To help with his breathing the doctor prescribed an inhaler that he needed to use 3 times a day for a couple of weeks to see if the symptoms would subside.

The inhaler did seem to help, but the poor child still had a hacking cough, stuffed nose and on-and-off low grade fever for the next few days. I would like to say that he was a trooper through it all, but he was pretty tired and cranky and exceptionally clingy for a few weeks. Not that I can blame him.

After two weeks he was beginning to finally get over his never-ending illness and I was able to wean him off of the inhaler. I am happy to report that he hasn't had to use it since. But I am hanging on to it just in case, as I have read and been informed by his doctor that kids who suffer from bronchiolitis are more likely to suffer from asthma. Apparently doctors aren't sure whether bronchiolitis has a triggering effect and actually causes asthma, or if kids who suffer from bronchiolitis are simply more prone to suffer from asthma--and vice versa.

While month 9 was most definitely punctuated by ill-health, Ari did hit a few other landmarks worth mentioning. His 7th tooth broke through the gum during this month. He mastered picking up (the tiniest of) objects with his pointer finger and thumb. He also became very proficient at mashing solid foods with his little teeth and apparently has quite the adventurous palate--scarfing down Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Indian food and basically any other "grown-up" food that we offer him. While this has been fun for Mommy who loves to experiment with what her big boy can/will eat, there are days that I just wish he would take a pouch of pureed vegetables and fruits like other babies... they are so convenient and nice and healthy, too. Oh well!

The child also mastered sitting during this month. Boy can that kid sit. He is a steady Eddy on his bum and has a surprising reach from a sitting position. To reach objects in front of him the child will stretch further and further forward until his legs are in a full center-split with his belly lying flat on the ground and his arms stretched out in front of him. Once he gets his hands on his target he is equally good at inching himself back into a sitting position. He is almost as adept at reaching to his sides and back as well. I call him my ninja baby because it is not often that we see the child actually move (as in roll, or worm, or do anything that remotely resembles crawling), but I swear that if you turn your back on him for one second and then turn back again to look at him, he will have something in his hand that you know was across the room when you last looked. And you will have no idea how it got there. So whenever I put Ari down, I have to do a quick scan to make sure that there is nothing within about a 3 foot radius all around him because if there is so much as a speck of something dangerous and enticing on the ground, he will find it and he will promptly put it in his mouth. I literally thank the Lord that this child is not crawling yet, because I think that Ari will teach me what true child-proofing requires.

As for his 9-month stats, Ari's head measured in the 91st percentile (a leap from 50% in the previous check-ups, which leads me and Ari's pediatrician to assume that there may have been a significant margin of error on this one). Height wise he is 30.25 inches (98%) and weight wise he came in at 20 lbs 12.5 oz (65%). I was actually surprised that he didn't weigh more because he is one solid kid and has the fattest, squishiest thighs you could ever hope to get your hands on to.

Here are a couple more pics from this month:

8 months

*** I actually wrote this post several weeks ago, but sat on it without publishing it because I wanted to be able to add some pics from our recent photo shoot with Meghan. As usual she did an amazing job in such a short amount of time. Ari was a little off at the shoot. I had to wake him up from a marathon nap to make it there on time. Unfortunately he probably woke up starving and there was no time to feed him. So he was still tired and hungry and not his usual smiley self. So we didn't get any shots of his toothy grin like I was hoping for, but Meghan perfectly captured his sweetness. The ones that are "most Ari" to me, are the ones where he has his forehead pressed against my head or Kai's and the ones where you can see his little hand rested on us. If someone he likes is near him, he will always reach out to touch that person. And, if you are close enough, he will simply melt into you with his whole body. It melts my heart... Every. Single. Time.***

 Not to sound like a broken record, but it feels like I just wrote Ari's 7 month update. And yet, here we are. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any big developments in the last month. No new teeth have popped through, no new tricks to report, and no, the child still isn't rolling... or sleeping through the night for that matter. But he continues to charm and delight me nonetheless. Since there are no "big" things to write about, I will indulge myself by sharing some of the little things that I love about my littlest man.

