all's quiet

Vergil's out golfing this afternoon and Kai is snoring away on my lap right now so I thought I'd take this opportunity to blog a little. Though I don't really have much to say, truth be told. It's been pretty uneventful around here since the drama of last week's shots.

Kai is sleeping AMAZINGLY this week - he sleeps now usually from about 10pm to 4am, pounds back an early-morning snack in about 10 minutes, is back asleep 10 minutes after that and then sleeps straight through till 8am. Absolutely brilliant. I'm very much a fan of this new routine and am hoping that it continues. At least until the next growth spurt, I guess!

Speaking of which, I realize I never gave his new 'stats' that we got from the doctor last week - Kai is now 12.5lbs, about 24.5" in length and his head circumference is now 16" around. Just to put that in perspective, one week after his birth, he weighed 6lbs, 13.5oz, was 19" long and had a head circumference of 14". That's a heck of a lot of growth in 11 weeks. Could you imagine growing that fast all the time? Jeepers, it's no wonder babies need to sleep and eat so much!

On a totally separate note, I visited Prov yesterday with Kai to say hi to some of my former coworkers. It was nice to catch up with people, but so many things are changing over there! They're finally building a new cafeteria/multi-purpose building and many of my coworkers are moving on to new opportunities. I may not know 90% of the people working there next year! Weird.

Anyway, that's about all that's new with us this week. Depending on how much pain Vergil causes himself after his first round of golf for the year, we might go for a walk this afternoon sometime. I'm very glad the weather is finally warm enough to get outside more often. This is the perfect time of year, as far as I'm concerned. Warm enough to be outside with a light jacket and NO BUGS!! Mosquito season is definitely not something I look forward to.

Here's a fun picture of my boy in an old-school outfit my Oma knit for him. I gotta say, I think he looks pretty dang cute, but I have this funny feeling this picture will embarrass him thoroughly when he's older. Can you say wedding powerpoint fodder? :P

poor baby

Kai got his shots today. We opted for the new Meningitis shot in addition to the standard Polio, Diptheria, Mumps, Rubella, etc. shots, so there were three in total. He did really well and has slept most of the day. Until right about now. He's not a happy camper. I think both his legs must ache. Poor kid. We've given him some Tempra, but it hasn't kicked in yet. Since he's been born, he's never been inconsolable quite like this before, so it's a new thing for us. Little trooper. Vergil's doing what he can to comfort him. I'm so grateful Vergil's such a great dad. Unfortunately, he's going to Calgary for the day tomorrow, so if Kai's still not feeling well, I might have to bow out of a few appointments I'm supposed to have.

Oh well. It could be waaayyy worse. My friend Kayla and her boy Elliot aren't doing very well again. As much as I appreciate and generally trust doctors, I really think that a mom knows her own kid and that they should maybe pay a little more attention to her instincts and observations. Anyway, keep praying for/thinking about her and Elliot. I think they could use all the encouragement they can get at this point.

And don't forget about Baby Jack while you're at it. Things are going well for them right now, but they have a month to go before the little guy is born and lots of uncertainty as to what's going to have to happen after that. It always baffles me how even though bearing children should be the most natural thing in the whole world how many things can go wrong.

While you're sending good vibes to Elliot and Jack, enjoy Kai pretending to be a Mexican:

snores and sisters

So it's Thursday night. I'm not gonna do a 13 list today because I'm not feeling very listy. Listless, yes. Listy, no.

I'm listening to my baby snoring his little face off through the baby monitor as I write this. I know a lot of new moms who always need to check to see if their baby is breathing. Not me. My kid is one of the loudest sleepers I've ever met. When he's not snoring or just breathing heavily, he's laughing or making other noises. Funny kid. I wonder if he's gonna be a sleep-talker when he gets older.

This week my youngest sister, Breanne, was in town. Partly to visit her boyfriend, who's attending the U of M in pursuit of his Masters in Architecture, partly to see her nephew and partly to get things in motion for when she moves her in a couple weeks (i.e. finding jobs (summer and hopefully a teaching job for the fall) and finding an apartment). I'm pretty excited to finally have one of my sisters living in the same city as me after 10 years of not having them around. I can't believe it's been 10 years since my family moved to Edmonton. It's one of those things that seems like just yesterday and yet so long ago all at the same time. I miss them lots, especially now that Kai is here. I wish I could just pop over to my mom's on weekends and hang out with my pregnant sister, Sheri, or get Brenna and Breanne to babysit every once in a while. So I'm glad Breanne's moving out here for a little while, at least.

Anyway, that's about all that's new with me. I'm gonna have to turn this monitor down if I'm gonna get any sleep tonight. It's like a little baby chainsaw is going off in there!

Here's a picture of Kai in his racing gear. If his Grandad has his way, he'll be the next Jeff Gordon, I guess. :)

13 things I couldn't do without

This is purely a material post today. My list of 13 things that have made my life with a new baby easier:

1. My nursing pillow

2. My glider and ottoman

3. My stroller and carseat

4. Kai's rocking chair

5. Kai's Bumbo

6. Kai's playmat

7. Our Costco card (mostly for diapers and wipes)

8. Johnson's Breast Pads

9. Nursing bras

10. Tassimo Lattes

11. Kai's SwaddleMe

12. The Baby Whisperer book

13. My husband, Vergil (okay, he's not a 'material' possession, but I had to add him because I really couldn't do without him!)

joy

So I'm happy to report that after all my whining about Kai's sleeping, he decided to sleep for six hours in a row last night before his first feeding and then three and a half hours after that! I woke up at about 4am thinking, whoa! Is it really 4am? Unfortunately, I also woke up so engorged, my entire left side hurt and I couldn't get back to sleep. I couldn't bring myself to wake Kai up to feed him, so I got out of bed and pumped instead. Nine ounces later (more than I've ever pumped from one side before), the ache had subsided enough to crawl back into bed for 45 minutes before Kai finally woke up wanting to be fed. Which was good because it allowed me to empty my other side too.

So yeah, last night was awesome. I'm hoping it continues and wasn't just a one-time thing, but I guess we'll see.

I'm feeling a lot better about life in general this week. I think Kai's reverting to waking up every two hours during the night last week just really discouraged me. I, irrationally, took it personally.

Changing the subject completely (and I do mean completely), I'm watching a show called '10 Years Younger' and I'm marveling again at how attached people can get to their hair. It's always strange to me how some people actually cry when their long hair gets cut even an inch or two. Maybe I don't get so emotional over it because my hair grows so stinking fast. Anyway, that's just my random observation for the day. :)

I'll leave you with a picture of my thug baby...