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!