The tooth

I could tell Kai had a tooth coming, he was very cranky, always chewing on stuff hard, and his gums were swollen. Finally on Saturday I put my finger in his mouth to put some Oragel on his gums, and I could feel the ridges of the tooth! It had finally broke through!! Since then he’s been much happier. All last week he didn’t sleep through the night and after the tooth, he is back to sleeping through the night again! THANK GOODNESS. We’ve even had many nights that if he doesn’t fall right asleep at the end of his last bottle, I’ll just put him down in his crib. He usually falls asleep after 10-30 minutes of babbling to himself. At first we had to keep going in his room to put his binky back in his mouth, but lately he just goes to sleep after a while. My mom got him a little musical projector that shines on the ceiling, and that has helped a lot, as I figured it would.
Last Saturday was also the First birthday party for my friend, Cami’s, daughter, who I say is Kai’s girlfriend. She’s adorable. Its crazy how quickly Kai is growing. He's be 7 months old today! (technically yesterday here now.) March 19th is also my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!

I guess I’ll update what Kai is doing:
He can sit up on his own, for quite a while (He even sat back up after falling back on the Boppy).
He can now go every direction in his walker, and RUNS in it! He’ll chase you around the house, he knows exactly how to get where he wants to go.
He has eaten pretty much every 1st stage food and LOVES them ALL (I haven’t tried the meats yet, because everyone has said to wait on those…)
He is a VERY good eater, he gobbles up his food in no time!
I started introducing him to sippy cups, but he hasn’t been very interested in them, except today he drank quite a bit of juice from it, mostly he’s wanted to chew on the spout.
He is doing very well at grabbing items and turning things over to look at (and chew on) all sides of them.
He babbles, sings, and SCREAMS (happily) quite often. In the car, he’ll sing himself to sleep.
He says “Da-da-da-da”, even after we do sometimes, but I don’t think he knows what it means. He hasn’t quite said “Ma-Ma” yet. He’ll copy us and say “Blah-blah-blah” and I swear he tried to say “Bath” when we’ve said it.
He blows (or maybe he’s trying to whistle, lol).
He LOVES to laugh, especially at Rob! He LOVES his Daddy SOO much! (And Rob is such a good dad! And Rob loves to make Kai laugh).

Results are in!

Kai has severe reflux. No bueno. The doctor said that he didn't see any structural abnormalities or damage from the reflux. So twice a day I have to give him a perscription antacid. We need to feed him less, more often (easier said than done, because he's a HUNGRY HIPPO!! He cries like you've beat him, if you take his food away before he's done), we need to burp him more often, and also keep him upright for a while after he's eaten. Its hard to say how much better it is so far, because we've only had the perscription since last night. But I am sure it'll be better now. Kai started walking backwards in his walker last month, well a week or two ago he started going forward a bit, then all the sudden yesterday, he started running all over. He goes so fast across our wood floors and he wants to get into EVERYTHING! He was trying to pull on the trash, open all the cupboards, play on the computer, mess with the printer, chase the cats...its insane! Hes so funny, once he's figured something out, he's all over it! When I got home from work Rob said "Your son is running everywhere!!" so I had to get a little video of it. He's so cute!

I know, I know, I know

I keep saying I'm going to be better with blogging...well, we've all come to terms with the fact that its just not going to happen. So, as I go back and forth from the couch to Kai's room to stick his binky back in his mouth, I might as well keep myself busy in between. Right now he's in there singing, but that could quickly escalate to crying...so I'm on the edge of the couch, ready to jump. :P
We've been working on getting him to go to sleep on his own, cause I just got so frustrated with trying to rock a fussy boy to sleep when he didn't want to go to sleep. I don't understand why he fights sleep so much...ok, I think he finally gave up for tonight!
Ever since Kai was born, he has spit up a lot. More than most babies. Rob thought it was normal, but he pukes so much, I am surprised he's gaining weight as well as he has. At 6 months (woah, 6 months!!! Holy time flying, batman!) he is 19 lbs 12 oz (84th %), 27 1/2" tall (85th %), and his head is 17 1/2" round (65th %).
So at his appointment, the Dr suggested we get an xray of his esophagus and see if we can figure out what is going on. That was done on Thursday, and we haven't heard the results yet. The tech there said she could see him refluxing though. We had to have him skip a feeding to be hungry, then put him in this little hospital gown with tigers on it. It was seriously the cutest sight ever: him in that gown! But it also made me a little sad. Rob stayed with him to feed him the barium stuff, and I stood behind the wall with the window. Kai doesn't like to be held down, so he screamed quite a bit, and the barium just got all over his face and head. Poor guy. Hopefully we hear something tomorrow. Other than that, he's doing pretty good.
Christmas was fun, Kai was even a little interested in opening presents. He got a walker from grandma Kris and grandpa Dave, which he loves. He got a highchair from grandma and grandpa Dammann. My mom has taken some pictures of him, here is a Christmas one:

