5 a.m. Fanny

We've known for some time that Kathryn has many personalities.  You've met many of them on this blog.  Well, another personality has appeared and her name is 5 a.m. Fanny.  For the past few days, Kathryn has decided that waking up around 5 a.m. is a great idea.  Her father and I do not think this is a great idea.  She goes to sleep between 7-7:30 every night and we're grateful for the couple of hours we each have for our much valued "me" time.  She generally sleeps straight through till at least 2 or 3, then gets fed and goes back to bed till around 6-6:30 a.m.  This is not the case lately.  Let's just hope Fanny doesn't show up tonight!

Meet 5 a.m. Fanny.  She's was very happy so early in the morning.  Sorry about the picture quality.  My phone was the closest camera around and it was kinda dark in the room. 

Is That a Yucky Toe? Yeah!

Suck My Big Toe!

We've long suspected that Kathryn would be a thumb sucker.  She's been putting her fingers in her mouth since she was just a tiny baby and she's now mastered true thumb sucking.  It's actually very cute, although I'm hoping it doesn't become too much of a crutch for her.  We were able to avoid the whole pacifier thing (she only wants one in the car), but there's not much we can do about the thumb. 

Like I said, the thumb sucking was no surprise, but the toe sucking was.  Lately she's been sticking her big toe in her mouth and sucking away.  It's very cute, albeit a bit strange...maybe not strange, just quirky, but then again, I suspect she'll be a little quirky.  She is mine and Jared's daughter after all, and no one will deny that we're both a little quirky.  She was bound to inherit some quirkiness.

More Leg Room!

We've known for a while that we'd have to do something about our Tacoma.  We love that truck and it's been awesome, but the extended cab left hardly any room for Kathryn.  Because of this, we've been driving the Camry or my mom's car everywhere we go with her.  We put the car seat in the Tacoma yesterday to check it out and her feet are already touching the wall and she's only going to get bigger.  So, we sucked it up and decided to start looking.  We went to a dealer in Norwich.  We knew we wanted to definitely stay with Toyota and preferably a truck (I don't think we'd know how to live without a truck!).  We considered looking at an SUV, but our first choice was a truck.  Well...we found one and today we became the owners of a 2012 Tacoma, saying goodbye to our 2006 model.  It has a full backseat so Kathryn will have plenty of room to grow!  We look forward to many memories in the new truck.

The new ride.

Kathryn checking out her new truck.

Saying goodbye to our old friend.  :-(

When we first brought it home 6 years ago.  It will be missed!

Pictures of You

I was camera happy today and took a bunch of photos.  Here is a small sampling:

Kathryn loves her toys.  It's so neat to see her being interested in things.  I remember when she could care less about toys.  Now she just plays and plays.  This was taken this morning while we prepared for breakfast.

Kathryn was playing on her floor gym after work.  She loves that thing and her smarmy looking frog.

Kathryn loves the Red Sox!  Thanks Judy for the onesie!

She's become quite the thumb sucker lately.  It's constantly in her mouth!

Kathryn loves her baths.  Her eyes looked exceptionally blue this evening. I didn't edit this at all.  Love my blue eyed girl!

This was taken shortly before she went to bed.  She was playing on another floor mat.  Her new thing to love are tags.  She can always find the tags and they go directly into her mouth.  Here she is trying to eat one!

Second Day

Today was Kathryn's second day at day care.  I have to say, Monday (her first day) was the hardest, but once we got there and I saw how excited the other kids were to have her there, I relaxed and actually felt good when I dropped her off.  I knew she'd have fun, and she did, even though it was only for a half day.

Today she stayed for the whole day.  When I pulled up around 8am, I saw the three kids (Quin, Kate and Seth) waiting by the door.  I heard Quin shout, "Kathryn's here!  Baby Kathryn's here!"  He was practically squealing with joy.  When I walked in, Quin showed me the bag of toys he brought just for Kathryn.  He was so excited to have her there again.  I later found out he was counting down the days till she came back. 

Becky (her daycare provider) texted me twice during the day.  One with a picture of her playing and the other saying she was having a wonderful day.  It made me feel so much better. 

I wish I could stay home with Kathryn, but I know there are benefits to this as well.  She'll learn to be away from me and meet some new friends.  I've got to look at the positives or else I get sad. 

Off and running...

When I got home from work today, Kathryn was wide awake.  I've really been trying to get motivated to lose the rest of this weight.  I've been eating really healthy this week and I even went running on Monday, albeit not very fast.  I haven't really run since I did the 9K in Boston last May. So, when I started running on Monday I realized how out of shape I am and that it is going to take me some time to get back to where I was. 

