First Tooth, First Solids

This marks a big week for Kiernan. Beosig's mom and step dad flew into town today for a short weekend visit. While waiting for them at the airport we discovered that Kiernan had a tooth finally break through the surface. We've been expecting that for some time with all his drooling and biting on almost anything he can get into his mouth.

Grandma was so anxious to see Kiernan again she hugged and greeted Beosig then went right for him and forgot to even give me a hug. I didn't say anything about it. It was not intentional and I'm not upset over it, I found it rather amusing, truth be told. Grandpa had not yet met him and while he was eager to get his hands on Kiernan he did take the time to greet me and Beosig first.

Grandma and grandpa are clearly smitten with Kiernan - constantly cooing at him, smiling, and otherwise engaging him. Happy baby that he is, he smiles and giggle at all of this new attention.

Since Kiernan will be 6 months old in just a little over a week I had planned on introducing him to solid food for the first time while grandma and grandpa were in town. We started with rice cereal. He seemed to enjoy it and didn't end up spitting too much out I don't think.

So far we have taken grandma and grandpa to Manitou Springs to walk around and drove through Garden of the Gods. We have plans to ride the COG railway up to the top of Pikes Peak tomorrow and hit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo while they are here as well. Lots of driving but it all should be pretty fun.

Mother's Day

I started writing this Mother's day weekend but it's taken me a while to finish it.

My first mother's day has come and gone. Unfortunately I was sick for it in a bad way as was Kiernan. As a result, it came and went with little event. I'm perfectly fine with that though.

I thought I might turn this post into a list of things I've learned over the last five and a half months.

When I discovered I was pregnant or perhaps shortly before that, a good friend told me I would know a love like no other in my child. I took that with a grain of salt thinking it surely must be different for everyone, but I'm not sure that's the case.

Before Kiernan arrived I thought I knew what it meant to love. Life felt complete as it needed to be. I was happy with what we had and what the future held for us. Afterwards, I discovered what I knew, or thought I knew was as far from complete as it could be. I have since quickly forgotten what it was like without Kiernan in our lives and now can't imagine it any other way.

For the first few weeks or perhaps month after Kiernan was born, just sitting and watching him as he slept would make tears well up in my eyes. Not tears of sadness, but happiness and joy at knowing what it feels like to have someone so tiny and completely dependant upon you for everything. I feel sorry for those who do not or cannot know this feeling.

After Kiernan started smiling, just seeing him smile would make my eyes well up with tears. There is nothing as great as seeing your baby express joy with a simple smile. I'm sure he would wonder why mommy was crying when he was happy, but his little smile never waivered. What greater thing is there to be greeted by after a long and trying day. Such a simple gesture - a smile - and all of the stresses of the day simply melt away and cease to exist.

All of my trips to the daycare to feed Kiernan have allowed me to watch the other babies as they progress and develop. My observations basically have shown that it is almost like watching a baby wake up from a deep sleep or like flipping some internal switch when they start sitting and then crawling and soon walking. Every baby has personality of some sort before that, but it really kicks into high gear once they become more mobile. Almost as if they were lifeless blobs before hand. And the joy on their faces once they discover they can move about is priceless. I cannot wait to see that in Kiernan.

Sick Again and Sitting Unsupported

It's official, Kiernan has had his first major illness - Bronchiolitis and an ear infection. I feel terrible that he may have had an ear infection for a few days and I didn't notice, but then I am told infants really don't exhibit symptoms from it that much. Still I can't help but think how I felt as a kid with all the ear infections I went through. The scary part though is the wheezing that goes with this bronchiolitis.

It is an effort to keep him calm because if he gets upset he starts coughing uncontrollably and it scares him and it just ends up in a vicious cycle. He is on antibiotics for the ear infection so hopefully he will feel better very soon. He went from just a minor cold to cold moving into his chest in a matter of hours - very scary. Even worse, had he not been eating or his pulse-ox level was low he would have been admitted to the hospital. They told me to watch for the wheezing to get worse and if it does he still may have to go in. In the meantime, oral antibiotics will be administered.

