Almost Home

I am missing Ken and Kieran something fierce. Ken's been doing just fine without me, though Kieran got up at 4am today and didn't go back to sleep. Ken's taking a half day to run a few errands (more baby food, more formula) and to pick up Kieran early.

Ken also was able to post some photos for me while I was gone. You can check them out here. These are a few of my favorites:









On the left you can see what everyone keeps telling me - that Kieran looks just like Ken. They are wearing a nearly identical expression and its just priceless. On the right is Kieran playing with the walking toy I picked up at the TotSwap. He's having a great time with it (even though he did lose his shoe).

OK - love to all, blog again soon. I'll be home soon!!!! (can you tell I'm excited about that?)

Good Family, Bad Airplane

Had a wonderful time for Thanksgiving with Andy & Wendy (plus kids), Mutti & Poppop, Charles, Vicki and John & Tamara (plus kids). All the food was fantastic and the kids really were enjoying each other (and Kieran too).

Hanukkah at Uncle Gary's was good too. Always nice to have breakfast and then dessert - isn't that the way it should always be (or, because we did it at 11, is that considered Brunch)? Anyway, since we haven't done our professional photos we suck and didn't have a gift for Bubbie. We'll be doing Hanukkah with Dad and Dar this coming weekend.

Tree Lighting and Other Traditions
We are trying to figure out best our holiday traditions this year. Ken has always put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving (at least in years that we had a tree - one year the cats broke it) so we did that on Friday. Kieran was sick with a cold most of the weekend so we generally stayed inside to get him well enough for Hanukkah on Sunday.

Stockings are hung. I must admit I am very sad to see Milo and Tucker's stocking not there. I bought Kieran a new stocking and I needed one too (mine lost its loop). It all looks very nice and festive and Santa has already given Kieran a sack of Hanukkah geld (those chocolate coins). This is tradition I think we'll have each year. Since Santa will know that Kieran is a Jew who celebrates Christmas. We're still figuring out the rest but hopefully it will all gel nicely.

OK I'm here in Vegas and I may try and catch a nap before things get moving. I may not blog again until after I get back but I do promise to share the photos we took this weekend. There are some great ones of Kieran and Andy playing.

Updated Photos

I don't know how much I'll be able to blog between now and December since after Thanksgiving we'll be entertaining ourselves and then I'll be traveling for work. Have I mentioned I'm not really looking forward to this trip at all?

Anyway - for the past two weekends I've gotten some great shots of laughing, climbing Kieran. Here are a few...

That's Kieran and Ken lounging on the sofa (Kieran's got the remote... just like his mommy, he's aiming to play couch commando) and the other one is him just laughing at me as I try to take his picture. Maybe he's laughing at the outfit I had him in (it was laundry day). Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday. You can see the rest of the photos that we uploaded here.

So It Begins...

The craziness sets in this week with Thanksgiving and some running around. We're almost done with our holiday shopping and we just set our studio date with the Picture People. Yes, Debbie, we're getting it done (Ken's pretty excited about it too).

Anyway, I CLEANED UP at the tot swap on Sunday. I had to wait until the last day because Ken was sick on Saturday. It all worked out though, I spent about $40 and ended up with 2 toys, 2 jackets and 10 miscellaneous clothing items. I'll definitely hit it again in the spring. At that point, I may even sell some stuff we've got sitting around.

I think we'll be able to post some new photos tomorrow. We've got some great new ones of Kieran with his new toys. I bought him a toy to help encourage him to walk since he's been cruising along the furniture forever. He took to this toy fast and I think that he'll be walking without help soon.

Other than that, not much else new. We've got his follow-up doctor's appointment tomorrow (check on his ears from his ear infection) which will also include his booster flu shot. After that I've got to swing by my mom's to see about grabbing another baby gate. We don't need them at our house but my brother doesn't have any up anymore and we'll be there for the holiday.

Anyway - gotta go. Need to go get my brownie-makings for the holiday. Love to all, will try to blog again before Wednesday.

Quiet Weekend

Ken and I are looking forward to one of our last quiet weekends before the craziness of the holiday season is upon us. I plan on hitting the Tot Swap and we may hit the Thanksgiving Day Parade downtown, weather depending.

After this weekend we've got a lot of running around to do. Next week is Kieran's checkup and booster shot for the flu, Thanksgiving (thank you Uncle Andy & Aunt Wendy for hosting!), Hanukkah with the Lipshultzes, and hopefully a chance to see my friends from Idaho. Then on Monday I leave for Vegas and I don't get back until Saturday morning (1am).