So...back to today.  Kathryn was awake so I decided to load her into the jogging stroller and take her with me.  I have to say I seriously love that stroller.  It runs so smooth and I can connect my iPod to it and it plays the music out of the speakers on the front so I don't have to use headphones and can pay attention to her.  It was warm and muggy today so I put some sunscreen on her, grabbed her sun hat and off we went.  Again, it just reinforced how out of shape I am!  Anyway...we walked/ran up to the cemeteries I like to run in.  It was a few miles and it was good to be out and I didn't feel guilty because she was with me.  She conked out though about a mile in and her little hat kept falling in her face. 

It was good to be out with my girl.  I look forward to many more runs/walks with her.

A Note From Daddy

I came upstairs from folding a load of Kathryn's laundry and Jared handed me a piece of paper, asking me if I could put it in Kate's baby book. I took it and smiled.  Here's what I saw:

Ten Things I Love About Kathryn

I love...

… how your smile can wipe away all my daily worries

… the way your hair tickles my nose

… your uncontrollable laughter

… the sound of your voice when you chat with your friends

… the way that you're always willing to get goofy with me

… the way you can distract me from doing chores

… watching you sleep

… watching you play

… the way your cries break my heart

… the way you watch baseball with me

… giving you your final bottle of the day and watching you drift off to sleep

… the way your little fingers hold mine

… how excited I am to watch you grow and teach you the things I know

… the fact that there are more than ten things to love about you

With love, on your six month birthday,

Daddy

6 Months Old Already? No Way!

Kathryn is 6 months old today.  That's half a year!  Where has the time gone?  In another 6 months she'll be 1.  I can't believe how fast she's growing up.  It seems like I was just pregnant and here she is growing up.  She changes and grows every day.  She's really becoming mobile lately. She wants to move, move, move.  She's rolling over like crazy and she still smiles and laughs all the time.  I still wonder how in the world we got so lucky to have such and amazing, easy baby.  Like I've said, God never gives you more than you can handle, so he must not have thought I could handle very much when he entrusted Kathryn to us.  There's something special about her.  She seems to have a wisdom and understanding of the world well beyond her 6 months on Earth.  I often wonder what's going on in that little head of hers and am puzzled at how she can be so genuinely happy and content all the time.  I want her to stay small, but I'm also anxious to have her grow up and get to know her and have conversations and go on adventures with her.  My mind is already racing through the ideas: New York City, Red Sox games, concerts, the beach, sharing my favorite books with her and dancing around to The Killers and Depeche Mode and so many other things.  I can't wait to know who this amazing little girl will grow up to be.  Here are a few pictures I've taken over the past few days.  Happy 6 Month Birthday Miss Kat!

Taken on Sunday when she should've still been sleeping.  6:30am is not an acceptable time to wake up on a weekend.

All smiles for breakfast on Sunday morning. May 20, 2012

Watching Mama cook dinner on May 21, 2012.  She loves her giraffe Jenny got her.

Taken today on May 22, 2012 while playing in her Pack & Play.

Last Night: The Conclusion

On last night's episode of "Life With the Honeybaby", Kathryn would not go to sleep.  When she finally did fall asleep in her swing, I put her back in her crib.  That was about 12:30 am.  She slept until 3:30 and then she was up again.  Jared took this shift and she was up for an hour.  She finally fell asleep on me around 4:45am.  We had to be up at 6am.  She was still sleeping when I had to get up so I tried to put her in her crib and of course, she woke up.  She was up for the day and seemed very sleepy...just not herself, which worried me because Kathryn was scheduled to start day care today.  We debated about calling to cancel, but decided not too.  I'm glad we didn't because she did great during her half day there. The kids all loved her.  When I pulled up and walked to the door, I heard one little boy shout, "The baby's here!  The baby's here!"  They all loved her and she did great. I thought it would be harder, but I knew she'd be okay.  She really is the best baby and so easy to adjust and accept new situations.  I'm so grateful to have "The Honeybaby" as my daughter...now I just hope she sleeps better tonight!  On a bright note...I did get to go on a short run when I got home from work and it felt good.

10 o'clock party time is back!

When Kathryn was a new baby we joked that she had her "10 o'clock party time", where she'd get this second wind around 10pm and stay up laughing and grinning.  It was cute, but also very annoying, so fortunately this habit of hers went away.

