Moving and Shaking

Kieran is just loving daycare. Last night I went to pick him up and he was having a grand time on their playmat area. He's really close to figuring out the crawling thing - I think. He keeps getting up on his hands, but doesn't seem to want to get up on his knees at all. It's possible he'll skip crawling in favor of walking early - he loves to be vertical.

Because he does love the standing-up thing, I'm going to try and get him an exersaucer (second-hand). I've been up on craigslist and there are several available in the area, most for about $10. It's really nice since he probably will only get about 5 months' use out of it before he outgrows it.

Mom-Vibe
Apparently I give off the "MOM" signal. I think it's visible only to children. I got to Kieran's daycare very early this morning and so had some time to sit with him before I went to work. While I was there Kieran was in a seat at the table and I was walking around putting his things away. There was one baby being fed and one baby on the lap of Miss Chrissy (in addition to Kieran). The baby on her lap reached out for me as I was standing next to her (talking to Kieran) and so I picked her up. She held tight to me for about 5-10 minutes while I stood there talking with Chrissy and to Kieran. The little girl is about 18 months old. She was a doll-baby and was having a rough morning. But it was weird to have the kid just reach out like that. I guess I'm really a mom now.

Anybody Want a Cat?
We've been trying to find a new home for Tucker (one of our cats) as he has not reacted very well to Kieran being in the house and we have no time for him. Unfortunately all of the no-kill shelters are full this time of year and none of my ads for adoption have been answered (successfully) I've gotten lots of spam from them, but no real interest. Quite a few people claiming to want him but are from other states - very fishy to me and I'm not about to let him get researched on. It's quite upsetting to see how people will try and snow you to do that.

Anyway - things here at the office are doing well. Finally caught up on most of my projects and have some time to plan for other things next week. We'll have fun going to the fireworks (or I will at least). Kieran goes to bed before they start so Ken will stay home with him while I walk down to the park. Not sure how he'll react to 1/2 hour of loud booming.

OK - that's it. Brain is now empty - will blog again soon.

Growing Pains

He's so even tempered that even 5 minutes of crying when he's not tired or hungry is weird/difficult. I guess I've been completely spoiled by Kieran.

Yesterday he did a whole lot of eating and sleeping. Unfortunately that meant that he was up at 3 am and again at 5 am, even though he didn't go down until after 7. Oh well.

Also just read that I'm supposed to start weaning him off of feeding before going to bed. Yeah, right. I have a hard enough time keeping him awake enough to finish eating let alone move the feeding "up" in his bedtime routine schedule. I think that may wait until he's a little older (like 1 year or something...).

Ken's having a good time at his new job. Already has some work assigned to him as well as some immigration work. He's working hard to get additional clients for the firm. It's somewhat stressful, but also nice to know that he's able to court clients and whatnot.

OK, I am back to work (tired as I am). Going to blog again when I'm more awake.

Missing Him Already

Not sure why but it hit me today that Kieran is not with me all day. This has been the case now for 3 months. I guess because I went near where he was at daycare today but didn't stop by (during lunch) because he's usually sleeping around that time and I didn't want to wake him up.

Just having a small pang of missing him. I've got tons of errands to run on Saturday and then Ken has to run to the office for awhile. I think he and I will need to get a sitter soon and take a night out for the two of us. It's been whirlwind for the past two weeks or more and I don't see that ending anytime soon. I miss him too though we see each other every day.

Hopefully we'll have a better feel for the schedule of things in another week or two. Just having an understanding of how our days will flow will help greatly. The getting out in the morning has been easy. It's when we get home and what needs to be done then that's hard to get down pat.

OK back to work. Blog again soon.

Our New Life Begins....

Ken started his new job today and is pretty excited. He came back from the AILA conference with a bunch of great ideas for gaining business and potentially creating a Baltimore chapter of the organization.

Kieran went back to his second week of daycare today. He's having such a good time there (at least he did last week) he even made Ken a father's day card. I know, he's so talented for a 5-month-old.
He got his first taste of Oatmeal last night too. He liked it about as much as he liked the rice cereal. We'll probably start him on some of the veggies this week and then we'll move on to fruit. Some days he eats a lot and other days he doesn't seem to like it.

