In case you thought long luscious locks were all fun and games...

Warm summer afternoons + naptime = this.

"If I smile will you leave the tangles alone?"

In other news, the new words are coming steadily now.  We get to see not just what we say often, but what he interprets them as meaning.  Sometimes quite revealing as to how he's learned to get our attention/affection.

For example: "I did it!" ("dadatet") means, "I need praise and affirmation and attention, so I'm going to do this thing that I think you'll be proud of and then come get my hug!"   

"I got you" ("agachoo!") means "Hey, can you get off the computer and play tickle fight instead? I'll start things off by grabbing your feet" (An unfortunate discovery on his part: my feet are highly reactive)  :/

"Amen" ("hahama") means "This is a weird kind of peek-a-boo.  Why don't we just say peek-a-boo like usual?  But whatever, I'll play along."  (bonus points: I can say that my child says "Amen" at the end of a prayer.  See what good spiritual parents we are?  Never mind that he thinks it's a game...)

"Mama baby" ("mama behbeh") means "Pick me up please, I need some nurturing!"  Usually accompanied by the universal "pick me up" sign of upraised arms.  After a few days of this, I suddenly started noticing that when he's hurt, I say, "Come here, baby" and then cuddle him.

I really enjoy this phase - it's fun and helpful that he can tell us whether he wants more food, his water, or Daddy.  He can also tell us if he very much disagrees with our decisions.  Fun times.

12,000 Words (more or less)

Kekoa said no self-respecting mommy would put her son to work on his birthday.  Hogwash, I say, but still, the excitement of gifts seems to have drained his creativity.  And I'm not sure if he'll be writing any more posts.  Maybe he'll guest-post occasionally.

But to tide over the wild clamoring fans (grandmas) out there, I present to you the story of his life:
[edit: whoops, I skipped a month and mislabeled some of the pictures accordingly.  all fixed now.]

One week

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

11 months 

12 months

12 months

Nearly a Year

Hello grandmothers, friends, family, fans!  It's time for another update from yours truly.  This has been a GREAT month for me!

11 Months

Mommy has been discovering this month what I've known all along: I am a born vegan.  I love being egg and dairy free.  Unfortunately, Mommy can't seem to come to terms with my chosen lifestyle and keeps trying to get me to eat this awful disgusting stuff called meat.

You would think she'd be okay with my veganism, because while I'm very picky about meats and breads, I enjoy the wide world of fruits and vegetables.  My absolute favorite is watermelon - I get so excited when I see those red cubes of juicy goodness! Other favorites are zucchini, cucumber, corn, tomato, apple, sunflower seeds, and apricot.   I also eat salad greens (especially cabbage), but you'd better have lots of time to spare when you feed it to me!  I have eight teeth now, but they're just not the same as molars.

Eating salad without molars is an art form.

As the genius that I am, I figured out a way to get a tasty snack whenever I want: during my meals, I drop little bits of food over the side of my highchair.  Then when I'm hungry during the day, I just help myself!  It's a foolproof plan, except for one catch: the chair itself.  Turns out I can get under the chair, but I can't get out.    Even more treacherous: the chair seems to magnetically draw my favorite toys under it, dooming us all to entrapment.

"Really?  Do you have to take pictures right now?"

Speaking of entrapment, I live for the times when I get to go outside.  The first thing I like to do in the mornings and last thing I do at night is sit on Mommy and Daddy's bed and look out the window while Mommy brushes her teeth.  On Wednesdays I can see a trash truck come and that's the highlight of my week!

Bedtime ritual

Unfortunately, Mommy insists that I must stay in for large portions of the day.  I take solace in my friend Pooh Bear.  He loves kisses, and unlike Daddy, he doesn't complain in the slightest when I accidentally bite or the kiss is too wet.

"Could you spare a small smackerel?"

I've been told many times this month that I'm very busy.  Well of course I am!  What, do you think the box is going to play with itself?

Sadly, Mommy does like me to cease my important activities during diaper changes, for some unfathomable reason.  So I read to myself.  I even say the words and stop when I'm turning the pages.

This next month will be a big one: before I turn one year old I get to visit Nana and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa!  I can't wait to see everyone and go to the beach and be adored.  In the meantime, Daddy and I are sending lots of aloha your way!

That's supposed to be a wave.  Or a fist bump.

Yours truly,
Kekoa

And the verdict is:

Eggs, milk, and peanuts.

Those are the culprits and have been causing the horrible red itchiness on my baby for the past five months.

Both Kekoa and I are on an egg-free, diary-free, peanut-free diet, and my goodness, he's like a completely different baby.