The weekend I get back we have Hanukkah (again - this time just immediate family) and Uncle Irv's headstone unveiling.

The weekend after that we have Hanukkah (yes, one last time - mom's side this time).

That week I go to Austin for a few days.

The following weekend is the weekend before Christmas and I'm off the week following because daycare is closed. I'll be off until after New Years. Which will both be nice and somewhat frustrating as I try and clean house/organize and take care of Kieran as he becomes more and more mobile.

So, like I said, we're going to enjoy this last quiet weekend together. Hope you do too.


And, in Daycare News...
One of the babies in Infant I (Kieran's old room) got Croup. So Kieran, who is still stuffy, has to be watched but he's not hoarse like he was before so I'm less worried. Also, his professional photos came in. We decided not to purchase any of them because he was SO cranky the day they took them. In one of them you can even see a tear in his eye. He was crying most of the time they were trying to take the photos. Sad, but it did convince Ken that he wants the three of us to get professional shots taken. Its what we promised his mom we would do anyway.

OK back to work for me. Love to all, blog again soon.

Belated Congrats

I'm losing my mind a bit (again) and can't remember if I gave a shout-out to our friends Joshua and Beth who are joined by their son Justin. He's now almost 2 months old. Check him out (with his crazy amounts of hair).

At Least He Thinks He's Funny

We already knew that Kieran had a good sense of humor. This weekend he started to do things on purpose to make himself laugh. It's pretty neat to see his little brain at work.

Ben (Ken's brother, the marine) came to visit us this weekend. Ken, Kieran, Ben & I had a good time just tooling around town. We didn't do much interesting (though Ken & Ben went to the Ravens game on Sunday - thanks to my dad). On Saturday , while putting Kieran down for a nap, I gave him his binky. He doesn't usually need or want it, but from time to time it calms him down. He would suck on it for a bit, take it out of his mouth, look at it, shake it, talk to it and then put it back in his mouth. Just for fun, when he dropped it, I put it in my mouth (backwards, so I was biting on the handle). He thought this was kinda funny (I got a smile). Then, when he took it out of my mouth he would shake it, talk to it, then he put it back in my mouth. And he laughed. He thought that mommy with the binky was pretty funny.

But that was just the beginning. Sunday night while Kieran and I played at the house (Ken and Ben were off to the game), he opened up a box and tried to close it again, but one of the other box flaps got in his way. When I moved what was blocking him and he nearly fell from the force of trying to shut the box, he laughed out loud. This, apparently, was very funny. He's beginning to realize that interacting with his environment can be funny and that he can do things that amuse him. I'll be interested to see how this takes shape since Ken and I have such snarky senses of humor.

BGE is on My S*!# List

Another power outage last night. I woke up when the power went out (maybe around 2 or 2:30). Kieran woke up at 3:30 and I brought him into bed with me since his room was pitch-black and the heat doesn't come on when the power is out (we don't have electric heat but the thermostat runs on electricity). He managed to get back to sleep, but I didn't.

I'm running on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, maybe less. The power didn't come back on until 6 am. At which point I took Kieran into his room and put him in his crib. He was very confused why I was leaving him there, begging him to let me get just 20 minutes of rest. Which he did (he's such an angel) but babbled most of the time.

Anyway - I'm not happy with BGE right now since it's the second power outage in three weeks. If this is what I have to look forward to this winter, I'm going to hurt someone (at BGE).

4 am is Not an Appropriate Wake Up Time

This is unfortunately, what Kieran thinks is morning. I'm fairly certain that Ken and I have contributed to this false assumption. He's been getting up at this time and just making noise (not crying, just cooing and talking to himself). We've been getting up, feeding him and then we're not able to get him to go back to sleep.

So, this morning, when he got up at 4 am and I knew that it was 100% up to me to make sure he didn't freak when I went to take my shower (Ken's in Philly). I decided it was high time we broke him of this habit. I feed him, rocked him a bit and put him back in his crib - fully awake. He was confused and continued to move about and babble for the next hour. I got up a little after 5 (I'd just been laying there, waiting for him to start crying in earnest) and took my shower. By the time I was done, he was back asleep. I got to sleep for another 20 minutes too before he woke up for good at 6:30 am.

I relayed all this to Ken this morning. I really think that its our fault that he thinks its OK to be up at 4 am (though I do feel bad because he's been asleep since 7pm so he's getting 9 hours). But, we agreed that unless he's crying we'll not go into his room. Ken said I need to turn the monitor down a bit so he doesn't wake up at every coo and gurgle. He's probably right. I tend to turn it up from time to time because I can't hear him breathing. Then when he makes real noise its pretty freaking loud.

