baby brother nolan made 1

we cannot believe that nolan is already a year old! this first year has flown by so fast. he's such a sweet boy and so silly all the time. he LOVES to eat anything and everything, food or otherwise. he's not walking yet, but can take 2-3 steps before he decides that crawling is easier. he's into clapping, dancing, peekaboo, pretend phone calls with anything remotely resembling a phone, pulling kiki's hair, and putting buckets on his head. we think he says a few words, but it's hard to tell for sure sometimes. he says "ni ni" when we tell him it's bedtime and a few times when he was really tired at night as if he was asking to be put to bed. he also says dada, mama, baba, and hello on occasion. we're still waiting to find out what he's going to call kiki because it's sure to be super cute!

as with every child and pet in our life, he has a ton of nicknames. here are just a few:

• noly poly
• baby brother nay nay
• nolint
• nolan polen
• noodles
• no no no nolan
• boy boy
• relentless

that last one is due to how intense and determined he is to get into things he shouldn't. we have a big couch in a small living room, so he's able to climb up onto either side and get to the kitchen counter or the end table and a/c. i spend all day every day removing him from dangerous situations and there is literally no more babyproofing i can do. it's going to be a rough year between now and 2!

bebe brother nolan

it took 4 days of labor, 2 trips to st. thomas, and a whole lot of pitocin, but we are now the proud parents of a sweet, perfect little baby boy.

on tuesday the 16th, my official due date, i went in for a 40 week checkup and membrane sweep. over the course of the day i dilated from 0-3 and was determined to be in early labor, so we packed up our bags, left kiki at home with grandma, and headed to st. thomas. i made no progress while there despite walking for 2 hours, and by that point it was too late to go back to st. john. i was contracting steadily so we didn't want to take that risk anyway. we checked into a hotel on the beach and got a few hours of sleep. on wednesday, we hung out on st. thomas and went back to the hospital only to find that i had still not progressed and was having what they call prodromal labor. because of my age, the complications we had with cat's birth, and the risk of living on an island with no hospital, we decided to head home to see cat and spend one last night at home, then start an induction in the morning.  

on thursday, we hopped on the first barge over, grabbed mcdonald's breakfast, and arrived at the hospital at 7:30am.  they put in an iv, set up the monitors, and started pitocin. i walked, bounced, sat, laid, etc. and after a whole day of that i had taken the maximum amount of pitocin you can get and only dilated 1 more cm and the baby had not descended at all.  after 3 days of constant contractions without any pain medication i was exhausted and frustrated, so they put demerol in my iv and let me sleep for a few hours. friday morning we started over from scratch with a whole new bag of pitocin, and i decided to go ahead and get an epidural which was never part of my birth plan, but it worked!  it worked so well that i slept most of the day and finally progressed to complete without feeling a thing.  they let the epidural fade just in time for me to feel everything to push, and after an hour, 8 lb, 21 inch perfect little nolan came into the world at 6:40 pm. he cried for what seemed like forever, but has pretty much been sleeping since then.  he is the sleepiest little baby and almost as easy as his sister was.  she is so in love with him and wants to wake him up all the time by giving him kisses.  she tells me all day every day "this is bebe brother nolan, he's sweet!"

happy mother's day!

when i was about 5 years old, i remember arguing with my mom and receiving the age old curse, "i hope when you grow up you have a daughter just like you!"  my snappy comeback was to say "i hope i do too because i want my daughter to love me as much as i love you!"  i thought i was so clever with my smart mouth, but it's funny looking back now and realizing that even back then all i've ever wanted in life was to be as awesome of a mother as my mama.

people say you never realize how much you can love someone until you have a child of your own, but i feel like i had a pretty good idea. it wasn't surprising to me when our little kitten was growing in my belly and i fell more and more in love with her every day. when she came out so tiny and perfect and settled right into my arms, it was everything i thought it would be.  i know exactly how much my mom loves me because she has shown it in every word and action my entire life.  she sang to me, rocked me, rubbed my back, and/or held my hand until i fell asleep every night long past the age when that usually stops.  when i was teased in school, she made me feel proud of the things that others considered flaws, and to this day i am still proud of those things.  she always gave me plenty of trust and freedom and was there to pick up the pieces if things didn't work out.  as i got older, i know it must have been hard for her to do, but she fostered my independence.  she supported me dropping out of college to move to nyc when i was 18 because she knew the best thing for me was getting out of our small town -- or maybe because she knew i was going to do it regardless!

whenever i read about different "parenting styles" and studies on what you should and shouldn't do, i dismiss them immediately.  i frequently joke that my parenting style is "do everything exactly the way that my mom did" but it's really not a joke.  i honestly don't think she could have done a better job raising me.  she didn't have all the excessive information we have forced on us thanks to the internet mommy wars, so i refuse to get wrapped up in that unnecessary crap.  love and patience was all i needed.  i remember being very young and choosing to behave because i loved her so much and wanted to make her happy.  i hope it stays that simple and amazing with my own daughter.

i love you mom!!!!!!!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

big girl talking

kiki has had a language explosion over the past week! she surprises us every day with something new. i haven't counted her words yet, so here goes:

mama
dada
cat (usually she says cattt! cattt! cattt!)
shoes (shooozsh)
what you got?
where'd it go?
flower (gower)
toot toot
baby (ba-pa)
dog (doge)
circle (gur-kle)
uh oh
hello
thank you (tah too)

there are a few words she has said a few times but not consistently enough to count, i don't think:
bumblebee (bumba)
butterfly (ba da da)

she also barks like a dog when she sees or hears one (or the geico pig lol), points at sebastian and says "doge" when asked where her dog bast is, and points at circles and says "gurkle!"

