In the upper left margin, you will see a link called Letters from China. If you have some spare time, read through them. They are emails that I wrote home to family and friends while we were in China. I finally decided to share them here at the Adoption Blog after receiving a lot of email requests asking for information about our trip to China.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading through them as I added them to the site. It brought back a lot of awesome memories. What an incredible journey!
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Kaylee
Happy Birthday to you
Today Kaylee turns 1 year old.
We LOVE YOU little Kaylee girl!
Big News! Big News!
Kaylee ate from a spoon today for the first time ever! Up until now, all she would eat was her formula from a bottle. Our pediatrician told us to keep trying. He said one day she will just surprise you and eat. And sure enough, today she had a big surprise for us!
This morning, Naomi was at the dinning room table eating a salad (of course - hehe). I brought Kaylee downstairs and put her in her chair. We try to put Kaylee in her chair when we eat hoping she will make a connection. And we always try to feed her baby food with a spoon. But it is usually a major battle. And she never eats it. We can trick her and sneak the spoon in her mouth. But she just spits it out. This has gone on from the time we brought her home.
Today as she sat in her chair I heated up some apple flavored baby food. We had never tried apple. And we usually add a little apple juice to her formula. So I was hoping she might recognize the flavor.
Kaylee and I play this game where I put my hand way up in the air in front of her and I open and close my fingers fast as I move my hand closer and closer to her face. As I get close to her face, I take my hand and gently grab her entire face. She laughs and I do it again. And again. And again.... She thinks it's fun! I discovered that if I bring my hand down and stop it about six inches from her face, she will lunge her face into my hands. It's hilarious.
So I held the spoonful of baby food up in the air the way we play the hand game. Then I made circles in the air with it as I brought it down to her mouth. As I stopped the spoon a few inches from her, she opened her mouth up and I put the spoon in. She had a slightly confused look on her face but she was licking the food on her lips. I tried again and she opened up her mouth like a little bird waiting to be fed.
I only managed to get 3 or 4 spoonfuls in before Naomi started saying "I try!" "I try!"
Naomi took over and fed her almost half the jar.
We were so excited. We were clapping and celebrating. I ran upstairs and got the video camera and filmed Naomi feeding her.
Big day for little Kaylee girl! Big day for us! This is so exciting.
I love being Kaylee's goofy daddy!
Kaylee has two teeth on the top and two on the bottom. We just noticed that she has two new teeth coming in on both sides of her bottom teeth.
Can someone tell me how this teething thing works? My understanding is that teething is the discomfort and pain a baby experiences when new teeth come in, right? But aren't new teeth coming in for a long, long time? It's not like all of the teeth come in at the same time. So does that mean that babies experience teething from the time the first tooth comes in until the last? And is there pain during certain stages of the tooth coming in? It seems to me, there should be some pain and discomfort during the entire time the tooth is coming in. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
Any advice on how this works? What about medicine - what kind and how often?
Oh yeah, I even heard that teething could cause the lovely smell of a poopy diaper to intensify. Now that just doesn't make sense!
This moring I was doing some work at my computer, listening to Kim Hill's Surrounded by Mercy CD, and watching little Kaylee girl play in her ExerSaucer. Naomi was downstairs doing something in the kitchen.
I noticed that little Kaylee girl was getting sleepy so I picked her up so she could sit with me at the computer. Kim Hill's CD was playing and I began to sing along as I cradled her in my arms...
As I sang along with the CD, Kaylee's eyes grew heavy. And as she layed there in my arms, she fell asleep.
What an incredible experience. So simple. So basic. But one that might be remembered many, many years from now.
A few minutes later Naomi came upstairs. I had heard her making all kinds of noise in the kitchen and I was wondering what she was doing. She is so awesome. She was downstairs making us smooties!
Webster defines a smootie as: a creamy beverage made of fruit blended with juice, milk, or yogurt.
Exactly! She made it with pineapple juice, strawberries, banana, blueberry yogurt, and protein powder. Yum! I filled up my new Jamba Juice - 24 oz mug that I got while we were in Hawaii a week ago.