And a couple from this month:



He's getting so big! I held a baby that was around a month old and she felt soooo little!
My friend, Robyn, who took my old central supply position is moving this week! :( I am sad to not have her at work anymore. Its been an awesome year getting to be around her all the time and getting close again. But I am happy for her, she's getting married this summer. So new adventures for her! Congrats, Robyn!
We've done a lot of playing Left 4 Dead 2 since Rob's birthday (when we hurried and bought it with the gift card he got). The game is SO addicting and fun! Even if I sometimes get nightmares from it!
Ok, well its very much past my bedtime! I won't say that I'll blog again soon, that'll just jinx it. So....maybe you'll see me again before Kai's first b-day! HAHAHA, I'm sure I can't be THAT bad!

Kai laughs

This was the second time he really laughed. It's so fun!!

Yeah, I know

When Kai was a couple weeks old mom took these pics...




Ok, lets get past the fact that I'm a lazy moron and never blog anymore. Or I'm a mom....whatever! :P
So Kai is 16 weeks old now...4 months. Craziness. At his 2 month appointment he was 12 pounds. The last time he was measured was at 6 weeks, he was 22 inches. His 4 month appointment should be soon, so we'll get an update on that. He's getting big so fast!! And I can't wait to be able to start feeding him cereal! For the last couple months he's been sleeping through the night every night. Sometimes its just hard to get him to go to sleep. We rock him for a while to get him asleep, he just fights it so much.
I started back to work on October 29th, its been hard, and I miss Kai every day!
Rob's aunt passed away so we went to her funeral up north on October 30th. It was Rob's dad's sister. That was the first time I ever saw Dennis cry, it was heartbreaking. He spoke at the funeral and he's an impressive public speaker, I was humbled.
My sister, April, was kind enough to take our offer for her to live with us and to take care of Kai while we are at work. She's working for Rob in the evenings. Its so nice to have someone I know watching him, and not having to pay for daycare or a sitter. I am so grateful for it!
For Halloween Kai was a lobster...and a very cute one at that.

We took him around with my siblings and neices and nephews in my mom's neighborhood while they trick-or-treated.

Rob was...himself, Josh was a....yeah...well, he was a "special friend", April insists she was 80's, but people kept thinking she was a hooker...I was a lunch lady, Gwennie was a rock star, Brycen and Maddie were vampires, Owen was Darth Vader, and Skylar was a grim reaper? I think, and Lelah was a cheetah!...They were all very cute.

Kai's blessing was the first weekend in November, and my grandpa Lockwood blessed him. It was a very nice blessing, and of course Kai screamed through it, and then puked all down the front of my grandpa on the way back to the seats. We had a luncheon at mom's after it, and it was so nice to have everyone there. I was happy to have Grandpa bless him, because he's who blessed me when I was a baby.



We finally did family pictures, it had been 5 years since our last ones, and we had 4 new family members! Here's a taste of some good ones:






For Thanksgiving we had a wonderful dinner at Rob's parents. Kai was so good, he ate right before our dinner was ready, then he fell asleep and stayed asleep while we ate!
I was appointed to plan our work Christmas party, which is on my birthday, so I hope I get it all figured out and it goes well!
I finally made a birth announcement for Kai that I was ok with:

I will try better to not wait so long to post!! I also need to post the video of Kai's first laughs!!

This just in....I'm a slacker!