1 year

cookie is 1 year old! our tiny kitten is officially a cat. she went from 5 lb 12 oz to 20 lbs and just over 30 inches tall.  she's walking better every day, but her real talent is climbing.  big girl can climb up onto the couch all by herself, and can throw her leg over mine and climb up on me whether i want her to or not.  she can't quite climb up into our bed yet, but she can get down from it like a pro.  she's very strong and i swear she was doing pull-ups while hanging on the side of her high chair the other day.  at the clinic recently, every nurse and doctor commented on how "busy" she is because she never stops moving and exploring.

she loves phones and pretending that everything is a phone by putting it up to her ear and saying, "hello!"  she knows how to swipe the screen of our phones and pinch to zoom in and out.  she is obsessed with our bellies and loves to lift up our shirts to give raspberries.  she is still very much into music and loves singing and dancing and watching youtube videos.  when i pull up itunes on my computer she recognizes the screen and starts dancing before i even play any music.  she also loves books and will sit by herself, flipping through the pages and talking like she's reading.  several times a day she will bring a book to one of us, crawl up into our lap and demand that it be read to her.  colby went to the coffee shop one day and they happened to be selling a used copy of one fish two fish red fish blue fish.  he bought it for her not even knowing that it was my favorite book as a child.  she squeals happily when she sees it, tries to carry it everywhere, and throws a tantrum when we take it away, but she doesn't quite have the attention span to sit through the whole thing yet.

and now..... a year of pictures!!

the last picture taken of my pregnant belly a week before our kitten was born

tiny cat fresh out of the oven

one month old

two months

three months

four months 

five months 

six months

seven months

eight months

nine months

ten months

eleven months

ONE YEAR!!!!

11 months

kiki is one month shy of a year old today!  she is officially walking.  she still prefers to crawl when she has to get somewhere in a hurry, and she staggers like a cruz bay drunk, but a couple days ago she walked all the way across the apartment to me. that same day, while i was at work, colby taught her how to clap. we had never specifically tried to teach her that before so she's probably way late on it.  it's so cute when she walks and claps at the same time!

we've had a total relapse with her eating habits and i'm not sure why.  she won't let me feed her anything from a spoon or fork except greek yogurt.  she's very interested in what's on our plates and grabs at our food, but if we offer it to her she backs away.  i try to share everything i eat with her, but she's only eating a few nibbles here and there.  she also stopped caring about the sippy cup and will only take sips out of it occasionally.  i put some regular milk in her bottle once and she chugged it, so i tried milk in the sippy and she looked at me as if i had betrayed her.

i've been fighting off a nasty staph infection in my head for the past week.  colby had to take some time off work because i was in so much pain.  i've been trying to be as "hands off" as possible to lower the risk of spreading the infection to kiki, so she and colby have been bonding even more than usual.  it's the most amazing thing in the world to see them together.  he is so sweet and loving and she adores him.  she cries every time he walks out the door, and sometimes even when he just leaves the room.  they both love their "kiki dada days" when i go to work and they hang out at home all day.

10 months

ok, this is super late getting posted, but i'll try not to include any of the recent developments over the past few weeks.  kiki is ten months old! she's still not walking, but oh my goodness is she a climber. she can climb up onto the bottom shelf of our wicker console table, across to the other side, and back down without any help. she can also get herself entirely out of a walker or an exersaucer. she climbed into a bin full of toys, leaned over until it flipped on its side and then crawled out over the mess as if nothing had happened.  we aren't encouraging walking but honestly, it might be preferable to climbing.

she's only ten months old, but our little jet setter baby has already been on seven separate plane flights and she was an absolute dream 99% of the time.  we recently took a two week trip to visit our families in the states, and although we had every possible problem in the world with spirit airlines, kiki barely protested. the hardest part was keeping her from happily squealing at the sleeping people in the seats around us.  as it turns out, not everyone likes babies even if they are happy ones who rarely ever cry.  a lady next to me put a sweater over her head to take a nap and kiki, thinking the lady was playing peekaboo, snatched it off her head and laughed so hard.  i felt bad but it still cracks me up when i think about it.

the first part of our trip involved going to my grandparents' memorial and funeral, so kiki (and colby) got to meet almost all of my family for the first time.  i'm pretty sure cousin rachel was her favorite!  while we were there we got to wear pants and sweaters and cuddle under a blanket on the porch at night.  i even wore a scarf and boots a few times.  if you've never had island fever that probably doesn't sound very exciting, but it was amazing to me and i was afraid i'd never want to come back.  luckily by the end of the second week, we were missing our island home.  two weeks was the exact amount of time to get all the starbucks, chipotle, and mellow mushroom that we needed (and of course see our families!) and then return to paradise, fulfilled and ready to face another high season.  bring on the tourists.