Happy Birthday, Son.  You made us a happy little family.

Kieran’s like me
Kieran’s like you
Kieran’s got a lot of big things that he’s gonna do

Kishou’s his dog
She’s big, he’s small
Daddy is his very best friend
Mama loves them all

Oh, Kieran
Kieran, Kieran, Kieran, Kieran, Kieran
He’s got a lot to see
He’s got a lot to do
And he loves Mama and Daddy too!

It’s been an incredible first year, and Kieran has his own song to prove it.

Happy Birthday, sweet little boy.  Mama and Daddy love you so much.

You are the most incredible Daddy to Kieran.

I thought I knew what love was. We’ve had a pretty amazing 19 years together. And I thought I knew what love was: the amazing, wonderful way I feel about you.

But then we became parents. And I’ve seen you laugh and cry more in this last year than I have in our whole relationship. (I think you could probably say the same about me though, which is really saying something…) I’ve watched you change thousands of diapers (3286 total and counting…) and watched you melt at your son’s gurgles, cries, and laughs. He is undoubtedly your best buddy. And you are his Hero. You are his Daddy.

I thought I knew what love was, but this year I’ve learned all over again why I love you, and how much I can love someone. You are an incredible Father. Kieran is SUCH a lucky little boy. And I am so blessed to have you both.

You’ve been my friend, my love, my help mate, my soul mate… but now you are the Father of my child as well. I have fallen in love with you all over again, as we’ve fallen in love with our son. He is the best gift we’ve ever given each other.

Happy Father’s Day, Honey. I love you so very very much.

Kieran is almost walking, he’s almost talking, he’s almost eating chunky stuff. He laughs and babbles all the time. He terrorizes the dog and cats as often as he can. He stacks the rings on the ring stacker and puts the shapes in the right holes on his shape sorter. He loves to play with kitchen utensils, so I got him his own whisks and measuring cups and colanders at the $.99 store.  He crawls and cruises at light speed, and follows us around the house.

He is incredible. And SO VERY BUSY. I know we’re going to spend the next 2 years chasing him.

Here’s a typical weekend day these days with our very busy baby:

There are, of course, more pics….

So even though I totally fell down last month in updating the blog, we still have been taking pics and video of Kieran – when he’s feeling up to it. We attended Grampy Tom’s company picnic, went swimming again, and Kieran has been enjoying new-found freedom as he crawls all over the house!

Kieran’s 9th month was a busy one filled with growth and milestones. He crawled, pulled up, and cruised for the first time all in this last month. He’s eating way more, of an increasing variety of foods (as long as they’re not green.) I’ve been increasing the texture of his foods steadily – eventually he’ll get into chunks and pieces. For now he’s content with the occasional melon to chew on, but he still spits out any chunks he manages to bite off. He’ll get there in his own time.

Oh, and his favorite color is Orange. Give him a box of toys, and he’ll pull out the orange ones first. His favorite thing in the house these days is the orange circle from his shape sorter set. He carries that around with him.  It’s so great to watch him playing with toys (or our ipads) or enjoying time in the pool.  As much as we want him to stay our little baby, it’s so incredible to watch him becoming a little boy.

Even as I start making plans for Kieran’s first birthday party (June 25th) I refuse to accept that this first year of our son is coming to an end.  What an amazing kid we have.  Paul and I ask each other every day how we got so blessed and lucky to have this little guy in our lives.

There’s a whole bunch of new pictures in several galleries:

The Story So Far

Pool Time!

Adventures with Solid Food

Kieran picked up a tummy bug right after Grampa John and Great Grandma Cat were out at the beginning of April.  He spent the better part of the next 10 days barfing.  (Paul joined him about 2 days in.)  It took a full two weeks before we were able to get him back on solid food and regular bottles.  It was incredibly hard to watch him go through that, obviously feeling so awful with projectile vomiting and everything.  Three trips to the doctor (Ped and Urgent Care) to make sure he was really OK were necessary – especially after two days of chalky white diapers.  (Dr. Google and our baby books said that could indicate something VERY wrong with his liver, so that freaked us out but good.  Turned out his body just wasn’t digesting the little bit of formula he was taking in , so we were seeing dehydrated formula in his diapers.)  Two weeks after it started, the tummy bug FINALLY went away.  Kieran’s been eating like a champ to make up for it!

Apparently feeling the need to *prove* that he felt better mid-month, Kieran decided to start crawling.  He’d been pulling up on things when Grampa John and Great Grandma Cat were here, but still not crawling.  We’d assumed he would just skip crawling and go straight to walking, but we were wrong!  One Sunday morning (April 17th, to be precise) Kieran windmilled his arms, fell forward and started crawling.  He hasn’t looked back since.  He’s shockingly fast and can crawl surprisingly far before taking a breather.