1.  The eczema is nearly gone.  There's still a little in his elbow and knee creases, and this morning this was an itty-bitty patch on his neck.  But for the first time in months, his torso is baby soft.

2.  He's eating better.  The doctor said his mouth and nose were swollen from the allergens.  He's never been a good eater and spit a lot of food out, but we're seeing improvement in that area!  He's accepting new foods readily.  He still refuses some foods we had previously given him - I'm thinking maybe he associates their tastes with discomfort?  So he's still not a *great* eater, but I feel for the first time he's getting a significant amount of nutrition from solid food.

3.  He's sleeping better.  The combo of the itchiness and the poor eating led to frequent night wake-ups where he was either hungry or needed a lotion application.  And now for three nights in a row he's slept 8 hours!  He hasn't slept that well since before he was mobile and burning more calories.

4.  He's, er, functioning better.  His little digestive system seems to have figured things out!

My initial reaction was relief.  I first noticed reflux-like symptoms at two weeks, when he had crying fits where he arched his back often.  I went on a total elimination diet, slowly introducing things back in.  But as he got older, he spit up more and screamed less, so I never knew if the problem was solved.

I second-guessed myself a lot regarding that.  No one else was ever there for the screaming episodes, so sometimes I wondered whether I had imagined it.  Maybe all babies cried like that?  Maybe I was clueless as to his baby language?  Maybe I wasn't fulfilling his needs so he kept crying?

And now I know!  He actually did have reflux based on food sensitivities.  While I'm not happy about that, it is relieving to know that my mommy intuition is happily intact, and that I wasn't just ignoring some other need that he had.  :)

Anyway, I'm actually getting quite excited about this whole diet change.  It's a good motivation to scrutinize our diet and eat healthier.  I have to get creative about making up the missing nutrients and proteins from other food sources, but most baked goods are automatically out.  That's not a bad thing.  

According to that all-trusty source the internet, a significant number of kids grow out of milk and egg allergies by the time they're four.  About 86% of kids grow out of them by sixteen.  So we're hoping that eventually he won't have to be the kid at birthday parties who isn't allowed to eat the cake.

On the other hand, only 20% ever outgrow peanut allergies.  It's nice to meet you, almond butter.

10 Months

Hello friends, family and fan!  I'm ten months old, and I personally think that officially qualifies me as a toddler.  Poor Mommy is in denial though - she says I'm definitely still a baby and I definitely need at least two naps a day.  So there's room for progress. 

I've discovered that I have a knack for negotiation.  I find random boring things laying around the house and I hold them hostage until Mommy trades me some super-awesome toy.  Once I found this rectangle of weird green paper with a picture of some old dude on the front.  I was just about to start chewing on it (a sure way to get the negotiation process moving quickly!), when Mommy offered me an awesome bubble-blowing gun instead.  As if weird green paper would EVER be as good as a bubble-blowing gun!

"What, you'll trade me brightly colored plastic for the camera case and cord?  Let's make this trade before you rethink it!"

One thing I definitely DON'T like: cows!  Evil, terrifying things.  I have this horror picture book (why why WHY would they make a horror book for babies?) that has a picture of a cow that says "Mooooo."  When Mommy reads it to me and makes the cow sound, I cry.  It's just so awful!

Fortunately, some books are not of the horror genre.

Other than all that, life is just business as usual: napping,



helping with the laundry,

And by "helping", I mean "pulling it off the drying rack."  

and just hanging around.  I love waving hello - but I don't get those reserved little itty bitty waves most people do.  I much prefer flapping my whole arm up and down like a chicken wing.  If you're happy to see someone,  you should show it!

I've been preparing to play with Uncle Phil when I see him next month, but Mommy isn't very good at taking pictures of a toddler playing with a ball.

Mommy is, however, good at growing eyes in the back of her head.  They just kinda showed up one day at a very inconvenient time:

"Whaddya mean I can't pull down the photo albums?"

Fortunately, I'm training to go into stealth mode:

Batman adopts Superman's style advice regarding underwear

Ah well, I suppose eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head are a small price to pay for endless snuggles.  And back scratches.  I LOVE back scratches.

Easter

That's all, folks!  See you next month!

I thought I wouldn't have to worry about it until junior high at least

Kekoa has discovered that he can suck his own tongue.  This is presumably to make up for his decided rejection of all four brands of pacifiers we desperately shoved into his face hoping for some peace and quiet.

I first noticed when I put him down for a nap.  Shortly after, I heard what sounded like two very bad kissers in his room.

Slurp.  Smack.  Pfffft.  Slurperty slurp slurp.

