Kaitlyn Michele's Baby Updates

Hotdog. Both Kristen and I were in complete amazement and stunned when we heard she say it. Yep, that's right. Hotdog.

OKAY, okay, Kaitlyn never really said "hotdog". But she kinda did. It wasn't exactly "HOT-DOG." It was more like a baby-voiced version of... "haat-daaw." =) That's hotdog in baby language if I ever heard it.

But other than our little hotdog escapade, Kaitlyn has been regularly babbling to us and herself. Much of it does come out to be "Ma, ma, ma, ma..." or "Da, da, da, da...", or a combination of ma, ba, da, etc. It's really cute if you ask me. Ah, parental goggles are great. You should try them on sometime. Kristen even claims that she only says "Da, da, da..." when she happy, and "Ma, ma, ma..." when she's cranky. I say it's selective hearing on Kristen's part. =)

Did I mention Kaitlyn said "water" as well? =) Still too cute.

(Waaah-taah.)

(How the heck do journalists always come up with those snazzy headlines? Takes me forever to think them up!)

It's been about three weeks since starting Kaitlyn on jarred food now. So far she's tried green beans, peas (+ brown rice), winter squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and something called "garden veggies". We've been feeding her Earth's Best organic baby food to try and minimize her reaction to any allergies. Both sides of the Kaitlyn's family have relatives who are allergic to a variety of things they can't eat. From seafood, peanuts, and melons, to strawberries and apples.

So far Kaitlyn has only had mild reactions to a few food when first introduced, but she's quickly adapted to digest anyting and everything we've given her. *Whew* We'll be starting her on fruits in the next week. I hope they taste better than the veggies. So far green beans are the grossest tasting, but my personal favorite is the sweet potatoes.

What's your favorite? =)

Kaitlyn's favorite thing to do when she's happy these days is to go nuts with kicking her feet around. Just after work today I was holding her, something made her giggly (Not that she's giggling or laughing still. Yet. *sigh*). She looked away from the action and kicked her feet around. Almost kicked herself out of my hold. It's even cuter when she's sitting on our bed and gets giggly. She tries to kick but only winds up bouncing her body up and down. Man, I need to work less and play with Kaitlyn more...

Yep, as mentioned last month Kaitlyn is starting on solids now (well, they're called solids for some reason, but they are far from being solid by a mile). She didn't initially like the rice cereal that we started her on two weeks ago, but since then we've added a spritz (okay, okay, half a teaspoon) of white grape juice and she's been eating greadily ever since. We just start her on green beans yesterday and just like with the rice cereal, she's not really taking to it right now. Mixing it in with the rice seems to work as we tried that tonight, so we'll probably stick to doing that each time we introduce a new food. Next up, peas, squash, carrots, yams, and then off to fruits! So far so good. No food allergies yet!

Oh yeah, Kaitlyn is still really big and reeeeeeally long. She's about 28 1/2" long (which is about 95th percentile -- equivalent to a 10-month old at the 50th percentile), and she's 18.5 lbs. (80th percentile -- 8-month old). Man she's big. Too big for both K's and my preference, that's for sure. What happened to our little baby k? Now it's like BABY K. Sheesh.

Yeah, K and I are holding on to the simple pleasures of bathing Kaitlyn in her little baby tub. Honestly, Kaitlyn should really NOT be bathed in the tub on the kitchen counter. She's totally outgrown it at a whopping 28+" in length these days! I think the whole tub itself is only about 30 inches long! But hey, Kaitlyn doesn't seem to mind...

Speaking of which, it's pretty comical how Kaitlyn behaves in the bathtub now. She's always used to suck her big toe, but now that Kristen busted out the Pooh Bear-shaped sponge, our (big) little one is sucking on that instead.

Kaitlyn also does this weird expression where she sniffs up a bunch of air, squints her eyes really hard, and kinda shakes her head and arms -- all at the same time. It's like she just smelled something really potent or... something. She's been doing this not only during bathtime, but just randomly while she plays (and usually dropping a toy in the act), is being held, or is being fed. Strange.

So our little Kaitlyn has found the joys of tasting, well, washcloths. It's pretty funny. Every time we try and wash her face with it, she just sticks her tongue out and tries lick the savory washcloth. No, we don't dip it in juice or anything. She just love that tasty cloth for some reason. We've even seen times where we've just given the washcloth to her to suck on after cleaning her face and she panics when we try and take it away!