We stayed home the rest of the week to make sure he was doing better but also because daycare won't allow him there if he has something contagious. Yeah well, hate to tell them this but the bronciolitis thing is supposedly viral and I'm sure he was spreading it long before it became an issue. Ear infections are not contagious so there... oh well.

On the up side of things, Kiernan started sitting up without propping himself on his hands for the first time. He has been sitting and leaning on his hands for support for a month or two (I think two or more really), but this is a big step. I'm so proud of him and he's doing so well with it each day getting stronger and going longer without losing balance and having to prop himself up. He loves it - sings while he sits up with his little hands and arms out to the sides for balance. Very cute.

Cinco De Mayo

Well maybe this post should be labeled Tres De Mayo. Anyway, we have some friends who host an annual Cinco De Mayo party which we attend. We have known this couple since we moved to Colorado and they are one of the five couples we know who had a child around the same time as Kiernan was born. In fact their child is only 2 days older.

Anyhow, this year everyone who had a kid last year attended this party. We got some pretty good shots of the kids together, one of which you can see here. I made some pretty interesting observations while there too.

The oldest - Brandon - is not eating solids yet. He is 7 months old and has no interest in that or crawling. He is a pretty happy boy just like Kiernan and has a GREAT laugh as mom and dad demonstrated for us by getting him going.

The second oldest - Seth - is sampling solids but not really interested. He is 6 months old and seems to fuss a lot. He is by far the smallest there but is already crawling.

The remaining three are within days of each other - Ian is 2 days older than Kiernan and Jacob is either one or two days younger than Kiernan. The last one is by far developing the slowest but I have been told he was born 3 weeks early which would explain that. None of these three are sampling solids yet or crawling.

I did notice that Kiernan was the only baby there who was able to fall asleep regardless of all the action going on. I attribute that to being in daycare. He is the only one of the bunch in daycare - everyone else either doesn't work and does the stay at home mom scene or works from home. I found that really interesting. The others were rather jealous as their kids were tired and getting cranky because they couldn't or wouldn't nap with all the activity going on.

Catch Up

Wow am I way behind. Lots has happened since I last posted so I'm just going to do a summary post and call it good.

Kiernan turned four months old. Stats are as follows:

Height: 25.75" (80th percentile)
Weight: 15 lbs 8 ozs (75th percentile)
Head circumference: 16.75" (55th percentile)

Again we had to do vaccinations this visit which totally sucked. Three more pokes and an oral vaccine followed by a little screaming. This time though as soon as the mean lady left he started to calm down which is good. The bad part is that he had a mild reaction to his vaccinations as well. A day later a rash started to pop up on his legs and it basically covered his entire torso (not so much the arms though). It didn't seem to bother him, but it took over a month to go away. Since his diet had not changed and neither had mine it left few things to point to as the culprit for that. A visit back to the doctor was in order and then the plan for him changed.

At his 6 month visit we will only administer one vaccine, wait a week and see if he reacts. If he does we will wait until he is a year for the rest, if he doesn't react then we will do one vaccination a week until we determine which one is the culprit. Unfortunately there's no easy way to know which one it was he reacted to although the doctor seems to have her suspicions.

Kiernan slept through the night for the first time. He proceeded to do just that for a week before he (or technically we since we always share these things between us) caught another cold that made sleeping difficult for him/us. Just when I thought it was never going to happen too!

Kiernan has gotten so strong with the standing that we had to break down and bring the Exersaucer inside for him. His desire to stand would last longer than our arms could handle. If we attempted to sit him in our laps he would get upset - insisting that standing was the only way to go. He loves the Exersaucer and all of the hand-eye coordination toys that come with it.