Well...it was back tonight.  She went down at her usual time around 7:30pm and was sleeping soundly.  After trying to catch up on "The Killing" on the DVR and reading, I turned off my Kindle and the lights around 10:15.  As I way laying in bed trying to go to sleep, I heard rustling around 10:30 and turned to look at the video monitor where I saw Kathryn wiggling around like she was waking up and sure enough, her head popped up and she looked around. I got up to check on her and she was wide awake like she is in the morning.  I instantly knew we were in trouble.  I tried putting her in bed with us, but that was no good.  She kept trying to hit Jared, so I got up and decided to give her a couple of ounces of milk.  I fed her and rocked her while listening to her favorite lullaby CD and she finally dozed off.  I placed her back in her crib and the second I did...BOING: up comes the head and she's awake again.  At this point it was around 11:30, so we're well into the first hour of the "party time".

I decided I'd try the swing.  I put her in it and opened my lap tap to play around on the internet while she rocked.  I didn't even turn on the TV.  I didn't want to distract her.  Well, she finally dozed off a few minutes ago and it was actually really cute watching her drift off.  She kept smiling, so I'm guessing she's having happy dreams.  Now, my dilemma is, do I dare remove her from the swing or just sleep on the couch?  I don't want her to think the swing is how she sleeps, but I need to sleep too.

I was all geared up to wake up at 5am to go running. I haven't been able to find time after work to exercise, so I decided to try doing it before work (I know! I'm crazy!  5am is an ungodly hour to be up...but I wanted to at least try and see if I could do it.).  I'm beginning to think it won't happen tomorrow because it's now almost midnight and I'm sure she'll wake up again tonight.  Anyway...I'm rambling because I'm tired and a little frustrated, but I guess that's part of the territory.  I just thank my lucky stars this is not a regular occurrence.  God bless the parents whose children don't sleep and cry all the time.  Kathryn is usually so good, so I guess I'll excuse the Honeybaby this once.

  

She Loves to Play

I put Kathryn in her crib this morning to play for a bit while I did dishes.  She loves it in there and she was making all kinds of cute noises.  I had to sneak up on her to get it on video.  Please excuse the beach towels in the window.  We only have valances up.  I need to find some curtains or blinds that I like to put up, until then though, the towels are up to block out the light and prying eyes!

Going Good

I'm almost afraid to write this, but Kathryn has been doing so well lately.  She's such a phenomenal baby.  I feel so lucky and blessed.  She seems like such an old soul who just seems content with being herself and being here and bringing joy to everyone around her. 

She's sleeping so well.  She usually goes to bed between 7-8pm and it's so sweet putting her to bed.  Jared and I take turns.  Whoever puts her to sleep for the night takes the first feeding in the middle of the night (if there is one).  She has a little routine, which lets her know it's bedtime.  She takes her bath, then we hang out for a while.  When her eyes start getting heavy, we get her bottles ready for the night.  Then we change her diaper and put her in her sleep sack.  We turn on the fan, her lullabies (the Baby Einstein CD Neena gave her), and her little sheep in her crib that mimics mother's heartbeat in the womb.  We turn out the lights, sit in the glider and feed her.  I usually have my Kindle too.  She generally falls asleep pretty fast and she's so sweet looking when she's sleeping.  I really treasure those moments with her.  She's been doing so well with her sleep too.  A couple of nights ago she slept 12 hours only waking up once and the next night it was 10 hours straight.  Last night she went to sleep at 8pm and woke up at 4am to be fed and then slept till 6:30am.  It's been awesome getting quality sleep.  Putting her in her crib was the best thing we could've done!

Jared switched to a new shift...a more human shift. Instead of waking up at 3am to get to work by 5am, he now doesn't have to be there till 8:30am.  It's been so awesome because he's here in the morning to help and he's been a HUGE help!  I seriously don't know how I did without him here, but somehow I managed.  He gets home later, but that's fine.  It's just great to have the help in the morning and to have him be able to wake up in the middle of the night to help too.

On a bit of a sad note, I'm not breastfeeding as much.  A few weeks ago, inexplicably, I started drying up and have been unable to keep up with what she needs.  I pump what I can, but we've started supplementing with formula and I'm totally okay with that.  I wanted to make it to six months, and we're almost there.  She's happy and healthy and that's all that matters. I have to admit, I am liking the freedom it's bringing!

I sure do love this girl.

Eating Our Way Across Northeast Conencticut

Today was Colleen's last day here.  We decided to keep it a simple day so as not to disturb Kathryn's schedule too much, plus the forecast called for rain all day.  We began the day with lunch at The Vanilla Bean Cafe in the Pomfret.  Yum!

After lunch we headed to Griswold to Buttonwood Farms for some very delicious ice cream.  I got pistachio and Maine blueberry. Jared decided on chocolate and peanut butter (no surprise there!).  Colleen got Almond Joy and black raspberry and my mom chose mocha and black raspberry.  I can't wait to take Kathryn there when she can actually eat some ice cream.