That's all from here. I think I'm coming down with a cold so I may not blog (or if I do it may not make much sense) for a while.

Dang It, I'm Tired!

So this single parenting gig sucks ass. Kieran went to sleep last night at 6:30 pm. A little early for him but not bad. I went to bed at 8:30 figuring I'd be out by 9 or 10 and then would get a decent night's sleep since I knew he'd be up early. His normal snoozing lasts from 7pm - 6am (yes, I know exactly how lucky I am right now).

At 3 am I heard him just kinda making noise. He wasn't upset or crying just babbling/grunting. By 4 am he sounded upset so I went in there and fed him. Tried to put him back down at 4:30 am, thinking I might be able to get one more hour of sleep before I had to be up. For 20 minutes he just sat there grunting and he started to sound grumpy again. I went in his room, turned on the mobile, figured I was up for the day so took my shower. At the end of my shower I notice the monitor is awfully quiet. Little bugger fell back asleep!

I went downstairs, cleaned up a bit, got his stuff ready for daycare and watched some TV (I've been averaging maybe an hour a day before I just get too tired and head to bed). I gave him a half hour and went upstairs again at 6am with a bottle in hand. Took me 5 minutes to wake him up (he was pretty well sound asleep) and I had to turn on some additional lights to get him moving.

Yes, I am very much ready for Ken to be home now. He's trying to get an earlier flight out on Sunday (originally not scheduled to be home until after Kieran was in bed) so he can spend at least some of his Father's Day with the munchkin. I can't tell you how happy I am that we have daycare this week. I think if I had to entertain him all day and be this tired, I'd just lose it.

Now a Father's Day shout-out!

Happy Father's Day Dad!
You have taught me that screaming at the top of my lungs is only OK at an Orioles game.

Happy Father's Day Poppop!
I have learned that you trust me, but you just don't trust me :-).

Happy Father's Day Andy!
You helped me understand that a punch in the arm is a sign of love from boys.

Love to all. Blog again soon.

Ask Me What My Husband Does

It's official - Ken is a lawyer. We went to the swearing in ceremony on Monday. It was quite nice actually - not boring or long (only 40 minutes total). Most interesting was that one of the Court of Appeals justices' last day was Ken's first day as a lawyer.

He's very excited and is now down in Orlando for the AILA conference. He's heartbroken about not seeing us for 5 days, but I'm sure he'll have fun at Universal and whatnot. Mostly he's there to schmooze, learn and pickup some clients.

Kieran is reacting very well to daycare. He smiles when he goes in and he smiles when I pick him up. I don't expect this to last, but it's his third day there and when he saw Miss Christy (one of his caretakers) he gave her a big smile. I was a little grumpy cuz I was right in front of him (Hey! Remember me? The woman who fed you this morning?) but I'm glad that he's enjoying it. It's better than the alternative.

He also ate an entire bowl of cereal last night. I'm going to try and do solid food twice a day. It's more for fun right now than nutrition. Just getting him used to the different textures. He ate only a few teaspoons this morning but enjoyed it anyway. That's all my news. I'm at work until 2pm today. Tomorrow until 3pm and then Friday until 4pm. Just easing Kieran into the daycare thing. OK back to work.

Bubbie Needs a Booster Seat

And apparently I'm only 3 inches away from needing one myself. I saw an ad the other night from the National Transportation Safety Board (OK, it was a PSA) that said until kids were 4' 9" they should be in a booster seat. Being that I'm only five feet and my grandmother used to be 4'10" (I'm sure she's shorter these days), we're angling for booster seats I guess.

Not much else is new. Going to start daycare next week as half days to get me and Kieran used to it. Ken leaves on Tuesday for Orlando for the AILA conference. We're going to move Fathers Day this year because Ken will be out of town on everyone else's fathers day. Will be an interesting experience for me, being the only parent for a while. I'm nervous but happy to be spending all that time with the munchkin.

OK, more coffee for me and back to work.

And the Place that Gets Most of Our Money Is...

Goddard.

I went to KinderCare and had a very different experience from Ken and I fretted all night long about it (I actually didn't sleep for 2 1/2 hours because of this). When I went to KinderCare at the end of the day the kids were smiling and the woman who showed me around was very affectionate with the children. That was what I felt might be missing at Goddard.