I poked my head in to find Kekoa, sucking away on his tongue and quite contentedly putting himself to sleep.

The sound is vaguely reminiscent of what you might hear when you surprise a pair of seventh graders in the bushes behind the McDonald's.

*twitch*

Happy Valentine's Day.

A Little Perspective

Kekoa woke up last night.  Crying.  At 3am.  Again.

I think the hardest thing to deal with as a mother to an infant is sleep regression.  I mean, the first couple months are hard, but you expect to be sleep-deprived, so you grit your teeth and bear it.

But being blindsided by a baby who's capable of sleeping well?  Who's accustomed to sleeping well?  Who knows he's supposed to be sleeping well?  But for whatever reason, he doesn't.  Those are the times I feel the frustration welling up -- at the baby, at the sleeping husband, at the world.  Would somebody just make things be the way they're supposed to be already?

"Supposed to be."  What exactly does that mean?  Am I supposed to expect uninterrupted sleep?  Am I supposed to believe that the nighttime hours are mine, to be jealously and selfishly guarded for myself?

I picked him up, muttering under my breath to him to just be quiet, and wondered what he wanted this time: to eat? to talk? to practice crawling or walking or screeching?  Babies wake up for the weirdest reasons.

No, none of those things.  The moment I picked him up, he stopped crying, clasped his pudgy hands around my neck, and nuzzled his chin into my neck.  I felt tension just draining out of his body.  I didn't rock, sing, pat, walk, nurse, or rub him back to sleep.  I just sat there while he hugged me.  Then I lay him back down and he drifted back to sleep.

He only wanted a hug.  He only wanted to know that he wasn't alone in the world, that mommy was still there, that she smelled, felt, sounded the same.  Maybe he had a bad dream or an unexpected noise startled him awake or...maybe not.  Maybe he just needed to know that I wasn't going anywhere.

I lay on my back in the darkness and remembered the first few weeks of having him.  I remembered worrying about whether his belly button was ever going to dry up, worrying about how many diapers he was filling, worrying about whether he would ever learn to latch correctly and what if he didn't?

It seems so funny now that that I wasted time worrying about those things, which seemed so ominous at the time but lasted just a couple weeks and seem like a distant memory.

Sometimes I still worry about little things, though.  Sometimes I worry that night wake-ups will become a habit if I don't nip it in the bud.  That if I nurse him to sleep, he'll want to be put to sleep that way forever.  That he won't learn to be independent, that he'll become a snacker if I feed him too often, that maybe if I were a little stricter in routine he would sleep better and be happier.

But then last night I thought about Someday, when I'll look at him and think, "My goodness, my baby's a man-child."  And then not too long after that, I'll drop the "child" from the description.  And then I won't see my baby at all, but a man who seems a stranger to me ("could he have come from me?") and yet impossibly familiar.

It will seem so silly to me then, that I worried about whether he nurses to sleep or whether I carry him too much.  What's the worst that can happen?  That for a year, maybe two, he'll wake up and ask for mommy?  That he'll need a middle-of-the-night snuggle to ease his precious baby mind?  Years that will seem like such a short time in the long run.

Sometimes changes are needed NOW for sanity's sake.  That's fine - we make those changes as necessary. But I don't want to parent out of fear for the future.  If we're all happy with an arrangement, I don't want to miss the precious moments with my baby today because I'm afraid of...what?  That I won't want those precious moments with my baby tomorrow?

For now, I want to snuggle my baby just a little bit longer.  And if that means he wants an extra snuggle tomorrow...that's fine by me.

Seven Months and All is Well

Hello all!  I know you can't believe it, but it's that time again: I'm another month older and that much closer to conquering the world.

The month started out fabulously - my first snowfall and my first Christmas!  It snowed on Christmas Eve.  Daddy was home from work, so we took a long walk.  I love walks - this is me getting ready (Mommy took this picture so that Grandma and Nana know she's dressing me appropriately):

 

 Then I got to ride on Daddy's back.  I was so warm and cozy and comfortable that I fell asleep, after catching snowflakes and trying to eat them.

Could you ask for a better first Christmas landscape?

Speaking of Daddy, I like to copy him because someday I'm going to be like him.  He helps me by letting me wear his clothes.

Okay, so just his hat.  And sometimes his shoes.

In the world of physical development, last month I was all into trying to crawl like my cousin Will.  But it's TOO EMBARRASSING.  Things like this keep happening:

"Mom, why are you taking pictures when you should be helping me get unstuck?"

 Quite understandably, I much prefer walking.  Getting stuck under couches is quite beneath my dignity.  Of course, I need help because I'm not very good at keeping my balance, but what are parents for, right?  I mean, what's the point of being a stay-at-home mom if you're not going to help or hold me all day long?

