The Kitty Dance

Every day, usually multiple times a day, Kira and Kory do a little dance. It typically goes something like this:

The cat, in all his kitty wisdom, lays down in the middle of the living room floor. Kira, in her super baby awareness state, spots him immediately.

She does her super fast crawl action to get to that flipping kitty tail. We have this crawling on video tape... I will put it up here soon, but our computer is getting kind of slow and our video camera situation is a bit difficult, so it might not happen for a little while. Anyway. She scoots over to the irresistible tail.

Here, you can see that the cat is flipping his tail around. She doesn't have it in her grasp yet. He's just wagging it around taunting poor Kira.

Now she has the kitty tail in her grasp. She's looking at the cat hoping that he won't notice.

The kitty does notice, but she's looking away hoping the kitty won't see her.

They look at each other in a little power struggle. Now this is the part where sometimes Kory reaches out and swats her (he's using his claws now... she got her freebies). The past couple of days, I comforted her after being clawed up by the kitty, but today, I left her on her own so that maybe, just maybe, she'd have hope of learning that the kitty will always win. But in any case, whether the kitty scratches her or not, the next part of their dance is always the same and always utterly frustrating to me.

Kory gets up, takes a step, and lays down an entire 4 to 6 inches away from Kira. And thus the dance begins all over again.

Stupid cat.

Barton Springs Pool

On Saturday, our family went out to Zilker Park which is home to the famous Barton Springs Pool. This pool is made from a natural spring. They basically poured some concrete, created a dam, and have a great place for people to hang out and swim. The water is around 68 degrees all year long.


It was a bit tough to get yourself to get in the water. Zach had been there before with our neighbor and kept telling people , "It's easiest if you just jump in." But he was reluctant to "just jump in" himself. :)


After a while of swimming, the kids decided that they would jump off the diving board. This is Reid mid-front flip.


And Jacob jumping up as high as he could (I didn't catch him at the peak of his jump).


Mike stayed out with Kira, but they got a visitor from time to time. :) I didn't bring my swimming suit, so I didn't get it, but it was fun to be down there with the boys watching them have fun together. And it is a beautiful park. We left the pool and went over to the playground. They have a little train you can pay to ride on, too. Reid and Zach and I threw the football and frisbee around for a while. By the end of the evening, all of us were throwing the frisbee. It was a great family outing.

All Healed Up

It's amazing how fast babies heal. She is almost completely better. She had a couple of sensitive days after the accident, but she's pretty much back to normal now. And she looks pretty normal again, too.

Sadness

Today Kira's day has pretty much consisted of sleeping and screaming. She almost brought her mother to tears about an hour ago. What would I do if Mike weren't hear to calmly hold her through her screaming fit until she fell asleep (again) and hold her for the past hour?

He's Wonder Dad.

Have you seen James and the Giant Peach? You should.

So anyway. She's having a pitiful day. And she just woke up crying. Man, oh man.

Happy Six Months

My plan was to celebrate today by dressing Kira up all nicely and taking her to a little patch of blue bonnets to get a good picture of her.

Life had other plans.

First, she got the bottom left tooth today. Pretty exciting.

That's the good news.

She had an accident in the stroller. Cole was pushing her and lost control of the stroller on a couple of steps.

I was a block away and I heard her screams.

Cole was crying as hard as she was.

She's fine, but a little worse for the wear.

Still cute, though.

So not quite the picture I had hoped to post today, but such is life.

We can't believe she's been around for a whole half a year. Seems nuts. She's crawling like a little pro and sits up for about 10 minutes at a time. She likes sweet potatoes and pears. She doesn't think apples or bananas are worth touching.

She loves her brothers and they love her. And today, for the first time ever, I actually used a drive in the car to get her to take a nap. She's almost a normal baby that way now.

Today I spent a little time reading some of my blog posts from when I was pregnant. It is nice to have this baby and this experience.

Hopefully she'll be glad... but I wouldn't ask her that today. :)

Like I Said...

It was the first of many... just moments after the last post, Kory walked in front of Kira. She managed to get some part of him in her grasp. He cried out a little, then turned and swatted her. This time one claw drew a little spot of blood on her head.

What worries me is that she didn't flinch or fuss after Kory's swat. I would think that having an animal turn on you and swat you (when that animal is bigger than you) would cause some stress. But apparently she's of the "no pain, no gain" mentality.

Could be a foreshadowing moment of her being a tomboy, not a princess. Or maybe she'll just be a stubborn princess. Or a princess who's determined to get her way. Any way it turns out, these kitty events have me concerned. :)

The First of Many

Kira is getting faster every day. I think the cat is beginning to figure this out. This morning he laid down right in front of Kira. This would have been safe a few days ago...

But this morning Kira crawled over and grabbed his fur. He got up and moved about 6 inches further. Again, she crawled over and this time grabbed his tail. His response was to stand up, look her in the eye, and swat her on the head. Claws retracted, thankfully.

He's a good cat. Hopefully Kira will learn to treat him nicely. I'm trying to help her, but it's kind of hard to teach gentleness to a nearly 6 month old baby.

Poor kitty. Hopefully he'll continue to be patient and nice to Kira. :)

Jacob

Yesterday was Jacob's 11th birthday. My goodness. I've been so focused on how big Reid has gotten over the past few years, I've sort of ignored the fact that my younger children are also getting big.

