Kai - 3 months 6 days old

Kai - 2 months 2 days old

Kai - 1 month 10 days old

Kai's nap today

My favorite iPhone picture of him yet!

The little man sleeps like his daddy does... hand over face, arm in the air!

Lunatic Bee at Barton Springs!

Look at this little chubster! Boy, mama's milk is more than effective! Actually, the camera adds 5 pounds, remember. He's not this chunky in person!!!! (laughing)

So, Kai and I joined my fellow mama friend Michelle and her baby daughter Siena at Austin's famous Barton Springs today for the first time. We were having a very nice time in the shade... catching up and watching the little ones. I nursed Kai for a bit, and as usual, he and I got milk everywhere! Kai pulls off the left side to keep from choking on a fast-flow nipple... milk sprays on his face and I'm using my hand to stop the flow. Milk gets all over my hands and skin.

Five minutes later... this bee catches on to the scent! I kid you not --- this bee was crazy! It must have confused the scent of my milk for flower nectar and it was going after me relentlessly! At first, I was swooshing him away while seated with Kai in my lap. He kept flying back at me more and more aggressively each time. Then, I had to stand up and put Kai on my shoulder and start running from this obsessed-crazed bee! I couldn't run anywhere where this bee wasn't right on me and Kai! I felt sure we were going to get stung.

This went on for a good 10 minutes or so... running... bee right on us. By then, I had put Kai down in his infant car seat, so he wouldn't be in the line of fire. This bee was after me and my milk and I wasn't about to let Kai get caught in the cross-fire! Folks sunbathing in the grass nearby surely thought I was nuts, running around in circles and cursing vehemently under my breath! Then, one girl actually saw the bee chasing me. She exclaimed, "It's stalking her!"

If only someone had gotten a video of all this!

So, with the bee in constant chase of me, I quickly packed up all my towels, blankets and baby gear as I kept circling round and round. When I was all packed up, I ran about 200 feet away fast and stopped to see if the bee had followed me. Sure enough, I had somehow lost it! I yelled back at Michelle and asked if the bee was still by our stuff. She said no, so I wasted no time in getting back, grabbing my things, picking up Kai in his car seat, and hauled quickly out of there, saying bye to Michelle and baby Siena over my shoulder without a moment's hesitation!

On my way out of the park to my car, I muttered under my breath, "We are never going to hang out outside again for the rest of summer!" It was then that I vowed that Kai and I would find a way to spend summer in Colorado next year, where summers aren't so darn hot and full of BUGS!!! What kind of crazy place is this where a mama can't nurse her baby in peace outside without beeing (pun intented) accosted by lunatic flying creatures!

Kai after his bath

August 9th, 2009. Kai is almost 8 weeks old in this video.

Smiles & Tongues

August 6th, 2009. Kai is 7 1/2 weeks old in this video.

Kai and his old-man hair-do

July 16th, 2009. Kai is 1 month old in this video! He's sporting his old-man hair-do here! Good thing his hair has grown back since this was shot!

Kai with the Hiccups

June 27th, 2009. Baby Kai captured on video with the hiccups and his juicy poop sounds! Gotta love that breast milk poop! He is 13 days old here... almost 2 weeks.

Swaddled & Dreaming

June 28th, 2009. Kai is swaddled and dreaming. He is 2 weeks old here. So beautiful! All babies look like angels when they sleep!

Kai's First Video on YouTube

A sweet video from Kai's first early days.... Baby Kai making sweet sounds while nursing. Kai is 8 days old here. Just beginning to get my videos uploaded finally! More to come.

The Silver Rattle

Kai did something new today.

He held on to a little paintbrush for a bit, but then I wanted to give him something a little safer to hold, so he wouldn't jab his face with his erratic hand movements. So then I gave him this adorable tiny little silver baby rattle that my dear friend Suzanne bought for him before he was born, and it fit PERFECTLY in his little hand! He held it and shook it and really seemed quietly proud of himself for holding onto something besides mommy's finger for the first time. He tried really hard to put it in his mouth, but he's not quite there yet! Those darn hands! He just can't make them go where he wants them to.

Spoke Too Soon

Kai has been having a very difficult time with falling asleep. He fights it like crazy, just not wanting to go down, crying, screaming and kicking to stay awake. He only would take one nap all day today from 1-3pm... the rest of the time, he was so frustrated and over-tired. It took all day from 3pm -10pm to finally get him to sleep again. Some days are just like this. Once he starts getting upset for longer than an hour, he just tailspins downhill and becomes impossible to figure out what he needs. At that point, he doesn't even remember what he needs, he's just crying to cry. It breaks my heart, but tonight, I just had to laugh, because after awhile, it's just funny how upset he gets for no apparant reason. I think me laughing also helps to finally break the tension for both of us : ) It confuses him as to why I'm laughing while he's crying... and eventually, he's just so confused, he shuts up and stares at me!

Kai & Mama

Kai slept so wonderfully next to me all night. After 2 terribly
difficult nights of fussiness prior to this one, he finally gave us
both an amazing night of endearing happy sleep. We also, for the first
time, truly got the hang of side-nursing! Yay! We never got out of bed
until our 4am waking! Oh happy happy joy joy! Makes for a much easier
time of falling back to sleep each waking.

Only problem is... since I let him stay in the same diaper for... OMG!
9 Hours!!! ...he peed right out of it onto the bed :)

Oh well... what's a little baby pee!
My mid-wife GB says baby pee is so clean and practically odorless, you
could drink it. I'll take her word on that.
I did change the sheets this morning, however!

And kai needs at least 2 hours of diaper-free time today to make up
for 9 hours of sitting in his own pee!

Sleepy Smiles

I just read that babies are constantly smiling in their sleep during
their REM cycles, which occur throughout 50% of their sleeping hours.
They dream way more hours than adults do and process all the new
things their brains are learning every single day. They say they are
practicing their smiles... simply adorable!