I finally did stop going over to the daycare every day to feed Kiernan. While I love the time we spend together with that and such, it does take a good chunk of the day away and there is just too much to get done these days. Mind you, no one complained, this was a decision that I made without any influence from the others at work. I miss the long lunch break, but I just try to make certain to spend plenty of time with him when we are not at work.

Sadly, Kiernan is growing too quickly and that means many of the outfits he has worn have gotten too small. I have started packing them away for now. Once Beosig and I make the decision on whether or not to have more kids we will either give them to GoodWill or another friend in need or perhaps hang onto them for our own use later on.

Took Kiernan to his second cat show, this one in Colorado Springs. I got lots of comments on what a good baby he is and how they didn't even know he was there because he really doesn't fuss much at all. I can't help but be proud of that. They all told me to keep bringing him. He had lots and lots of admirerers there too and of course it doesn't help when the subject of the admiration is a huge FLIRT with the ladies. Man, when he gets older, look out girls!

Kiernan turned five months old. I find it so hard to believe it has already been five months!

10 Years and Counting

I wanted so badly to post this on the entry for March 1st, but couldn't since it was a surprise for Beosig for our 10th anniversary. Kiernan and I snuck off to have photos taken at Sears on the 1st. They turned out totally awesome and I was very pleased. They can be viewed here. I nearly spilled the beans to Beosig about a dozen times before today finally arrived and I could reveal the photos to the world. Beosig was definately surprised.

Some friends agreed to watch Kiernan for us so we could go out for our anniversary. We were told we could take as long as we wanted - go take in a movie or something, but nothing really held the interest for both of us. So, we just went out to dinner at the Texas Road House. We ended up sitting next to a table with a loud drunk guy and were forced to listen to him shouting for the first 10 or 15 minutes, but the group left and then everything was fine. Food was good and it felt good to get out without having to think about hauling Kiernan out in the cold wind. As we were preparing to pay the check and leave, Beosig surprised me with the ring seen in the photo here. As a side note you have no idea how difficult it is to photograph a ring without it being fuzzy, so these will have to do.

When Beosig and I were engaged, our very tight budget did not really allow for a fancy engagement ring for me. Instead, I just continued to wear the promise ring he gave me as my engagement ring. He always felt like he should have given me a real engagement ring and had mentioned in the past that he'd like to do that someday. Well as you can see that materialized. I was definately surprised and it was/is beautiful.

Three Months Old

Kiernan turned three months old on the 26th. I can't believe it's been that long already. So much has changed and it has flown by so quickly. He's gotten so big as well - growing almost right before my eyes. I feel like we've reached a harmony in our relationship in that time. We've gotten a decent sleep schedule most nights now, with Kiernan sleeping as many as 5 hours in a stretch. I think I finally understand what most of his different cries mean now too. Breastfeeding has gone from trying and sometimes awkward to feeling natural at last.

On the flip side of that, this week has been very long and trying with work. Monday was my first clue I was in for a bad week. I spent the first part of the day busting my ass to get something done for a particular client and was hugely relieved to have a chance to leave for lunch. I took the opportunity to go across the street to see Kiernan. The mere sight of his big smile made everything better and made it easier to face the rest of the day. I'm very glad I'm able to do that.

I've finally beat the cold that hit me a couple weeks ago, but Kiernan is still fighting off the tail end of his. Hopefully he gets better soon as his stuffy nose and the snoring it causes makes for some long nights sometimes.

New Milestones

Kiernan and I are both still sick and fighting off this cold. It just completely drains me some days, but the Airborne I've been taking seems to be helping me a little. Kiernan seems to be handling things well, but we now have to suction his little nose out on a daily basis since he can't blow his nose yet. He hates that, but it does seem to make him feel better.

This week brought a couple of new milestones for Kiernan. He has just started to take notice of his hands and fingers and reach for toys. Mind you he isn't well coordinated yet - missing when he grabs at things sometimes, and when he does grasp them missing his mouth when he tries to bring it up to his face, but that will come with time. Kiernan has started to "sing" to us too sometimes, particularly when he is on his belly and in a good mood. He frequently coos to us, moving his tongue around in his mouth and making funny faces while doing so to see what kind of different noises he can make. It's really quite cute.

