There’s so much I want to write about here – just never seems to be enough time.  I’m not complaining, mind you – just wishing I could find a few more hours every week.  But there’s always dishes to do, diapers to wash, bottles to clean, and food to make….  and I have this silly notion that I’d like to spend some time with my husband too.  (As it is, I’m just starting to write this at 10:00 on Saturday night as Paul is getting ready to go to bed.  I should be joining him.  It took three sessions over the weekend to get this one post made.  Arg.)

I worry that time is slipping by too fast.  Kieran is growing and changing so much every day: learning, reaching, exploring, achieving.  I need to be blogging this stuff if for no other reason than to remember when he started doing stuff.  (Cuz yeah, I haven’t touched his baby book since we came home from the hospital.)  So let’s see, what’s the boy been up to recently:

We have TOOTH! Two weeks ago, Kieran finally popped his first tooth – and with nary a tear thanks to his Baltic Amber teething necklace.  Our only indication that he was actually teething was that he started drooling again.  (One of the benefits of the amber necklace is that Kieran isn’t a total drool fountain anymore!)  It’s just the one tooth, but that sucker is SHARP!  We’ve got no indication of other teeth coming in to join the first one – so we’ll just have ourselves a snaggletooth baby for a bit.

Pulling up on things – mainly us.  A month ago, he started pulling up on his crib to get onto his knees.  Now he’s pulling himself up to standing.  Thankfully he hasn’t tried it yet from the inside of his crib, he’s contented to be on his knees in there for now.  But when playing with Paul on the floor in his room, he’ll pull himself up to standing on his crib or the chair or ON Paul.  He does it to me when we’re playing on his playmat in the living room in the evenings.  He’ll just grab a fistfull of my shirt and heave himself up.  I’m convinced that he’s not going to bother crawling – he’s going to be like my brother and I and just get up one day and walk.  I fear that day is coming very quickly.  Kieran will get up on all fours, but he shows no desire to put any forward momentum into play.  He’s lightening fast when he wants to be by rolling around.  There’s no putting him down in the middle of our California King bed anymore, unless one of us is right there with him.  I’ve caught him trying to roll off twice now.  (Talk about scaring the heck outta Mama!)

He’s talking up a storm. Too bad we have no idea what he’s saying!  But he talks and talks now since getting the tubes put in.  He would talk before, but not like this.  I swear he’s making speeches and telling us stories.  His tone of voice changes, and he gets excited. He tells jokes too – or at least he thinks they’re jokes.  He cracks himself up.  But then again, he loves to laugh – so any excuse works for him.  I can look at him and say “Hee Hee Hee” and he’ll crack up.  He’s so much fun to interact with.  He sings along with the radio or TV and with us too!  Oh, and he loves blowing raspberries.  He’ll go back and forth with us blowing raspberries until Paul or I are lightheaded.  He has said things that sound suspiciously like “Mama” and “Dada” but we know he isn’t referring to us yet.

Playing: This kid is a MACHINE!  He’s so good at playing with his toys.  He has mastered closing all the little doors on his 5-in-1 jack-in-the-box thing.  Even better, he’s figured out that if he flops it over, all the doors will close on their own.  Smart boy. He enjoys all the toys on his exersaucer even more now.  The spinning top is a new favorite because Kieran has figured out how fun it is to watch the balls inside spin around.  And if you ask him to show you “Peekaboo” he’ll twist the mirrored face around and push the button to make it say “Peekaboo, I see you!”  He knows which rings go on each of his two ring stackers, and he understands that he can put the shapes in the holes on the front of his shape sorter, but he has to pull them out from the back.  His newest toy is his Ball Popper: he knows how to turn it on and is fascinated by the balls popping out the top, and by Daddy frantically collecting them and shoving them back down the tube.  It’s the best game ever! Kieran’s favorite toy right now though has to be his remote control.  He always reaches for the remote on our bed or in the living room, so we cleaned up the old broken Harmony remote and gave it to Kieran.  He loves that thing.  (And since he’s not getting our phones, the remote is the next best thing.)

