First Word

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and it's MAMA! She kept on saying it last night and it was definitely cute.

I heard/read somewhere that baby's usually say dada first because it's a lot easier to say. I guess my darling child is just a bit smart so she went for the harder word. Ha! The funny thing about this whole first word is that for a while now, I would say dada for her to remember and repeat. Somehow she said mama first. It just makes me melt everytime I hear her babble and she says mama.

We figured she was pretty close to saying her first word the other night. We were all getting ready for bed and I was saying dada and mama to her. Everytime I said mama she would make a lip movement like she was trying to say it, too. I didn't know that after that in a matter of less than 24 hours she would finally say it!

I wonder what's next? Is it crawling and pulling up? I don't think we are ready for that yet.

Weekend Mish-Mash

Weekends are always too short. Maybe one day weekends will also include Friday. I look forward to the weekends specially when I don't have to drop in at work and even better when J is off, too!



This weekend consisted of house-hunting and just hanging out. We headed out Saturday afternoon with my mom in tow to look at houses. We looked at 5 houses and we didn't like any of them. Kayla must have been really exhausted. She slept from 8pm until 7am the next morning. It was great! We also went out for breakfast - the 3 of us! She did so well. She just sat in her car seat while we ate. Several servers stopped by our table just to peak at our beautiful girl :) It made me feel so good that she sat there and smiled at these ladies and they told us how precious she was. This is only her third restaurant outing with us and we plan to take her out more. I started looking at shopping cart covers, too so I can take her with me to the grocery store.



Now it's back to work! I hope this week goes by really fast. J and I have a wedding to go to this Saturday while Kayla stays home with my mom.

The very late 6 months post!

I really need to get better at my monthly Kayla updates. I don't want to forget what she's been up to and what new things she's doing.

My little girl has been with us for half a year. I can't believe how fast time is going and how quickly she is growing. In 6 more months, she will be one!!! Kayla is constantly changing and developing daily. She is no longer this tiny little baby we took home back in July. I can't even imagine life without her - she has changed me and her father and we are so lucky to be her parents.


She has changed so much since last month!
- She babbles and talks loudly almost all day long.
- She's got fake coughing down to a science; it's quite cute. She also blows raspberries loudly.
- She is sitting on her own.
- Her two bottom teeth are out which makes me nervous at times since I'm still bf-ing.
- She loves her food - carrots, sweet potatoes, pears and apples. She's not a big fan of peas nor bananas.
- She currently weights 20 lbs 5.5 oz, size 3 diapers, and between 12 to 18 months for clothing.
- She adores her daddy so much. Kayla finds everything he does to be funny.
- She still loves bath time and is still an awesome sleeper.
- She loves to grab everything and anything. She's a quick one!

Kayla's Surgery

I have been so behind with blogging. I haven't even made a post about Christmas nor my 6-month old!

Anyway, today was her surgery and we have been home for about 5 hours now and Kayla is already on nap #2 - baby girl is tired!


[ Kayla with her feet all wrapped up ]
Kayla was born with extra digits on both feet and we had to wait until she turned 6 months to have surgery. I was so nervous and anxious this morning. I hardly slept last night and nor did Kayla. She was up at 430am and she even slept in our bed. I was so nervous about this day for months - it's never easy to think about your baby having surgery and what kind of pain they'll be in after. I was instructed not to breastfeed her after midnight and to only give her clear fluids up to 4 hours before surgery time. Of course surgery was scheduled for 8am and I wasn't sure how she was going to be with not eating for hours.

She is one tough baby! She did wonderful with not eating for hours and she is tolerating the pain and bandages on her feet. The nurses were raving about how well-behaved she was while we were waiting for her operation to start. She didn't fuss one bit. I got a little choked up when the nurse came to get her from us when surgery was about to start. The doctor assured us that she would be fine and it would be quick.

We left the waiting room and went to pick up a pager so that the doctor or nurse could update us during the surgery. Surgery started at 8am and about half an hour later we were updated that everything was going well. By 9am - we received another page that she was out of surgery and was heading to recovery. I think I was more anxious waiting for the last page to let us know we could see her than during the hour when surgery was actually happening. We bought her a giraffe stuffed toy while we waited.

By 10am - we were paged again and she was ready for us! She was a little groggy when we first saw her but she knew that her mommy and daddy were there to pick her up! The nurses raved about how wonderful she was after surgery and how she was so calm and didn't cry once. We have to see her orthopedist in about a week to make sure everything is fine and her feet are healing fine. It doesn't seem like she's in pain. She has not fussed today and she's been very calm. I hope it stays this way all weekend. I can't be any more relieved that this surgery is finally behind us.

More winning for me!

What an awesome way to start Christmas week. There's nothing better than getting free stuff specially when you don't really expect it. Y'all know that I was on a winning spree at one point about a month ago. Well it looks like it's happening again.

A couple of weeks ago Debbie from Mommies with Style emailed me to let me know that I won the "My Baby Loves" giveaway. Of course I picked the 80's cd. This morning, Colleen from Classy Mommy sent me an email to let me know that I won the $200 Best Buy gift card giveaway. Depending on what J got me for Christmas, this might be used towards a dslr but if he was generous enough and he already got me one, we are definitely using this on a bigger flat screen that he's been wanting to get.

Kayla met Santa last night

...and I hope the she put in a good word for her mommy and daddy. I already know what Santa got her so I don't think he needed to know what she really wants :)

J and I were both on the fence if we wanted to take her or not. H1N1, flu, and sick kids don't really sit well with us. We were afraid Kayla would catch something but we can't really let her miss out on meeting Santa for the first time on her very first Christmas.

We stood in line for about an hour and then it was her turn. J was in charged of making her smile which he didn't do a very good job with. But at least our little girl was not crying in the picture nor did she cry the moment Santa held her. For a first-timer, she didn't do too bad. She did cry in the end after she realized that she is not sitting mommy nor daddy's laps.

She looks pretty adorable in her polka dot black and white dress with her cute white bow and black tights :) I sure went shopping for her outfit last minute. We decided on Friday we were taking her Saturday morning but mastitis (again for the second time) got in the way of our plans.

Baby Girl is 5 Months Old!

I can't believe that Kayla is already 5 months old. Time is flying by and next thing you know she will be blowing out the candle on her first birthday cake! Kayla is definitely this little person now. We know when she's happy and we definitely know when she is not. I think that she is still mommy's girl - it brings me so much joy when I walk into the door after a long day at work and she is squealing and kicking her legs around from shear excitement.

No doctor's appointment this month but she weighted 17 lbs and 10 oz and measured 24.75 in about 2.5 weeks ago. She's still in the 97th percentile for weight and 50th for height. Her doctor also gave us the go ahead at that appointment to start her on rice cereal but I waited 'til yesterday. She did great with the rice cereal - no gagging or yacking here. I think that she's still trying to figure out the whole spoon thing since it's something so new to her. We plan on feeding her rice cereal for a week or so until she gets the hang of eating solids until we introduce a new type of food.


So what else is our baby girl up to lately?

• wearing 6-9 month clothing
• wearing size 2 diapers but we're about to start using the 3's soon
  
• she has a bottom tooth coming out - there might be another one but not so sure yet
• still a good sleeper although there are some nights when she would wake up around midnight to eat
• still loves bath time
• she's doing very well with sitting on her own but she still falls after a while - i say a couple more weeks and she'll be good on her own

Our household has been pretty busy lately. Kayla is growing so fast and so quick. We can't wait for our first Christmas together as a family!