I get so busy and tired so often now, I'm slacking on blogging. Kai's napping, but might not be for long...so I'll update you all.
A few weeks ago Kai had a Dr. appointment at 6 weeks. He was 11 lbs, 5 oz, and 22 inches long. He's getting so big. he's in the 77th percentile in weight. That might be because I had no idea how much I should be feeding him and turns out I feed him more than my 5 month old niece eats! oops! I've tried to slowly cut down, but then Kai acts like he's starving all the time. So we're trying to work on that. Kai's been really good most nights. We've had a couple where I'm up until 1, and once I was up til 4 am, but also a couple nights where he slept for 8 hours straight. So I'm very thankful for that.
He hasn't been too happy with his swing or bouncer, which sucks, because if I want to shower I have to wait for him to fall asleep enough to put him down, and then he usually wakes up while I'm in the shower, so that's been tough. I am the kind of person who gets irritated if I can't finish something I've started, so if I start getting ready, I just want to be done with it. Hopefully it will get easier.
Kai gets his shots this week, so that will be sad for me. I feel so bad when he's hurting. He's been pretty gassy/colicky so he can get pretty fussy and pained.
My mom took some pictures of him when he was a couple weeks old, so I will post those when I have the laptop, and she just took some more pics today that I will post when I get them!
But I hear my little man stirring from his nap, so I am off!!

Kai's birth story.

Ok. Of course having the new baby, its crazy to find the time to even blog anymore. My memory is failing me, so I hope I get all my details right! I guess I tell long stories, so sorry if this is a bit boring, But here we go!

After the blog that I wrote on August 18th, where I was having more painful contractions and questioning if I should call the Dr. and what-not. So finally at like 4 pm, I called the Dr office, and got voicemail, so I left a message saying I thought I was having contractions, but didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home if it wasn't labor, and could I come by and be seen by the doctor. One of the girls from the Dr office called me back and said, "Can you come in right now?" so we grabbed my bag (just in case, but I really didn't think I'd need it, I figured we'd be home in a little while), and we headed to the doctor.
At about 4:45 pm, we went in, of course they checked my blood pressure and urine. The blood pressure was way up and there was protein in my urine. Then the Dr checked me (painful as hell), and I was dilated about 3-4, he said I was in early labor and I had a choice to make. He said, "You can go home, if you want to be comfortable there and come back when labor progresses more, or I can call Labor & Delivery and tell them you are coming over." I got really nervous. Rob asked, "If she goes to Labor and Delivery, is there a possibility that we'll be sent home? Or are they going to move things along?". Dr. Lunt said, "No, things are moving along anyway, but we'll probably do some pitocin to keep things going along." As scared as I was, I said, "Well, my mom would be mad if I didn't just go over, so let's do it!" The nurse walked us through the back way from their office to Labor and Delivery. As they passed us to an L&D CNA, I started crying. I felt so stupid, but I was realizing that this was it! I was so scared. She turned and saw me crying and asked if I was ok. I told her I was just scared. They wanted more urine, and when I was in the bathroom, I realized I was bleeding quite a bit, but I figured it was expected.