Solid foods: I’m still making all of Kieran’s solid foods other than his applesauce.  (I figure store-bought is just fine, as long as the ingredients are just apples and water.) So far he’s tried Greek yogurt, carrots (steamed and roasted), roasted butternut squash, roasted sweet potatoes, steamed green beans, steamed peas, bananas, pears, avocado, pumpkin, mango, oatmeal and rice cereals.  I’ve got edemame, strawberries and blueberries on deck for this next week or so as well.  Kieran doesn’t like anything green, but I’ll keep trying.  He’s also not a fan of bananas or mango.  Weird kid.  He gets sent to school with two 1/2 cup containers of food for lunch, a cereal with yogurt and fruit and a veggie.  He gobbles them both, and has cheerios at snacktime too.  He has a big dinner with me at home every night now too – usually a veggie with cereal and maybe some applesauce for dessert. I’m increasing the texture of Kieran’s foods now, as well as making them much thicker.  I don’t feel comfortable moving him to chunky stuff just yet, but we’re getting there.  Once he gets better with more texture I’ll add in shredded cheese and over-cooked pasta to his menu.  Then we’ll start in on meats.  His formula intake is decreasing accordingly with his solids intake, but we’re not concerned – he’s obviously growing just fine.

Sleeping: It’s hard to tell because until very recently, the poor kid has been sick constantly.  He had been down to one wake-up a night, but towards the end of Kieran’s last ear infection he was back up to 3 or 4 wake-ups a night.  I don’t want to jinx anything, but this week we’ve had two nights where he slept ALL THE WAY THROUGH – I’m talking 11+ hours here.  I’m assuming the big solids dinner before bed has something to do with it, as well as possibly just getting old enough.  He usually naps twice at school, which I can only think has helped things too. Whatever it is, I’m enjoying it.  Now, that doesn’t mean that *I’m* sleeping through the night – but eventually I’ll learn how to sleep more than 4 hours again.  To be honest though, as long as we were only doing one wake-up a night: I was fine with it.  There are worse things than sharing a mid-night cuddle with a snuggly baby.  But I’m sure that sleeping all night long is better for him though, so I completely support it.  (I think the current cold is responsible for breaking the all-night-long streak we had going.  He’s coughed himself awake and upset for the last few nights, but it’s only been once a night at that.  Ah well, we’ll get there eventually.)

Daycare/school is going great. Kieran’s teachers love him, and it’s obvious that he enjoys himself there with his friends.  He gets to finger-paint (with pudding usually) and make art projects.  He plays with toys he doesn’t have at home, and is learning to share with the other babies.  Yes, he still catches every cold that goes through the place, but we expected that.  (He’s currently suffering with a new cold, the first one to include a cough.  And a nasty, wet, productive cough it is.  Poor Kiddo.)  Paul is everyone’s favorite Daddy there at school, because he stays and plays with Kieran (and any other babies in the play area) instead of just swinging by and dumping the kid at the door.  Frequently the teachers have to pry Kieran out of Paul’s arms so they can start him on an art project or something.  We will get a book of all Kieran’s paintings and projects when he moves up into the Toddler Room.  In the meantime, we enjoy seeing new artwork displayed in the Infant Room and finding the ones Kieran made.

I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but Paul and I just love the dickens out of this kid.  We take joy in telling each other Kieran stories from the morning or evening (since Paul and I have distinctly different daily schedules, Paul still gets up early with Kieran – and I have him to myself in the evening before Paul gets home from work.)  He is absolutely the light of our lives.  He just keeps getting better and better as he grows.  And as much as we want him to stay our tiny baby (ha!) we’re excited for him as he engages with his ever-growing world.  We love sharing our little man with friends and family, but more than anything we are so thrilled at the little family we’ve become.

There’s a bunch of new pictures in the main Photo Gallery – The Story So Far