(Kieran had other ideas during a diaper change one April evening, so Mama acquiesced to his demands to be put on the floor. Fortunately, he decided that he was too tired to go far and came back on his own, having realized that a cool breeze up the bum isn’t what he wanted that evening after all.)

For the most part, he likes to follow us around – pulling up on our legs when he gets to us.  This is a little difficult when I’m in the kitchen trying to make dinner.  Kieran has also discovered the dog door as well.  This is problematic – as I’m convinced he’s going to take a header through the door and topple over on his gigantic noggin any day.  I think for the time being we’re going to have to block the dog door and just let the dog and cats in and out manually.  (If anyone has any suggestions or advice on how to manage a dog door, I’d appreciate hearing it.)  Baby gates were ordered and arrived today, so that’s the project for this weekend.

Going along with pulling up on everything, we knew it was just a matter of time before Kieran started pulling up in his crib.  We’d been meaning to lower his mattress for weeks to head that problem off at the pass – but busy (and then sick) weekends kept stuffing up those plans.  Fortunately, Kieran waited to start pulling up until just last week.  So last weekend Paul lowered Kieran’s crib to the lowest setting, which works just great.  And just in time, as about half the time we go into get Kieran after a nap or in the morning, he’s standing up waiting for us. Kieran has been all over the place in his crib for several weeks now, even pulling upon all fours or sitting.  It’s annoyingly common now to hear him fighting a nap and to go check on him only to find him standing up, whinging.  Thank goodness we don’t have to worry about him toppling over the side now at least.

On the subject of naps though: sleeping at home has gotten pretty good in the last month.  (Pardon me while I go knock on some wood.)  Kieran is sleeping through the night more often than not.  And by sleeping through I mean pulling 9.5-11 hours straight from his 6:30pm bedtime.  If he wakes up around 4:00ish, I’ll go in to change his diaper and give him a bottle, after which he goes back to sleep for 1-3 hours more.  I’ve actually been able to get him to 7:00am!!  Paul is a HUGE fan of this obviously, since that means he gets a real full night’s sleep.  There’s still the occasional 5:15 wakeup, but usually Kieran’s staying down until around 6:00 at least.  He takes 2-3 naps a day on weekends.  During the week though, it’s not so good.  We don’t know why he’s not napping at school for the last 2-3 weeks; or more precisely why he’s not napping for his main teachers at school.  The couple of days he’s had substitute teachers all day, he’s napped like a champ: two 45-90 minute naps each day.  We’ve talked to the teachers and director about some concerns we had and that seems to have helped.  Here’s hoping Kieran gets back to napping at school because our evenings are fairly well ruined when he hasn’t napped all day.  I have to start our bedtime routine within 15 minutes of walking in the door if Kieran hasn’t napped at school.  Which really blows, because we get no time for dinner or baths or play.  Ah well, I know naps change as the kid grows, so maybe he’ll settle into just one HUGE afternoon nap in the next few weeks.  That would be pretty awesome, actually.

Kieran continues to talk up a storm, but nothing specific.  He talks to himself when he’s playing, like he’s narrating what he’s doing.  He mimics sounds we make, and is getting really good with “Mom” and “Mama” – but I’m not ready to say that he’s talking about or to me quite yet.  He talks to himself in his crib in the mornings – sometimes we hear him wake up but he lays in there for upwards of 30+ minutes just hanging out and talking to his hands and feet.

Kieran shows off his Dinosaur impression as he plays with a letter from a friend. (Also, check out the awesome Easter gift Auntie Cassie sent from Belgium! What a cool gift box!)

Kieran is 10 months old as of yesterday, so we’ll be taking his 10 month photos today. (He was too sick for his 9 month photos, but there were plenty of pictures taken during the month, so it’s not like we won’t remember what he looked like, ya know?) 10 months already. How is that possible?

Kieran was happy to show off his new skills of standing up and toddling with assistance, as well as accepting all the hugs and kisses his grandparents were willing to give.

On Sunday, we went to the park to celebrate the start of the 2011 Baseball season.  Grampa was proud to see his grandson in Dodger Blue from head to toe.

It was a really fantastic weekend for everyone.

But especially Grampa’s Little Dodger.

Kieran’s stats from his 9-month checkup:

• Age: 9 months, 2 days
• Weight: 19.6lb (was 18lb @ 6mo)
• Length: 27.75″  (up from 26.75″)
• Head Circumference: 46.5cm  (up from 45cm)

• He’s dropped to the 35th percentile for height/weight from the 50th, and his body is starting to catch up to his huge head: he’s down to the 82nd percentile!

I was surprised that Kieran had actually dropped in the height/weight percentiles.  He seems so much bigger to us in the last 3 months, way more than just a pound and a half!  Granted, he is moving around more than he used to, but as he’s not crawling or cruising yet, I don’t think the increased activity is enough to slim him down any.  (If anything, I think the whole 1.6 pounds went to his belly and thighs!  He has the absolute most MUNCHABLE thighs now.)