Happy Birthday To Me

This week was my birthday. Time for the big 34. Only one year away from the next big milestone, *sigh*, and I am so not ready for it yet. Things did not seem to be off to a good start. My lunch plans with an old coworker were cancelled unexpectedly, and I felt a cold coming on during the first part of the week. It came to a head by Friday, as both Kiernan and I suffered the same symptoms. We did catch a cute pic of him sawing logs while propped up on the couch due to his stuffy nose.


I was surprised to find a box waiting for me in my office at work. Inside were 25 beautiful roses from the CIO and COO of my company and a small notecard simply wishing me a happy birthday. I was honored to receive such things - I've never felt so appreciated at work before and to have management send a gift like that well...wow.

Wednesday evening came and Beosig gave me the gifts he got me. I had mentioned in passing that I wanted something with Kiernan's birthstone in it. He apparently took that to heart. I received a beautiful ring, matching earrings and necklace with Topaz. We then went out to Olive Garden to eat as that is my favorite place to go for chicken alfredo and the best Italian restaurant on the north side of the Springs these days. My first choice would have been Macaroni Grill, but the one closest to us shut down months ago and the only one left is twice as far away as the Olive Garden.

We were seated for our meal and our waitress quickly came by to take our drink orders and hand us menus. We were quick to learn she was an absolute ditz! I was reminded of Ursula from Friends. I started out with a taste of the wine they offered and then decided I would rather have Coke. About 45 minutes and 5 trips to and from our area later our waitress finally remembered to bring me my Coke. Come on, how hard can it be right? I also specifically ordered pasta y fagoli soup but she must have chosen not to hear me as I never got it. I ended up splitting the salad bowl with Beosig instead. Funny thing though, I did see it on the ticket when we were done. I wasn't about to complain about that, but then she comes back and tells Beosig that the dish he ordered did have spinach in the filling. He had specifically asked her that before ordering it and was told no spinach (he's allergic to it). So, he ordered something else and we got his meal for free. The chicken alfredo did not live up to the usual expectations. It was still good, but too creamy and not cheezy enough. The only part of that meal that went right was the tiramisu which was excellent as always. I highly recommend it if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Superbowl and First Time Out

Well the superbowl gathering was fun, but I think I only watched about 2 minutes of the game and maybe 5 minutes of commercials. Football doesn't interest me anymore anyway, so no big deal. All 4 babies were there. They were born in the following order: Brandon, Seth, Ian and Kiernan. Lining them up side by side you certainly can't tell that though. Kiernan is the second biggest baby of the group and by far the most active, kicking and squirming non-stop. He is only exceeded by Brandon, but at the rate Kiernan is growing he'll be neck and neck with Brandon's size as they grow. Enjoy the pics from the event.


On Monday Beosig and I had our first outing without Kiernan. One of the ladies at work offered to watch him so we could have a night out, so we arranged to purchase some Avalanche hockey tickets for that night. The game was good, but not as good as I remember them being. It's been so long since watching hockey and not many of the familiar faces we once knew on the team are still playing for us. I think it took me until about 2nd period to get sucked into the game fully.


Weather on Monday night was simply awful. It started to snow before we left work and it was accumulating a little bit in Denver. We paid top dollar for those tickets though, so there was no way I was going to turn around and just go home. The back roads were already getting a little slick when I went to drop Kiernan off. By the time we left the game (which went into overtime too) it was snowing pretty heavily so the going was very slow. It took about the same amount of time to get back to pick up Kiernan as it did to get to the Pepsi Center in the first place, but the trip home from there was atrocious!