We have our measuring stick that we transferred all of the measurements from our door jam in Cary and Jacob has grown 4 inches in the past year. Kind of scary. I'm not sure I'm quite ready for a house full of huge boys. Makes me all the more happy that I have this little bitty girl to help offset the shock of living with a bunch of guys. :)

Kira is happy to be that little bitty girl, too. She gets so much attention and love from those brothers. Especially Jacob. He loves to make her smile and laugh. I hope that doesn't wear off any time soon.

A Nice Dream

So last night I dreamed that I went back in time. I went back to when my dad and his brothers were little. My granddad came in the room (it's funny, because it was like my brain found an actor to play my granddad as a younger man... he looked like him, but clearly had some makeup on to make him look more like him) and said, "So here's the woman who always comes in and helps Jo with our dishes." And I was indeed doing the dishes. My grandmother wasn't there. Since I never met her, it makes sense. I felt good in my dream that apparently I time traveled a lot to help with the dishes. I'm sure Jo would have loved having someone magically appear to do her dishes from time to time. I know I would. :) While I was doing the dishes, the four little boys were playing around and I was talking to them and watching them be silly. It was fun. I was asking them their names and guessing the wrong names as girl names. :) We were having fun.

And then I got woken up by this little precious baby. And now she's on the floor emptying her diaper basket and flapping the diapers all around.

Cute Reunion

Jacob came downstairs this morning and came over to Kira to smile at her like he always does. She was happy to see him and at some point during their smiles to each other Jacob said:

"I haven't forgotten that smile. I miss it, but I'll never forget it."

Now he's playing with her on the floor. He's talking so nicely to her and she's looking up at him with all the adoration and trust in the world in her eyes. What a sweet pair of people.

A Nice Break

I've been at my dad's house with Kira since Monday afternoon. It's so nice to be here. No laundry. No dishes. No dinner to cook. (Although, I should be helping more... somehow, I always find myself not helping...) No frantic mornings. No nothing. Just taking care of Kira.

It's so nice. Aside from having trouble getting her to nap, she's been the perfect baby. It's been so nice to have this quiet, relaxing time with her.

And while I could handle life like this for probably a little longer, I will admit that I'm excited that Mike is bringing the boys up tonight. I know how much they love Kira and how much she loves them. It will be nice to have their energy in the house. And anyone who's spent any time with Kira knows that she's a daddy's girl, so I know she'll be as happy to see Mike as he is to see her. :)

Well, I think the dreaded nap is upon us. We'll see if it can happen a little easier today than yesterday!

Good News

For any of you that have had concern for my weight loss, I have good news.

I weighed here at my dad's house and I've only lost a pound since the middle of February. That is really great news. If I only lose a half a pound a month, there should be no trouble at all to be able to keep nursing Kira for a good long while.

Review of Slumdog Millionaire

Reid summed the movie up in one word: Cliche

And while I agree with him for the most part, I have to say that the movie transported me into its world. Maybe it's because I haven't seen a movie in the theater for about 8 months, but when we walked out of the theater, I was freaked out by seeing a bunch of white people. :) Worth seeing, that's for sure.

I like having a baby

Yesterday Kira and I went to a few stores to take care of some shopping that we needed to do. It amazes me how happy she tends to be through everything. Yesterday we started at the library. I decided that since it was a quick trip in and out, I would just carry her and not put her in the Ergo. I don't actually carry her around much just in my arms, so it was fun for both of us, I think. She was the picture of cuteness in a new outfit and I was the proud momma. :)


Then we headed over to Target and she was happy (and snug) as a bug in a rug in the Ergo while I shopped. She likes looking at all the people and things that are going on. We then went over to Sam's. It's always an interesting shopping adventure there with Kira in the Ergo. Mainly because I still carry her on my front in the Ergo, so when I go to get things like a pack of 32 water bottles, or the 5 gallons of milk, I use muscles that aren't very developed because I can't pull those things in close to my body. Getting them out of the buggy for checkout is even more tricky. Soon enough, though, she'll be big enough that I have to put her on my back and then it won't be nearly as difficult.

When we got out to the car after shopping at Sam's, I could see that she needed some time to just hang out, so I sat in the middle row seat with her while she stood in my lap and watched the cars, people, birds, and trees. It was lots of fun just sitting with her watching her absorb her world. Then she started fussing a little, so I nursed her, put her in her car seat, and headed home. I technically had one more stop to make, but I didn't want to push her and the things from that store weren't urgent. She was asleep by the time I got home and slept for two hours.

The thing that struck me yesterday was how grateful I am to my Heavenly Father for knowing that I could handle this little baby. I wasn't always sure I was going to be okay with having to do things like shopping with a baby. But I have found myself completely fine with all the adjustments that I need to make to accommodate her. There may be times that don't work out as well as yesterday did, or when that last store isn't an option to skip, but I like knowing that my heart has been stretched and my rigid thinking has been softened.

Just like a couple of weeks ago at Sea World. I didn't ride the roller coaster 5 times like Mike and the boys. I rode it once. The rest of the time I was holding Kira. I used to think that it would bother me to be tied down to a baby. But I just didn't care about that ride. I was happy to take care of Kira. To do things that she enjoyed. We went and watched the Sea Lion show. Something I wouldn't have done otherwise.

I will admit that I still see toddlers running around in stores, possibly screaming, and I think, "I hope I can handle that." But I know I will. Hopefully with patience and grace. It helps that I have so much time to devote to this little person. To enjoy her personality. Like how she was trying to look around the camera to see me when I got this picture. :)

(And look at her sweet little hand. I love baby knuckles!)