It’s hard to believe just last year at this time that Kira was basically a little lump of a baby just shy of two months old.  We’d get all excited if she held her head steady without bobbing, or lifted it on her own, or gave us a tiny grin.  We longed for the day when she could interact more with us, when she could sit up on her own and play with toys…

Well, now it’s here.  Now she’s 13 1/2 months and she definitely is holding her head steady and grins and giggles all the time.  She thinks she’s pretty funny actually.  She interacts with us, talks to us, roars at us, chatters about 97% of the time.  She walks all over the place, says about a dozen “words”, understands basic things like “sit down”, “go get”, and “where is”.  She can point to her tummy and feet. 

She’s recently taken to closing doors, which is a bit of a danger not only of pinched fingers, but that she’ll go into a room somewhere and close the door and we won’t know it.  Aside from the worries of these two things, it’s also just annoying.  Every time we walk into a room, she follows behind and shuts the door.  I suppose next is opening doors, which means we need to get a lock on the door leading to the basement ASAP!

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I realized today that I am a very bad blogger.  The reason I am a bad blogger is because I spend way too much time planning and crafting my posts, thinking they have to be complete and ‘official’, in full essay and proper grammatical format.  Since I don’t have time to write essays each week, my blogging gets further and further behind.  Now that I’ve convinced myself that blogging is supposed to be fun, off-the-cuff, random anecdotes, I think that I might get better at this.

Today’s subject:  Bathtime

Bathtime is a mother’s answer to the last-hour-before-bedtime-crankiness dilemma.  By 6:45 pm, Kira has had supper, is tired of every toy she owns, and is either starting to get clingy/whiny or is starting to just get into things.  I, of course, am exhausted and hungry and counting the minutes until 7:30 so she can have the bottle and go to bed.  Sigh – I hate being a working mom.  So what is a tired mommy to do when she has a baby who wants attention that she’s too tired to give?  That’s right – bathtime!

We walk hand in hand into the bathroom and I start the water running.  She immediately leans over the edge of the tub to hold her hand under the faucet while I get her undressed.  She helps me undress her, stepping out of her pants and everything.  As soon as the diaper’s off, she turns to me and holds out her arms to be put in the tub.  Once there are a few inches of water, I settle onto a cushion on the floor and she splashes happily with her toys.  We babble and giggle at each other, bonding away, for 20-30 minutes until the inevitable battle that is basically “Kira stands up”, “Mommy says sit down”, “Kira sits down”, repeat.  Then it’s time to wash up and get the jammies on.

Lesson of the day:  Bathtime = moment of bonding with baby and relaxation for mom.

Picture?  Well, I was so gung ho to write a breezy blog that I have none handy.  So next time….

Oh, I am so LATE in posting about stuff!!  It has been absolutely insane the past few weeks with moving into the new house, Kira’s first birthday, and Christmas – all happening at once.  And on top of that, we still don’t have internet hooked up in the new house, so being able to post has been quite the challenge.  So this will be the birthday blog.  I’ll do Christmas a bit later.

By the way… the move into the new house went very well.  It was tiring, but we’re happily [almost] settled and we love the house.  I did just realize that I don’t really have any pictures since things were moved in and set up, so that’s my next project and post.

Kira celebrated her first birthday on December 19^th and we had a grand little party for her.  I had gone back and forth on the theme and cake style for months and had counted on being settled in the new house with weeks to spare so that I could practice my ideas and techniques.  Well…we ended up getting into the house a mere 5 days before the party and there went all my time to practice.  She ended up with a basic little cake decorated with fondant and adorned with a kiwi bird (to celebrate her ½ New Zealand-ness).

 We had a lot of guests (about 16 adults, 7 children, and 3 babies) and it was a really nice party.  I was able to scrounge enough time to serve the menu that I wanted, although it was exhausting.  Here’s the spread:  apricot-bbq kielbasa, bacon-wrapped smoky links, creamy bacon-filled crescents, fruit-mascarpone bruschetta, olive/prosciutto/provolone on rosemary skewers, ham & cheese balls (for crackers), fruit and cheese skewers, fluffy fruit dip, cake & ice cream, and an assortment of little delectables like toffee and fudge.  Yum!