I took it pretty slow because I could tell the mainstream roads were fairly slick by this time. We took a different turnoff of the interstate to go home due to the blowing snow that would inevitably make the climb up the hills impossible. This route had less of an incline. Still it was a challenge. Fortunately it was late enough at night that we were the only people on the road so trying to stay on our side wasn't as important as it normally would have been. I stayed pretty much in the middle of the road in order to avoid the drifts that were on our side and kept an eye out for oncoming traffic.

The last half of the highway before our turnoff was drifted pretty heavily. We encountered a snowplow coming the other direction and I thought for sure that meant it would be clear driving, but apparently he felt it more important to take in the view than to actually plow the road that evening. I gripped the steering wheel with a vice-like grasp and kept a steady pace. Finally we got to the dirt road we live on. That's the home stretch - just one more mile, phew! Not really. This road was worse than anything we had hit yet. Beosig asked me if I wanted to stop at our friend's house for the night so we wouldn't get stuck. I was determined to at least try to get home, so I declined the offer. It required his help just to stay ON the road it was so drifted. We were using mailboxes to determine where the edge of the road was and general knowledge of the lay of the land. We got to the worst spot on the road and the drift was so high it actually came up over the hood of my car as I drove through it, but I managed to maintain enough momentum to keep going and get to the other side. By the time we pulled into the garage I was feeling the adrenaline pumping through my blood and was shaking a bit from it. Nothing like a good adrenaline rush to end the night!

Finding the Groove

This was my second week at work, and things seem to be going more smoothly now. I'm slowly finding my way back into the groove of things. This week was exceptionally busy though as it is end of month and the demands are many from clients at the end of each month and first part of the next. I think I did well to keep up though.

As for the short evenings, they seem to be going better as well. Of course I have found it helpful to put together a few casseroles and toss them in the fridge, ready to be baked/cooked and then ready to eat. Less time spent in the kitchen this way.

I have discovered the magic number of ounces now to put in each bottle for Kiernan. Most of the time he will consume the entire contents but if not it is usually only a half ounce that goes to waste and I can't argue with that little amount.

Tomorrow is the superbowl which I honestly don't care much about, but it will be the first chance to see all the other babies that came around the same time as Kiernan. Should be exciting to see how all of them stack up against each other.

Back to the Grind

Well this week brought my return to work, much to the relief of my coworkers. I was warmly welcomed back after my 8 week maternity leave. That also meant that it was time for Kiernan to begin attending daycare during the day.

I had previously discussed coming over to the daycare at lunch each day as it is right across the street from my work. I would use the time to check in on Kiernan and breastfeed him if he so desired. It would be one less time I would have to pump to express milk each day that way. My work is supportive of this idea as family is very important to them as well, plus it gives me a good excuse to take a break from the grind for a few minutes each day as I am notorious for working through lunch and eating at my desk.

Kiernan seemed to be adapting fairly well to the daycare scene, but was having a bit of trouble sleeping there for naps etc. He seemed to only average about 20 minutes of sleep each time. However he does seem to be doing well with the bottle feedings during the time I am not there to feed him. His teacher said it generally takes about 3 weeks for babies to adapt & be able to sleep well at daycare.

The thing with breastfeeding is there is no real accurate method to determine just how many ounces of milk Kiernan consumes during a feeding, so that makes bottles a challenge. It is more or less of a guessing game to figure out how many ounces to put in a bottle for him. I started low and am gradually increasing it as the daycare is required to discard any left over after one hour. Milk is just too hard to work for to see it discarded, so I would rather err on the cautious side. I made a habit of providing an extra bottle for the daycare each day just in case Kiernan got particularly hungry.