I got into a hospital gown and into bed. It was about time for the shift change, so I didn't see a nurse until the new one started at 6 pm. The CNA worked on getting things all ready for me, and Rob had called my mom on the way over here, so she showed up pretty quick after we did...heck, she almost beat us there! When the nurse finally came in, her name was Nicole, and she was the nicest girl ever! She was so great and I am so glad we had her! She got my IV going and said I needed to have a full bag of fluid emptied into me before I could get an epidural.
See, I hadn't been totally positive that I was going to get an epidural, but the pains I was having were so bad. I had really bad back labor all day, and it got so much worse once we were at the hospital, I couldn't even feel the contractions in my abdomen anymore, just the horrible back pain. My mom always tells me that I have a low pain tolerance, and I figured I did, but I just wanted to see how things were going to go. But the pain was bad enough to justify the epidural...why have all that pain if I don't have to?
Rob and my mom hadn't eaten, so at about 7 or 7:30 I told Rob to go get something for them. While he was gone I finished my bag of fluid, but I told them I wanted to wait for Rob to get back before I got the epidural. As they were getting things ready for the epidural, our nurse aparently had to go talk to her manager, so the nurse down the hall came in to get things ready. BLAH!!! It was the nurse that helped us when we had to go in to L&D in May, when I was having the first hydronephrosis pains. I was very unimpressed with her then, and when she walked in, from the look on my mom's face, I could tell it was a nurse she did NOT like, and had talked to me about. GREAT! She was pretty rough with me as she got me in position for the epidural, etc. She told my mom that only one person could be in ther with me when they put the epidural in, so my mom said it would be Rob, so when it was time for my mom to step out, that nurse escorted her way down the hall to a waiting room, by her arm. What the hell?? Is my mom a criminal? Thank goodness that was the last we saw of that nurse. When my nurse, Nicole, came back in, I asked if my mom talked to her about that nurse, and she said, "No, she just said that the nurse stressed you out", so I told her we've had bad experiences with her before, so she said that she wouldn't be back in there, she promised. Thank goodness.
So time for the epidural...that was an experience. It was just after 8 pm. Rob sat in front of me and put pressure on my knees to keep me from moving forward or jolting. The nurse held me at my shoulders...couldn't tell if it was to keep me still or be reassuring! It was pretty bad. When the needle went in I felt the most painful shock down my spine, and down my left leg. I shreiked so loud. I was bawling and I think Rob felt so bad and didn't know what to do. Finally the pains subsided and the nurse told me I did so good. She said most people jerk forward, and some have to have it done again, but I held perfectly still. It only seemed to numb my left side at first. I could still feel on the right, so I had some pains still during the contractions. After a while they propped me up to help "drain" some of the meds to the right side. It did help a lot. I could still feel a tiny bit, but it was good to feel when the contractions were. The nurse was excited to check me and see how far I was. I was a 5, couple hours later I was 5-6.
We let my sister-in-law, Jalee know that things were going on their way, so she came over around 10pm, I think. Dr. Lunt had come in before the epidural and said he didn't want to check me until I had the epidural, since when he checked in his office, it was so painful. I had been shaking like crazy since before the epidural, which is something I do when I am in pain anyway, and nervous, but it also happens in labor. I shook like crazy until after I had Kai. Rob kept feeling bad thinking I was cold, but I wasn't I was so hot. But Rob, mom, and Jalee were freezing the whole time. They said the room was very cold. I asked the nurse for warm blankets for them, but that didn't seem to last long, they got cold quick again.
I hadn't eaten since lunch, so I was starving, but I couldn't eat. They said I could have liquids, so finally I got some yummy grape juice (Jalee's suggestion of hospital juices), and broth, which was TASTY, since I was starving!
All of us were laughing and joking, the nurses probably thought we were crazy. Around 2 a.m., I was dilated to a 10. They wanted me to stay at a 10 for a while to allow Kai's head to cone more to come out easier. Since I had the epidural it wasn't painful, but I did feel quite a bit of pressure with each contraction, and I would tense up my muscles automatically and would try to relax. They turned my light off and try to sleep...yeah right. After an hour they were back to get things moving. The nurse and CNA were there to get me pushing to get Kai down more. They told me that with first births, its usually about 3 hours of pushing. I was quite a bit nervous about that because I was so tired, and hadn't slept in about 20 hours. I hoped I had the energy. My mom had a leg, and Rob was by my head to support my back with each push. I was thinking "Ok...here we go!" I had heartburn all day, and they gave me some Malox, but it hadn't helped. At the end of each push, I could feel the acid burn my throat and I felt like I was going to puke. They gave me a barf bag and finally it came into use. I almost felt like my pushing wasn't doing any good. I felt like I wasn't really pushing enough. The nurse kept saying how good I was doing and that he was moving down good. They started saying they could see his head and the nurse was trying to see what color his hair was. After a while with each push they could all see his head and all the hair he had. (I was so glad, I thought he was going to be bald!) An hour later the doctor got there and after a few pushes Kai's head was out and the doctor told me to sit back and relax, and he'd do the rest, and within seconds, Kai was out at 4:27 a.m., After 21 hours of labor. His little cry sounded like a car's motor trying to start, it was so sweet! Everything after that was such a blur! Rob held him first, and called his parents. I did tear, and the spot lights in the room weren't working so we had a portable spotlight that the dr was trying to work with, but he'd move and his head would block the light, so the stitching up took FOREVER! Finally I looked at him and said, "Are you stitching the whole thing up??" :P Kai was 8 pounds, 5 ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long. Rob's parents came and left, and the nurses wanted me to try nursing. By then I was SOO SOO tired, and it was a little frustrating. Kai was making little grunting sounds like a pig, it was so funny. We then got moved to the mom and baby floor and they had me try nursing again, and by then I was just like, "C'MON!! Just let me SLEEP!!!" It was after 7 am, and I had been up for 24 hours, Rob and I were so tired. Kai was in the little cart, and slept so quietly while we did for a few hours. He ended up having jaundice, and we had to stay an extra day. I really didn't mind. I had a hard time leaving, I cried as I packed my stuff to leave the hospital, it was nice to have people to help, and now we had to leave and face this alone. And the hospital food was REALLY GOOD! But....it was crazy that it was over and he was here.