 I'm trying to cut my top teeth, so I'll pretty much chew on anything I can get my hands on.  Which is great, because I can get my hands on lots of things! But the most convenient is my thumb.  I don't really suck on it, but I love chewing on it.









In other news, Mommy told me that I have another first coming up: first plane ride!  I didn't know what a plane was at first, but then she explained and I was like, 'What? No way!"

Then she told me we were going on a plane because we were going to Grandma and Grandpa's house and I was like, "Yes!  No way is Grandma gonna make me eat green beans while I'm there!"

This is a face that knows ice cream is in his future (thanks, Grandpa).

And then I remembered that there's still a whole week before we leave that I still have to eat green beans and I was like:  "Bummer."  I'm not really a big fan of green beans (but I love squash!).

"Could we just fast forward a week, please?"

I'm also doing my best to stay in touch with my grandparents not only here on Mommy's blog, but also by phone.  I'm just experiencing a few technical difficulties...

...I know it has to do with putting the phone to your mouth, but somehow I just can't get it to work!

Ah well.  I'll figure it out someday.  Until then, I'll see you here next month!

~Kekoa

Half a Year

Dear loyal fans of yours truly,

You are quite lucky to get a post from me commemorating the advent of my six month birthday - after all, it requires that I take time away from trying to get at the wrapping paper under the tree.  You're welcome.

This has been a great month for me because there's a lot of paper lying around.  I love eating paper.  If it hadn't been for eating paper, Mommy might not have noticed my new tooth at all when she was fishing pieces out of my mouth.



Helping Mommy wrap.

 
I've been especially helpful in Christmas preparations as Mommy's little helper.  These days, I'm a big fan of Mommy.

Oh I'm sorry, did I say big fan? That doesn't quite capture it. These days, I'm a IF MOMMY DOESN'T WALK INTO THE ROOM RIGHT NOW I'M GOING TO DIE fan of Mommy. It's fun. I'm working on scaring off every babysitter within a fifty-five mile radius.

Another way I scare off babysitters is by being a very busy little boy.  I like to practice standing.  I am pretty excited to get my busy little hands on more of the world. Must. touch. all. the. things.  

This month I also learned how to express my preferences with my voice.  I can pick which book to read, which page to stay on the longest, when I want to be picked up (always.  I shouldn't have to express this one.  It should be assumed.), and when I want to drink from Mommy's water bottle.

Speaking of Mommy's water bottle, Mommy got tired of sharing her water and gave me my own sippy cup.  I love it!  I can hold it and drink out of it all by myself.  Sometimes I don't want to stop drinking from it, but I don't want any more water, so I just let it dribble out of my mouth.

I heard Mommy tell Daddy that this new stage of communication has been delightful, because she's getting to know me as a person instead of a passive observer.  But do not be deceived: it's been a cold hard road for me.  One day I expressed my preference to read Good Night, Spot for the tenth time instead of taking a nap - and Mommy said no.

In fact, she told me that contrary to my opinion, I was not the center of the universe and my wish was not her command! 

Surely, Grandma, you can see that Mommy clearly does not understand the universe.  You know that the world revolves around me.  Please contact her and correct her misconceptions ASAP.

Six Months

[ed. note: this shot may have done me in.  He got so anxious to hold the camera that he flung Kekoa teddy off his back and somehow managed to inch forward.  NOT. READY.]

 

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas - thanks for all the wrapping paper!

Love,

Kekoa



[ed. note, part 2: all sleep deprivation, center-of-the-universe comments, and kidding aside, this really has been a delightful month.  We are sooo enjoying getting to know Kekoa as a human being with likes, dislikes, and a great big personality.  Instead of stimulating Kekoa, we now get to interact with him, and it's so. much. fun.  We are loving his giggles and smiles and excitement and the stubborn will power he puts into achieving new milestones.]

A New Kind of Productivity

Kekoa and I have developed a bit of a routine in the mornings.  My alarm goes off.  He's usually already awake, so I sleepily change his diaper and then crawl back into bed to feed him.  While he eats, I doze, read, or do absolutely nothing. 

When he finishes, I pretend to be asleep.  Sometimes I'll roll over so he can only see my back.

And thus begins the great joy of the mornings.  Little hands poke at me, saying, "Mommy, wake up!"  His little head burrows into me.  He jabbers and sqawks and prods, and his legs kick wildly in the air.  Then...I sit up, open my eyes wide, and say: "Boo!"

Let the giggle-fest begin.