So this morning I went to Goddard and talked to the director about my misgivings. Then I looked at the infant room again. While I was there the caregiver was taking care of 2 infants, one of them was bawling in a swing while she fed the other one. They (caregiver and director) explained the bawling kid was teething. As soon as he caught sight of me and the director he started smiling. "Oh, I guess you're just tired of looking at me, eh?" joked the caregiver. The tone of voice she used and the obvious affection she had for a kid that was crying his heart out not just a second before convinced me.

I liked that there were fewer infants at Goddard (6 compared to up to 12 at KinderCare) and that they would be working with Kieran on sign language (not that we'd expect him to learn anything right away). They also have a Spanish cirriculuum. Finally, I talked with my brother this morning who reassured me that we can do this for now and, so long as we're not signing any long-term contracts (we're not) we can always change our minds and find a new situation.

Whew. One less thing to worry about, on to the next....

Daycare Dilemma

Ken's got a job with the firm Kollman & Saucier. They do Employment Discrimination law and much more. They had been farming out their immigration work but will now be able to do this in-house. They expect Ken to spend 50% of his time doing work for them and 50% of his time doing business development. He's essentially going to be able to start his practice under their roof, insurance, etc.

While this is great news (we get to keep the house - yea!), it means daycare for Kieran. We went to Goddard School today here in Owings Mills (where I work) and Ken visited KinderCare. He really liked Goddard compared to KinderCare, felt that it was more organized, cleaner and generally a nicer facility. I'm going to visit KinderCare on my way home to give it a look-see.

I'm starting to get really upset about the idea of sending him to daycare at all. I don't know that I prefer a nanny, but it seems like a lot of kids to few adults. Maybe it's just me. I'm nearly in tears over it, but it's something we have to do - we both need to work. The good news is that we will start this next week, when I was planning on being off work completely as Ken will be in Orlando for the AILA conference.

Instead of taking the entire week off, I'll be doing half days. This will help me (I won't be the sole caregiver 24-7 that week) and will ease Kieran into daycare instead of "OK, complete change of pace!" I'm upset about it, but I think that once he's there he'll start getting on a schedule, will start being able to do more/socialize, etc. OK back to work. Will blog again tomorrow with our decision.

The Kid Who Ate the World

Kieran got his first taste of solid food last night. He liked it and ate more than we initially planned on giving him. The book I was referring to suggested no more than one teaspoon at his first feeding. He probably ate at least a tablespoon, maybe more.

We have it on video and will be sharing it with anyone who's interested. It's pretty funny to see his reaction. We were completely convinced he'd spit it out or get fully covered in it. Kieran showed us - he even ate right from the spoon. He'd grab it after I loaded it up, pull it towards his mouth and chow down.

I thought he'd like solid food right off the bat but I never expected him to go so whole hog. We'll do another small feeding tonight. Right now the food is more for fun, getting him used to the texture and eating something other than liquid or from a bottle. Soon he'll actually have meals of this stuff.

On another note, I finally saw him roll onto his stomach last night. While we knew he could do it (we'd set him to bed on his back and he'd be on his belly in the morning), he'd never done it where either of us could see. Last night he did it in front of me (I'm not sure he was really aware I was in the room). It was funny - a three-step process. First he'd get onto his side which he's been able to do for a long time. Then he'd get a little further towards lying on his stomach, with one arm trapped underneath. Finally, he wiggles just a little so he can release that arm and voila! Now on belly. Now that he's on his stomach when he wants to be, he's also scooting with his legs - maybe he will crawl before he walks. I'm not sure. Any bets on that one?

Godzilla Movie References are Always Funny
Ken took Kieran to Games Workshop yesterday where they have large tables with scenery set up for gameplay. As no one was currently playing. Ken took Kieran and let him stand on the table (with Ken's help of course) and let him be Kieran-zilla, tromping over towns, rivers and trees. I'm mostly upset that we don't have video of this. I think I'll be sending Ken back with the camera to get pictures. I've been telling Kieran since he was born that he will learn different types of humor from different people. His mother knows that Godzilla movie references are always funny (Godzilla movies, however, not always funny).