Dr. Hodapp was his usual self, practically backing out of the exam room as soon as he walked in.  (Paul and I had a chat – I’m strongly considering changing Pediatricians…)  But in the few minutes we talked, Dr. Hodapp pronounced Kieran just perfect.  He’s not concerned at all with the slow-down in growth, as obviously Kieran is thriving.  Kieran’s developmental gains are doing great, since he babbles to everyone (Mama, Daddy, Teachers, Doggy, Kitty, Baby in the Mirror…) and is happily pulling himself up on everything.  Dr. Hodapp confirmed my suspicions that Kieran probably won’t bother to crawl – since he’s showing no desire to do it now and is moving towards cruising on the stuff he pulls himself up on.  I was told to focus Kieran’s nutrition on solids, using formula to “top him up” after a meal of solids.  (Ugh, that’s a whole ‘nother post I wanna make… I’m so frustrated with conflicting information about solids/formula at this age.)  Kieran’s tubes look great, which was a relief. (Kieran’s been patting at his left ear for a few days now.)  Dr. Hodapp thinks it’s teething.  I’m inclined to agree, as the drool has started up again and Kieran has been chewing on his hand more recently.

As far as Kieran’s never-ending wet, productive cough: IT’S A COLD.  I really didn’t want to accept that.  I pushed, and re-iterated that he’s had this wet, productive, body-wracking, eye-bugging, baby-exhausting cough for three weeks now.  It’s worse at night, but still very much there during the day, so much so that Kieran hasn’t wanted to eat for a couple of days now.  But, I have to admit also that he hasn’t been running a temperature, and the accompanying sinus involvement has been on-and-off, and all-around not as bad as previous colds.  I wasn’t looking for meds, but I really wanted some reassurance that this truly is just a cold (or 2-3 colds back-to-back) and not something to worry about.  I asked about possible allergies too.

Dr. Hodapp listened to Kieran’s breathing, and had them check his oxygen saturation.  Both were good – lungs are clear, and his O2 was at 96-97.  Dr. Hodapp encouraged me to bring Kieran back in a week or two if the cough is still there.  (I made an appointment for my next furlough day at work, with every hope and intention of canceling it the day before.)  I mentioned the fact that we were unable to ever get in to see anyone at this office while Kieran had his ear infections – basically I got told that we had the misfortune of having a sick kid during the “bad” season.  Meh.  Again, more reason that I wanna consider changing Pediatricians. But for now, Kieran just has a cold and we’re to keep doing what we’re doing: nose sucking and humidifying his room at night.  No need for meds.  If he has this exact thing next Spring, it could possibly be allergy-related, but Dr. Hodapp said that babies Kieran’s age just don’t have seasonal allergies like that.

I’m glad we were able to get Kieran checked out.  I feel a lot better with confirmation that there isn’t something terribly wrong.  So now we can focus on enjoying this weekend with Grampa John and Great Grandma Cat.  We’re going to take pictures in Kieran’s Dodger outfit to celebrate the start of Baseball season and just do our level best to enjoy the lovely warm weather we’re having.

Well, we were in the pool for a little bit.  At 80 degrees outside and 82 in the pool, it was still a mite too chilly for Kieran.  So we popped into the jacuzzi and enjoyed ourselves!

Kieran LOVED the bubbles, and his new floaty thing.  The jets turned his floaty into a spinning ride that allowed him to take in everyone around the pool – Grampy, Grammy, Daddy, Nonny, and all three dogs!  Mama stayed in the jacuzzi with Kieran, of course.  Kieran had to have SOMEONE other than himself to splash!

We’re looking forward to many many days spent in the pool at Grammy & Grampy’s – by this time next month it will be plenty warm enough!  There’s pictures a-plenty, of course. (And Daddy is working on a video!)

You see, I have a VERY busy baby these days.  He doesn’t want to sit still in the crib – and forget about laying down!  It’s a matter of being quick on the shutter to get pictures of him with his stuffed animals these days, before he flails them around or before he rolls away towards the railing to pull himself up yet again.

So this month’s pictures are a little sparse.  I couldn’t manage to get all the usual suspects in shots with him, and after a long photo session, I forgot to take one of him and me.  Oops.

Best outtake of the whole shoot?  Right here.  I’m pretty sure Eeyore farted.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I created an individual page for all of the monthly comparison shots.  They’re all grouped together, making it ever easier to see how much he’s grown.  The pictures link to the gallery though in case anyone wants to see the full size image.  (Some of the thumbnails are better than others, I can’t do anything about since they’re automatically generated.)

Next month I’ll be sure to get everyone in the pictures (including me!)