'Tis not the Season!

Three cheers for tax season 2011 being over and done.  Kai and I are thrilled to have our daddy and husband back, and Bryon is pretty happy to be done as well.

Kai and I combined our artistic abilities to make a sign for the door on Bryon's last day of tax season.

5:30 a.m. the morning after tax season - Kai and I blissfully slept, and Bryon headed to Schweitzer.



Eighteen Months

The little guy at our house is not looking so little anymore.  As I watched him "swim" in the bathtub last night I was amazed at just how tall he is getting.  I'm also amazed at all the new things he learns and comes up with everyday.  He never ceases to make us laugh, and I find myself storing up loads of ridiculous stories to relate to Bryon at the end of each day. 

Anyways, here's a little synopsis of Kai at 18 months.

Favourite Activities:

- Playing outside, especially at parks with lots of stairs and slides.

- Cars.  Yes, they may have even surpassed his love of balls, at least for the moment!

- Eating.

- Reading.  It's the first thing he wants to do when he wakes up, and the last thing we do before he goes to bed, as well as many, many other times during the day.  His current favourite book is Richard Scarry's Cars, Trucks and Things That Go, and Kai loves to point out all of the vehicles and animals as well as find "Goldbug" in each picture.  Usually he can find Goldbug before I can!

Least Favourite Activities:

- I think this one always is the same - anything that requires him to sit still (except for reading).  Hopefully our plane ride to Colorado goes well this weekend!

Favourite Foods:

- Most everything.  His appetite continues to be huge, and he'll eat anything we're eating.  Fruit is almost always his first choice though, so he's a good example to his daddy :)

Least Favourite Foods:

- I honestly can't think of anything I've tried to give him recently that he hasn't wanted to eat.

Words:

- Kai says a lot of words these days, most of which I can understand pretty well, but other people (including Bryon) can't understand at all!  He gets really frustrated when he's trying to communicate with someone and they aren't getting what he's saying.  Here are a few of his words:

- dada (which also means grandpa)

- mama

- nana
- Kaden
- Emma
- Abby
- Jesus
- amen

- hi

- yes

- no

- don't touch (which he'll chant from his crib while in time out for touching something he's not supposed to!)

- oh no

- whoa/wow
- all done
- go
- hands
- eyes
- bubbles
- car
- airplane

- water

- moon

- star
- sun

- trees

- chair

- high chair

- blanket

- ball

- baby

- water

- banana

- apple

- orange

- berries

- kiwi
- cheese
- cracker

- bear

- hippo

- rhino

- turtle

- ostrich

- bird

- alligator

- dolphin

- whale
- cool (He just learned this one today, and has been using it all day.  We'll see if it sticks.)

And a lot of sound effects...

- vrooom

- choo choo

- woof woof

- neigh

- baa

- moo

- hiss

- roar

- quack

- oink
- (cock-a-doodle) doo

And in sign language...

- more

- please

- thank you

- all done

Sorry for the list.  It's more for my sake than yours I suppose :) 

Personality:

Kai has always had a strong and spirited personality.  He knows what he wants, how he wants it and when he wants it, and he's quick to let you know if anything is not quite right.  He reacts strongly to any given situation, whether good or bad, and this is becoming more and more apparent in him as he grows older.  Some days I think he has two personalities warring against each other - Mr. Willful vs. Mr. Angel Boy. :)
I love this passion in him, which makes him so exuberant, joyful, funny, and loving. But in the "Mr. Willful" moments it does lead to frustration for both him and us.  I think that we're gradually learning to handle this side of him with patience and gentleness though, and he's gradually learning to respond more appropriately to situations he doesn't like.

  

Sometime he likes to go down on his bum.

But, usually he likes to fling himself down the slide headfirst.

The WORST NIGHT EVER and other recent events

From what I've heard, parents usually experience a serious lack of sleep when their child is a newborn.  We, on the other hand, were blessed with a baby who slept really well from the beginning.  However, that phenomenon was limited to times when he was sleeping in his own bed by himself.  He's never liked to be rocked to sleep, or have other disturbances while falling asleep or being asleep.  Therefore, vacations have always been a bit rough for the first couple of days, as have times when we've had to share a room with him.  And, co-sleeping was just never an option....more like co-playing.  I mean, why would he sleep if mommy and daddy were right there to play with?!