The view of the parking lot.  It was such a pretty area.

Colleen's ice cream

After the ice cream, we swung by Sterling to the Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm to pick up turkey pies for dinner.  Jared got some birch beer to drink and I got a cinnamon cider donut, which Kathryn kept licking.  She seemed to really like it.  

Kathryn the Turkey

Turkey pies before

Turkey pie after!

We had a really good time with Colleen and are so happy Kathryn finally got to meet her Auntie C.  It's too bad she has to return to Arizona tomorrow, but luckily we'll be seeing her again in a couple of months.

Mother's Day and Graveyards

This was my first Mother's Day.  Last year, I was about two months pregnant on Mother's Day.  It's hard to believe I am a mother and I am now included in the club.  Unlike usual, I actually got to spend it with my mom.  Colleen was here too. :-)   The day began with my gift from Jared and Kathryn.  I absolutely love it.  

My gift.  I love this necklace.

Once everyone was up and around we took a trip to East Providence, Rhode Island to the Ancient Little Neck Cemetery to visit the grave of our common ancestor, Elizabeth Tilley, a Mayflower passenger.  A few years ago, Colleen helped me discover we were decedents of her, as are Jared's family.  Needless to say, we got a kick out of the fact we have the same grandmother (obviously very far back!).  Anyway...Colleen has been wanting to go and I'm glad we did.  I've always liked old cemeteries, but it was really neat to go to one where one of our ancestors is buried and realize if she hadn't made the decisions she did in her life, none of us would be here.

Me & Colleen clearing the weeds away from Elizabeth's grave.

Trying to pose Kathryn in front of the tombstone. She actually fell on her face.  She cried for a second and then went back to smiling. She had a nice smear of dirt on her cheek.

Elizabeth's decedents (minus Mom)

 

 

 

 

 

Auntie C and Kathryn

After we were finished at the cemetery, we drove down to the Stonington/Mystic area and had Mother's Day dinner at Cove Fish Market.  We stuffed ourselves with fish & chips, chowda, and clam fritters.  It was very, very good!  Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of everyone eating and hanging out, but Colleen did get a picture of her meal.  Yum!!!

Kinda messy, but you get the point.  I had a fish sandwich though...it was delicious!

Overall, it was a really nice day.  I'm glad I got to spend Mother's Day with my own mom and my little girl.  It was great sharing it with Colleen too.  I'm looking forward to many more days with Kathryn like this. 

Lobsta and Chowda

Today we drove up to Maine with Colleen.  It's about a two hour drive up to the Wells/Kennebunkport area.  We've been there a few times and love the food at The Maine Diner.  We wanted to share it with Colleen and my mom.  It did not disappoint.  The lobster pie was rich and delicious, the cod cakes were yummy, the cornbread was the best I've ever had and the seafood chowder was mouthwatering!

After stuffing ourselves to the brink of combustion, we drove around and looked at the sights.  Overall, it was a good day. Kathryn did well too, especially since we don't take her out that much.  She got a little cranky on the way home, but she did great!  We need to get her out more.

Unfortunately, the pictures weren't great, but here are a few that captured the day.

Kathryn not wanting to pose on the beach.

Trying to get a good family shot...didn't happen.

Kathryn's first steps in the ocean.  She didn't like it.  The water was too cold!

The Bush's house...they didn't invite us in. :-(

Auntie C has Arrived!

Kathryn finally got to meet her Aunt Colleen today!  We're so excited to have Colleen here from Arizona.  Kathryn loved her instantly, although she had a rough time going to sleep.  She fell asleep as usual around 7:30, but then when she was put in her crib, she woke right up and stayed that way till 10:30. At least Kathryn got to watch the Vampire Diaries season finale with us. She was overly tired and I think she was having tummy troubles, although she was all smiles.  She finally went to the bathroom and seems to be okay now.  Jared got her to sleep and now we're heading to bed.  Too bad he's got to wake up at 3am.  I'll post pictures soon of our adventures with Aunt C, which will be including a trip to Maine to eat seafood chowdah at The Maine Diner on Saturday!

Kathryn's Got a Cold

Last night was a bit rough.  Kathryn woke up every couple of hours all sniffly.  Poor thing has a cold.  She wanted to be near someone all day and thankfully Gangy was able to do that for her.  Hopefully she'll feel better soon.

Someone's got a cold. :-(  Her nose is so full of boogies.

Look at my pretty blue eyes.

Kathryn likes Mommy's Wuzzle from when Mommy was little.

I think she was giving me the bird, but I'm not sure.