 Kira wasn’t too sure about the whole opening presents part.  She was very interested in all the new stuff she was being handed by the kids who opened the presents for her, but she had no interest in trying to unwrap.  Too much trouble maybe…she’ll grow out of that!  Haha

And then….Kira had started getting a runny nose a few days before her birthday, but had no other symptoms, so I didn’t think there was anything to be alarmed about.  Her party started at 4:30.  At exactly 4:00 she started running a fever of about 99 degrees.  I still figured it was just a cold.  She was happy and pleasant the whole party, crawling around and playing in such a good mood.  But her cheeks were getting rosier and nose runnier.  By 7:00 her fever was 100.6 and she had developed a barking cough.  Just like that!  Guests started leaving around 7:30 and by 8:00 Joseph and I decided (at my parents’ urging) to take her to the emergency room to get that cough looked at.  My mom and dad (bless them!) stayed behind and cleaned up the whole party for us so we could go right then.  By the time we were triaged at 8:30 her fever was 101.6 and less than an hour later spiked to 103.6.  She was pretty pitiful but SO good.  She just laid on our shoulders and dozed in between interferences from doctors and nurses.  She got a chest x-ray (to rule out pneumonia) and a nasal swab (to rule out RSV).  They diagnosed her with bronchitis and croup.  They started her on albuterol breathing treatments, steroids, an antibiotic, and Motrin.  We had to stay for nearly 4 hours because they wanted to get her fever and heart rate down.  We got her home and in bed by midnight with a brand-new vaporizer.  When I checked her in the middle of the night, she was cool and feverless and sleeping soundly.  Whew!  Her cough and runny nose are still a bit lingering but now, just over a week later, she seems to be recovered.  Poor little birthday girl!

In other Kira updates, she is taking steps now 2-3 at a time and is saying a couple words:  “pretty” and “fishy”.  She got a goldfish for her birthday and every time we go in her room it’s “fishy” “fishy”. 

I will blog in a few days about Christmas, once I gather up all those photos. 

PS:  Grandma made that pretty party dress.  Thank you Grandma!

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Since we’re moving this month, I have yet to set up a Christmas tree in the house.  This of course is killing me, as I ALWAYS put my tree up the day after Thanksgiving.  This year?  Not an ornament in sight, unless you count the ones under the couch that we’re still finding from last year (thanks, Kitty).  So Idecided to set up a little tree in Kira’s room.  I thought this could be a fun tradition to do every year with her when she gets older, and we  could even put a little present under it on Christmas Eve so she has a little gift to open when she leaps out of bed on Christmas morning.

I was intending to get one of the “mini-trees” that you see at all the craft stores, but when I went to Walmart, I found this little 8″ tree, pre-lit!  Well, you can’t pass up the opportunity to never have to string lights.  I set it all up in her room and when I took her in there for bed the first night and she just grinned and grinned at “pretty”.  Now when you put her to bed, even for naps, she looks over at the tree, waiting for it to be lit up.  Normally she sleeps in pitch black, so I’m astonished that she sleeps just fine with the rather bright light from this little tree.

Kira just celebrated her 11 month birthday (which I don’t yet have official pics for) and her first Thanksgiving.  We went over to my mom & dad’s about 4:00 for the traditional turkey feast.  Last year Kira was just a few weeks away from being born; this was her first time in person.  We commemorated with the official family “My first Thanksgiving” bib (complements of Grandma).  She ate her share of sweet potatoes, turkey, mashed potatoes, and baked beans…and the highlight, an ice cream cone provided by Grandma for dessert.  I couldn’t believe she ate the whole thing.  (Note to all who might think I’m a horrible mother:  there was only about a tablespoon of vanilla ice cream, the rest was just that flaky cone).

Today is the traditional Black Friday Christmas shopping frenzy … that I normally do not participate in.  Most of my BF shopping consists of looking through all the online deals to see if any are left.  However, today I’m going to take the baby after her second nap and head in to buy a few things (bath towels, shower curtains, and hopefully winter coats for me and Kira).  By early evening most of the crowds are fast asleep (since they start the night before with the waiting in line!  Ugh)

Kira is crawling all over the place now, standing on her own without holding on, and cruising around on foot while holding onto things.  She’s THIS CLOSE to walking.  I’d be surprised if by her first birthday she hasn’t at least taken her first step.  She’s also suddenly developing a bit of a temper.  The other night she was crying & mad because she couldn’t climb into her toy bin.  Today I had turned off her little musical table so that she didn’t wake Joseph.  She discovered when she pressed buttons nothing happened, and she just flew into a rage, pounding it with her little hands and yelling.  I had to cover my mouth so she didn’t see me laughing before I told her to stop.  It was pretty funny.

We’re really hoping to be in the new house by her birthday (12/19) and it looks pretty sure that we will be.  After all the run-around from the credit union on our mortgage, I finally called a  manager and escalated things and finally we should have a closing date by December 1st.  Hopefully we can close by the 11th.  We’re just waiting at this point, although we haven’t done an ounce of packing.  I’m not sure what we’re waiting for.  We did buy a dining room set, which is just waiting at the store to be delivered.  Appliances (refrigerator & stove) come next, and then a living room set.

Our new dining room set (marble tabletop with leather chairs)