Anyways, I digress.  The main story is that a few weeks ago we had the three of us plus four friends to find sleeping arrangements for in our two-bedroom house.  So, despite previous bad experiences, we figured it would work okay to have the guys sleep upstairs in Kai's room, my friend Danielle sleep in the living room, and Kai sleep in his pack'n'play in our room.  The night started off well.  We put him to bed in his own room, and he slept soundly until midnight when we attempted to move him to our room before we all went to bed.  Then, the night continued like this....

12:00: Kai thinks it's play time since daddy and mommy are so close.

12:10: Bryon caves (after not having seen Kai for 3 days) and lets Kai come in our bed to co-sleep (our first real attempt at such a thing).

12:15: After a 5 minute cuddle session, Kai jumps, bounces, squeals, tickles, tackles and shouts "choo choo" every time he hears a train and he comes no where near to falling asleep in our bed.

12:45: We attempt to put him back in his pack 'n play, but he screams bloody murder and although we would normally be willing to let him do this, we realize that four other people are attempting to sleep in our house so immediate quiet is preferable.

12:46: Co-sleeping attempt #2, which is equally as unsuccessful as attempt #1.  Even when we do our best to ignore him, he manages to beat us into submission either by pulling our hair unmercifully or making us laugh with all his antics :)

1:00:  We attempt yet again to put him in his pack'n play, but he CRAWLS OUT (yes, that's a first!) and back onto our bed.  What a little booger!

1:05: Bryon decides to take him for a drive to calm him down (another first for us...the things you stoop to when you're desperate!).

2:00: Bryon and Kai return, but as soon as Bryon lays Kai down in his pack'n play he's screaming again.  Oh my.  We're tearing our hair out and feeling incredibly sorry for our friends (and ourselves!).  What to do.  We decide that everyone is probably awake anyways, so we let him cry and he falls asleep in a few minutes. 

2:10: Bryon rolls over in bed, creating the slightest of noises and Kai is immediately awake and screaming full-throttle.  I pick him up in an attempt to calm him down but he is absolutely inconsolable.  I am not even strong enough to control his thrashing, so Bryon comes to the rescue.

2:20: Completely at our wits end, we can think of no other techniques to help our poor baby sleep (along with the rest of the household). 

2:21: Bryon and Kai go sleep in the car in our driveway for the rest of the night.  Maybe Kai was just trying to create his own little road-trip experience with Bryon after missing out on the big boys trip!

So, there is the very incredibly long story of our worst night ever as parents.  It's funny to look back on it, but it wasn't quite so funny in the moment.  The following morning we felt (Bryon moreso than I, since he took the brunt of the pain that night) exhausted, and it made us incredibly thankful that every other night is so calm and restful at our house.  A big apology goes out to our houseguests though.  Know that we're working hard on finishing our backyard shed, so you won't have to bear the brunt of our household monster if you come to visit again :) 

And now it's time for me to go tuck my wee little one into bed, and leave him there in his quiet, solitary crib to dream sweet dreams.  Ahhh, the bliss.

Other than that, here are a few pictures from the past couple of weeks.  I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures while the sun was shining, but it has been shining finally.  Yay! 

Fun in our backyard with friends.

First bike ride of 2011.

Bryon took Kai on a bike ride to the local Dairy Depot tonight, and they gave Kai a Dum-Dum, which he obviously loved!

"Bryon the Bully"



The Shed

We love our cozy little home, but we also love all our friends and family who come to visit us.  And, we were quickly discovering that a two-bedroom house is not exactly cut out for housing lots of company (as proved by THE WORST NIGHT EVER - more on that in a later blog post).  So, we decided to turn one of the sheds in our backyard into a guest room...slightly unconventional yes, but the most affordable and doable solution other than a tent :)  So, my parents came out over Spring Break and while my mom babysat and cooked for us, my dad and I worked on the first stages of transforming the shed.

Our friend James came over and helped Bryon install the electrical last weekend.

Notice the little light to the left of the door?

In his spare time, my dad used the wood from a free bed Bryon found on the side of the road last year, and built a potting bench for me.