• He constantly "claps" his feet together, especially when he's excited
• He often fake laughs when Kai is around and then watches eagerly to see if Kai will laugh too
• He's been on a hunger strike--he'll only eat yogurt for past couple of weeks so I've resorted to mixing everything (EVERYTHING) with yogurt to see if I can trick him into eating it. 
• He is the sweetest little cuddler. If I put my face anywhere to close to his, he will nuzzle his face against mine. When he's tired his nuzzling is more like a headbutt. Consider yourself warned. 

• He cries every time I leave the room. He's a momma's boy just like Kai

• He also says "Mama" constantly, but not in context yet. But I'm hoping it's just a matter of time.
• He's graduated from his baby bath to a bath seat in the big tub so now he gets to enjoy bath time with his big brother. He's still a big splasher.  

• He's started eating more "solid" solid foods like graham crackers, cheerios, yogurt melts, bananas, pancakes and other bread-like foods. He much prefers this to baby food.
• Like Kai he is not a big fan of his veggies, but unlike Kai he does not have a sweet tooth.
• He still doesn't "stand" when we are holding him, but he will now put a minimal amount of weight on his legs with his waist doubled over as if he's bowing. It's pretty funny.
• He hasn't been measured in a while (since his 6 month check-up), but I think he's had a growth spurt because he practically skipped a clothing size. He's now wearing mostly 6-12 month clothes or even 12 month in some cases
• For some reason he loves to hold these little toy dinosaurs of Kai's.

• He has blowouts all the time. I keep thinking I should try a different brand of diapers, but I don't know that it would help because the child is sitting all the time and almost never cries or otherwise lets me know when he's poo'd.

• When he and Kai are riding in the stroller Kai often sings little songs and it's not uncommon for Ari to sing (chant/babble?) right along with him. They also often hold hands in the stroller. It makes my heart smile.

• If you ask Kai what his brother's name is he will usually say, "Ari baby". He got this nickname from a little song that I made up that I sometimes sing when I'm rocking him:

Ari Ari baby
 We love you Ari baby
Sweet sweet Ari baby
We love you baby boy

• Nothing makes him laugh harder than when Yo tickles him with his whiskers
• Ari is super vocal. He is constantly making sounds... often loudly. 
• I'm afraid Ari might be the dare devil in the family. He loves being thrown, held upside down, spun around, and basically anything else that is equal parts scary and thrilling.

Thanks again, Meghan MacAskill, for capturing Ari at such a yummy stage. You do such beautiful work.

Hardcore preschool parents

Last year I started looking into preschools for Kai in the summer... about 5 months after registration to most schools had been closed. To say my pickings were slim would not be an exaggeration. With Ari's arrival in July I was in full scramble mode just to get the paperwork gathered in time for Kai to start on the first day of school.

This year I swore I would be more on top of things. After weighing all the options, I decided that Kai is a well-adjusted kid who will be fine anywhere. So, why not save some money, right? Several of my friends have had a positive experience with the Safari Preschool program run by the city rec department. And it is super affordable compared to most of the other preschools in our area so based on those two factors I was sold.

A few of my friends decided to go that direction, too. We all attended an information night about the class that we wanted to enroll the kids in. We knew that there were only 20 spots available, but counted a lot more than 20 parents at the info session. Enrollment was offered on a first-come-first-served basis, so we decided to play things on the safe side and get to the office ridiculously early.

As the enrollment date was approaching, Alyssa and I were discussing the likelihood of people forming multiple lines outside of the building where the registration was taking place, especially because the building has multiple entrances. We have also noticed a (perhaps cultural?) disregard for lines in this here part of the country. So we started joking around about how funny it would be if we created a sign saying, "Form one line here for preschool registration."

While Alyssa and I laughed about it initially, we both thought there was some merit to the idea... and Alyssa totally went there...

As an aside, if you ever want a partner in crime for preschool registration, Black Friday shopping, or any other hardcore event that requires being awake at a ridiculous hour, sitting in lines, and adrenaline... Alyssa is your woman!

This lady picked me up at my house at 5:45 AM with two Starbucks hot chocolates in hand and three camping chairs loaded in the back.