We tickle and tell stories (his storytelling ability is rather like Faulkner's: wildly incoherent but somehow captivating) and play peek-a-boo.  We kiss and snuggle and then he flies on the wings of Airplane Mommy.  "It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's SuperBaby!"

We are early wakers. But we can hardly be called early risers. It may be quite some time before we're "up" in the ordinary sense of the word: dressed, breakfasted, doing housework. 

I love those mornings.  He loves those mornings.  And I know they are teaching him a world of lessons: Love.  Trust.  Language.  Laughter.  Muscle Development. 

But some days, it can be a blow to my pride.  Josh comes home and asks, "So what did you do today?"

Um.  I, uh ... showered (maybe).  I fed the baby...often.   I made dinner.  I emailed a friend, took a walk, read a book.

I'm used to "quantifying" my productivity.  I prefer, when asked about my progress, to be able to say: "I outlined my paper due next month."  "I organized a year's worth of our company's financial records."  Or at the very least, be able to explain my apparent unproductivity: "I sat in a meeting.  For three hours."

You can't quantify a child's snuggles.  You can't measure contributions to his "confidence meter."

Sometimes I find myself giving embarrassingly specific answers to Josh's question, trying to make it sound "productive." In doing so, sometimes those little details become less a byproduct of love and more of a game of oneupmanship - not as a competition with Josh, but to myself.  A laundry list I can check off, incontrovertible proof that I have done something with my day.  Did the baseboards need to be wiped down again?  Probably not, but I did it anyway.

I know in my heart investing in Kekoa is the most valuable thing I can do.  But I still want that concrete evidence for myself: I'm not wasting my time.  I'm not mooching off Josh's paycheck while I sit at home and help myself to whatever catches my eye in the pantry.

I love our mornings together, just Kekoa and me.  I cherish them enough that I don't mind so terribly the sense of laziness for still being in my pjs long after start of business hours.  It's a new lesson for me:   productivity isn't always measured in word counts and employee evaluations. 

In fact, when it comes to the business of raising little people, it almost never is.  So I'm trying to just enjoy it, because right now, for perhaps the only time in my life:

My work is, quite literally, play.

Hello, Grandparents!

As you probably know, it's my five-month birthday (how could you ever forget???).  It's been quite an eventful month for me.  I think you'll find in my letter that I'm practically grown-up by now, because I'm doing awfully grown-up things.  I think I must have hit a growth spurt as well, because Mommy and Daddy are constantly saying things like, "Oh my goodness, remember how TINY he was?"

 

And in my five month picture, the bib fit me better than it fit Kekoa teddy, who has very narrow shoulders.  I thought that was very nice, especially since it has lovely fringe around the bottom that I love to eat.

 



 

 

My musical education has started early, and I spend some time each day faithfully practicing my piano.  I did petition Mommy for a REAL piano that doesn't require quite so much tummy time, but she reminded me of three things: (1) Beethoven sawed the legs off HIS piano, so I'm right up there with the greats; (2)  I couldn't reach the pedals anyway; and (3) most people with real pianos have only lame black-and-white keys instead of my incredibly awesome multi-colored ones. 

 

That made me sad. Those poor dears with black-and-white keys.  I don't know how they stand such poor technology.

 

 

 

 

Another big boy thing I've done this month is eat real food.  I don't like avocado, I'm okay with pears, and all in all I much prefer the spoon (or my fingers!) to any actual food.  Also, I discovered that my high chair is best used for my piano while Mommy and Daddy are eating.  Voila, perfect solution to the excessive tummy time problem!

 

 

Mommy says we're taking a break from real food until December.  But I take that to mean baby food; grown-up food is still fair game.  The other day I managed to get my hands (and mouth) on a piece of chocolate Mommy was eating.  It tasted much better than the avocado. 

 



I've gotten pretty good at sitting up when I want to (if I don't want to, then I just flop right on over), so now I'm into jumping.  I LOVE jumping, spinning, twirling...and monkeys.  I really love monkeys.

 



 

Like Daddy, I'm an avid gamer.  Like Mommy, I really prefer cooperative games to competitive games.  And my uncanny ability to invent games is quite remarkable.

My current favorite is quite simple, really: I hold my hand up to Mommy's mouth, she kisses it, and then we both laugh.  I'm telling you guys, it's a RIOT.  I'm thinking of marketing my creative skills to Hasbro. 

Well, that's all for now!  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm already plotting how to get my hands on some of that sugared-up sweet potato casserole, or maybe some pumpkin pie.  With so many cousins to distract the adults, I'm thinking we can pull off quite the raid. 

Happy Thanksgiving!