Tuesday I took Kiernan to the doctor for his 2 month checkup and first vaccines. Technically he wasn't 2 months old until today, but I did not want to delay since germs spread like wildfire in the daycare and he had not yet has his rotateq vaccine (a variety of infant flu). It was hard to watch him get poked with three needles (two in the left leg, one in the right) but he only hollered for a couple of minutes before calming right down. He crashed and slept the rest of the day essentially. That morning before heading to the doctor's office I got the picture you see next to this post - it makes me giggle and smile everytime I look at it. I set the photo to my desktop at work. Stats from this doctor's visit are below:

Height: 24.25" (95th percentile)
Weight: 12 lbs 10 ozs (75th percentile)
Head circumference: 15.75" (50th percentile)

Last night I joined some friends for dinner and took Kiernan with me. It was good to get out. One of the ladies asked me how I felt about putting Kiernan in daycare. I don't recall my response really, but honestly I can't say I like the idea - however necessary it may be. Someone else is raising my kid during the day. I miss spending the day with him and it makes for short nights in which to prepare things for daycare the next day, care of the animals and fix and eat dinner. It leaves very little time to reconnect with Kiernan or to deal with other things that may come up before it's time to go to bed. Don't get me wrong though, the daycare does a fine job from what I can tell and from the feedback from other parents.

Motherhood Week 8

It doesn't seem possible, but this was the last week I had at home with Kiernan before returning to work full time. It flew by much too quickly. I always used to think that I would never want to do the stay-at-home mom thing, that I would go out of my mind with boredom being stuck at home, but man was I wrong. If we could afford it, I would do it in a heartbeat. However a 50%+ income loss just doesn't make that feasible.


Tuesday brought my post partum checkup with the doctor. I got the all clear there as everything is healed up.

Thursday I took Kiernan to Denver to visit the daycare he was going to enroll in and take his things he needs there. I also stopped to visit some former coworkers while in town and show him off to them. We learned what room Kiernan would be in and met his teacher at the daycare. I dreaded the arrival of Monday and leaving him there.

Just to take my mind off of things for the weekend, I took Kiernan and Picasso to a cat show up in Loveland. While the show itself was uneventful and we didn't win anything, it was good to get out of town for the weekend and see the folks I know from other cat shows. Plus it was a good test to see if I can handle showing a cat and taking care of Kiernan at the same time.

Motherhood Week 7

During delivery I had an episode of SVT (super ventricular tachicardia) and as a result had an echocardiogram and EKG done to look a little further into it. I was then referred to an electrophysiologist. This week I went to see him.

I was essentially told that since I have only had the single occurrence that I can choose which treatment to go with. My options were no treatment, continue on the prescription given (Digoxin .25mg/day) or have surgery (ablation) to permanently correct the problem.

Surgery is risky at best and the idea of messing with my heart when it isn’t really necessary at this point freaks me out a bit, so I think I’ll pass. Digoxin won’t eliminate future episodes of SVT but it will reduce the chance of it recurring. It is a low dose and safe for long term use and during breastfeeding and pregnancy (if we had more kids that is). Doc told me it could recur again but it isn’t life threatening – a severe episode could result in a trip to the ER to remedy with a dose of adenosine. I told him I’d stick with the Digoxin. It’s cheap and an easy solution.

This week Beosig’s mom also came to visit and see her grandson. As expected she fawned over him plenty as any good grandparent should. Many cute pics came from the visit and she enjoyed her visit. We enjoyed having her up here. I think she will be suffering from baby withdrawl though.

Motherhood Week 6

Kiernan gets stronger each day. He is now holding his head up as frequently as he can, even pushing against your shoulder to do so when holding him. Head control is vastly improving as well. We rarely have to hold his head so it doesn’t fall forward any longer. He seems to have control over that now. I can tell it will just be a little longer before he will have complete control over his head so it won’t fall backwards at all either.

Kiernan has made it through his first new years. We went to a new years party at a friend's house and of course played "pass the baby". It was quite funny to see how each woman that held him became so engrossed in baby it was as if the world around them ceased to exist. Some were enthralled with smelling his head for that baby smell - a smell like no other. Others just enjoyed the way he cuddles when being held.

Bonus! This week I discovered that regular jeans fit again! No more maternity pants, yay!