The best part was that she was shocked (shocked) when we got to the parking lot and there was not another car in sight. After talking about our line strategy, we decided that it would be wisest to hang up our sign immediately and then wait back in the car until someone else showed up so that we could wait until they "discovered" the sign and then get out of the car and innocently ask them, "Oh? Is this where we're supposed to line up?"

After all, we are going to have kids in the same preschool class as the other people in line... we don't want to come across as totally psycho from the get go.

So Alyssa sneaked to the door under the cloak of darkness and hung up her sign (of course she had scotch tape in her pocket). While I watched, giggling from the front seat of her car. We then watched and waited.

A few minutes later our friend Meghan arrived and joined the party in Alyssa's car.

Around 6:30 AM another car finally showed up. Alyssa was ready to spring from the car, determined to be the first one in line, but we noticed that the driver of the other car parked about as far away from the building as he could and when he got out of his car he was holding what looked like a lunch box. Turns out he was an employee.

He entered the building at one end and eventually made it to the lobby doors where our sign was hung. We held our breath. At first he walked right by, seemingly oblivious, but just as he was about to turn down a hallway away from the doors, he looked over his shoulder and did a total double take. He came to a complete stop mid-stride and spent a suspenseful 30 seconds or so staring at our sign before he moved on.

All the while, Alyssa kept remarking that she couldn't believe no one else was there yet. Ha!

But at 6:45 AM, Alyssa glanced toward the door and was shocked to see two men approaching the door. We were blind-sided. In all of our calculations we did not account for pedestrians. Of all the oversights!

I've never seen Alyssa move so fast. She was out of the car and grabbing our chairs from the trunk before I had a chance to put down my hot chocolate.

The sign worked like a charm. The men read it and obediently formed a line right in front of it. We, as planned, said, "Oh, it's great that they put up a sign," and joined them in line wearing our best poker faces.

Shortly after that people began to join the line by twos and threes. More than once we saw someone beginning to line up at the entrance opposite us, only to see the sign through the double glass doors and join the growing line on our side of the building. Priceless.

By the time the doors were opened, there were more than 40 people standing in line. We felt totally validated showing up as early as we did. Even if it was a little excessive. What can I say? When it comes to our kids, we are committed... especially at $206/month. :)

Easter

We have been celebrating Easter all week in our house. On Tuesday I surprised Kai by picking him up early from preschool to take him to an Easter party at Pump it Up--only his favorite place in the whole world. The event included an Easter egg hunt, a craft, a visit from the Big Bunny himself, and plenty of jumping.

A couple of days later there was a party at Kai's preschool. It started off with an egg hunt in the courtyard. As usual, the parents followed the children around like the paparazzi taking pictures of their kids.

Back in the classroom the kids enjoyed snacks while the parents stood silently around the perimeter of the room taking pictures.

As Ron Burgundy would say, "When in Rome..."

Once snack time was over, the parents spoke to their children in hushed tones until it was time to leave. All of the preschools' parties have followed this format more or less. They're pretty lame.

In past years I've avoided dying eggs with Kai--it's messy, time consuming, and what do you do with all those hard-boiled eggs anyway? But this year I decided to give it a go. Kai was so excited and kept telling me, "This is so fun, Mommy!" "Thank you for letting me do this, Mommy!" "I love this, Mommy!"

 

It made me feel a little guilty that I didn't indulge him in past years. Especially since egg dying didn't turn out to be as messy as I had feared. The key is to dress appropriately.

We kicked off the Easter weekend by attending an Easter potluck party at a friends' house. Kai was all business until he found his 10 allotted eggs. The stinker wouldn't stop to pose for a single picture so I chased him around taking uninspired pictures of his back.

But once he was finished it was a different story

Saturday night we sent Kai to bed a little early with  reminders that he needed to be asleep if he wanted the Easter bunny to come. He was eager to comply, but materialized in our room at 1:30 AM asking if the Easter Bunny had come yet. When I told him that he needed to go back to bed or the Easter Bunny would not be coming at all, he responded, "But Mommy, my tummy hurts from sleeping for too long." 

Nice try!

At 7 the next morning, Ari started crying, but I didn't hear a peep from Kai's room, so I went and got Ari and brought him into our room where I figured we would wait until Kai woke up. At 7:15 Kai bounded happily into our room announcing, "The Easter Bunny came.... I found all my toys!" 