Anyway- he was in a great mood this morning (and I'm going to say a great big YAY that we're done with his ear infection medicine - at least for now) and was pretty happy to be heading to daycare. I think he's enjoying the Lovable Lobster room. They tell me he's been doing great with the transition (when Carolyn saw him on his first day, she zoomed over to him and gave him a great big kiss).

OK back to work for me. Love to all, blog again soon.

Explanation of Some Stuff

So, now that we've got our 3 or 4 weeks of backlogged photos up, I thought I should give a bit of explanation about some of them. Here is the one of Kieran's (much-touted) first step.If you missed the post on this, Kieran was standing and Ken was taking a photo and Kieran just took a step completely un-prompted.

Anyway, other photos on the website include trips to my grandparents' place, Zack's birthday party and our trip to Port Discovery.

This past weekend was good - with the exception that both Ken and I are now sick. Kieran was in good spirits. I'm hoping that his ear infections clear up since he's not crazy about taking his medicine.

OK sorry for the quick posts (it is National Blog Posting Month, btw) but thought I'd do a bit of explanation on the photos.

Oh, one final note - it's Kieran's official first day as a Loveable Lobster in Infant II.

PHOTOS!!!!!!

Ken found the wire we needed. Here are the recent photos.

Sleep Deprivation

Kieran was exhausted after daycare yesterday. He slept for a total of 5 minutes on the ride home (mostly because I had to wake him up for a stop at the dry cleaners) and then was not keen on the idea of going to bed at 7, even though he was beat. Finally we realized he was hurting and gave him some Motrin, which seemed to help and he was out shortly after that.

Everything was going OK - he was sleeping alright, only groused and needed to be reassured once or twice - until about 1 or 2 am. That's when the power went out. That's when I woke up. First, understand that we have a baby monitor in Kieran's room and I sleep with a monitor by my head. We have two sets for the monitor - one that can hold a charge, which we use downstairs before we go to bed; and one that cannot hold a charge which we keep plugged in. When a monitor loses its charge it begins to beep at you. This is actually a good thing since it made me realize the power was out. So I get up and go to sleep on the floor of Kieran's room, thinking he may wake up and freak because his nightlight is out and its nearly pitch-black in the house.

Well, I don't sleep and he begins to toss and turn. Finally I've had enough, go back to bed but leave the door to his room open (he's about 3 steps from our room) in case he begins to cry. He does wake up 20 minutes later. Ken goes to him and I say "just bring him in here with us". Which Ken does. Only Kieran has decided this is not comfortable and tosses and turns the entire time.

The lights come back on sometime around 3 (I think) and I suggest to Ken that he put Kieran back down in his room (but he's sleeping at that point so we leave well enough alone). I still haven't slept yet since I woke up from the power outage. I do manage to fall back asleep shortly after the power comes back on. About an hour later Kieran is crying - he's hungry. So, bottle time for him and he goes back to bed at 4:30 am. I do get back to sleep after this (Ken did the bottling and back-to-bedding) and manage to stay asleep until about 6:30 when Kieran wakes up for good. So - off and on about 4-5 hours of sleep. Ken thinks he got about the same because he slept for a good while until we brought Kieran to bed.

Now we're both suffering from sleep deprivation all week long and we have sore throats. So, tonight should be entertaining. We do have some fun plans for the weekend - heading to the convention center to watch some of the Games Workshop folk play their games. Mostly just getting out of the house and wandering around the city.

For anyone who was worried about us and the Domino's Sugar factory fire - we're fine. Our house is nearby (about 15 blocks away) but we were not home at the time of the explosion and the firefighters extinguished the blaze quickly. Now I just have to see if there is powdered sugar everywhere. Have a great weekend everyone (I'm going to tear the house apart to find our camera cable and/or I will go buy a new one). Love to all, will blog again soon.

Punk Rock Boy

If we have to buy a new cable for our camera this weekend, we will. I am DYING to show everyone how Kieran looked after I moussed his hair on Halloween. It was very cute.

Ken took one for the team last night by sleeping in Kieran's room. First, he refused to be tired and go to sleep (finally conked at 8:30 pm). Then he continued to cough and wake himself up. At 10:30 Ken went in and slept with him on the floor (though I doubt Ken got much sleep). At 3:30 am he got up and needed a bottle. I sat with him for about an hour before he got cranky again and Ken went in again. He slept until 7:15 this morning but was in a GREAT mood when he got up.

OK enough of this. If I don't have photos, what's the point? :-)