The little stinker had pulled some kind of ninja maneuver--managing to sneak out into the playroom and find his Easter stash and half the eggs without making a sound. So much for capturing the magic on camera. Oh well. 

Kai was impressed that the Easter Bunny was up to speed on his two great loves:

The stuffed Hump Back Whale that he named Humphrey was probably the biggest hit of the day

But Yo and I were most excited about this Strider balance bike

Ari is our little percussionist these days--banging on anything within reach. So his basket contained a drum. He also got some more dinosaurs, a cute cloth book, little classical music toy, and a walker. Which I hope will help him figure out what those legs are for.

Our whole family came down with a cold this past week. Yo was in the thick of it Saturday morning. It hit me and Ari by Saturday night. The two of us were still feeling under the weather this morning so we sent Yo and Kai off to church in their Easter digs without us. 

After church, Kai and I rolled over to the local park to test out his new bike. Kai hasn't quite figured out how to get the momentum necessary to balance on it yet. It would be easier if there weren't so many dandelions distracting you along the way...

We ended our day over dinner with friends. As usual the food was delicious, but the company was even better. The only picture we snapped was this one:

I would be remiss to share this Easter post, without spending a moment to reflect on the life and the love of the Savior. It truly is unfathomable that the son of God, Jesus the Christ, would humble himself and suffer as he did--paying the price for my sins in the garden and on the cross--out of love for someone as imperfect as I.

And when I think that God his son not sparing,
Sent him to die - I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin:

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

Happy Easter!!!

Ari's growing repertoire

"Does he have any tricks?" is a question mothers are asked about their babies more often than you'd think. Unless you count growing teeth and being fat as "tricks" then Ari hasn't done much that I could qualify as a trick.... until recently.

Ari is showing signs that he understands some of what we are saying. This is one of my favorite stages. I still remember the first time that I realized Kai could understand me. He was about 6 months old when I said "Do you want to play this little piggy, Kai?" and he held up his foot in response. I was totally amazed and delighted.

With Ari I play a game where I steal his binky after saying, "Gimme that binky," or "I'm gonna get that binky!" We were playing this game a few weeks ago when I said "Gimme that binky!" and then Ari took his binky out of his mouth and promptly stuck it in mine. It's now a favorite game in our house.

Ari also gives famously slobbery kisses on demand. And his latest trick is featured below:

I know what you're thinking... cute AND smart. Or was that just me? ;)

Schoonermaker Beach

While the rest of the country has been enduring one long and arduous winter, we have been enjoying glorious weather here in the Bay. Last week temperatures hit the low 80s and with sunshine to spare so I did the responsible thing and hit the beach. Duh.

Instead of heading to Santa Cruz as usual, I decided to do a little research and came across a blog post by a Bay Area dad that rated the top 5, kid friendly beaches in the Bay. So we decided to check out one of them, Schoonermaker Beach in Sausalito, with our friends the Lunnys.

You know it's a nice day in the Bay when it's this sunny going over the Golden Gate

The beach was PERFECT for little kids. It was literally located in a marina so the water was very calm and there were lots of cool boats for the boys to look at.

Without waves and undercurrents to worry about, we felt comfortable letting the boys splash and play in the water without us hovering over them.

The beach itself was the perfect scale. There was plenty of room to spread out our blankets and for the kids to play in the sand, but we could see the entire beach (which was sandwiched between two boat docks) from where we were sitting.

So the kids were contained and the mommies were totally relaxed and able to focus our attention on our little ones.

Other pluses of this place: The sand was nice and powdery, the parking free, and the bathrooms and trash cans nearby.

You may have noticed that Kai's swim trunks are on backward in all of these picture above. He's really into dressing himself these days and if he puts something on the wrong way he will insist that he prefers it that way. It's not a battle that I think is worth fighting. Maybe he'll start a new trend?

The 3 hours that we spent at the beach flew by. Kai didn't sit down for one moment the entire time that we were there. 

I think we all could have been happy staying another hour or two, but we wanted to beat the commuter traffic on our trek home so we left with the promise that we would return again... and soon.