Hangin' with Our Ky Guy

It's been so nice to be off work ... soaking in many summer days with Kyle and Kyle's fan club. Whenever my mom, dad, aunt, grandma, brother, cousins, friends, etc. are also off work, they often drop in to play with Kyle and see how much he's grown since their last drop in. On Tuesday Grandma P was here to drop off some souvenirs she and Grandpa picked up for Kyle on their weekend visit to Branson, Missouri. "Kyle" seemed to be on their minds, as most everything they picked up had Kyle's name on. Kyle sippy cups, Kyle big-boy cups, Kyle stickers, a Kyle sign, etc. We've now cleared out some space in one of our kitchen cabinets to hold all of Kyle's cute and colorful baby cookware. They also scored a pretty neat, colorful light-up, vibrating stick. Kyle seems to be mesmerized by it! His eyes follow the bright lights back and forth. On Wednesday, a whole crew of visitors stopped by around lunch time. Robo brought delicious Wendy's salads (I'm now obsessed with the Berry Almond Chicken Salad. It's super yummy and only 12 points on WW. Not too shabby for fast food) and GG (Kyle's Great Grandma). Cousin Christina dropped by as well. Kyle was so glad to meet her as she's about to pack her bags for South Carolina for the next year plus as she works toward a Master's in Human Resources at the University of South Carolina. Good luck Christina! Grandpa P crashed our ladies luncheon, but for a good cause. He had a few minutes to spare before he needed to get back to work and wanted to spend every second of them holding the Ky Ky Man. On Thursday, my great friends Liz and Amy stopped by to see Kyle and to take Kyle's Mom out to dinner at Panera. I love all these mini-girl outings I've been able to have lately thanks to the magic of the bottle! Daddy gave Kyle his third bottle before bed while Mommy enjoyed her Strawberry Poppyseed Salad. Although he was a perfect little angel for company, Kyle kept Chris and I up for a good portion of the night on Wednesday, just after we had bragged how wonderful it is that he's been sleeping about 7 hours straight! Morton Grove was really hit by that thunderstorm Wednesday night, and we wondered if maybe the loud noises through off his schedule. Since we were going on very little sleep and Chris woke up exhausted, he decided to take a sick day. The best thing about this was that since he was home, I was able to sneak off to the gym for a bit! I ran on the track for the first time since starting my third trimester of pregnancy. I wasn't very fast at all, but I made it through 2 miles! It was tough, but it felt great to get back into it! There is an Illini run in September that I hope to be a part of, so I better start getting in shape now! There's no time like the present. Check out some pics from the week ...

My Zoo Hat from Grandma A! Thanks Grams!

Throw the ball to Mommy!

Roll the ball to Mommy!

Oooooh Mom. You're pretty silly.

Kyle was so excited to wear this outfit for Auntie Robo!

Wow, is that cool!!!

Good Luck Christina!

First Bottle

Sunday was a special day. First of all, it was Kyle's Great Grandpa's 86th Birthday! Happy Birthday, Dzia! We hope you had a wonderful day. Secondly, it was my friend Sylvia's baby shower. Sylvia and her husband Jim are expecting a healthy, beautiful baby girl at the end of August. Since they know they are having a girl, Sylvia's fabulous sister and mother duo went all out with the decorations and sweets. Pink was definitely the color of the day. There were pink cupcakes (from Molly's!), pink and white hydrangea centerpieces, pink banners, etc. Since the shower was held out in Schaumburg - a good half hour/40 minute drive from the northwest burbs - I knew that it would be tough to leave a newborn at home for very long unless I sucked it up and finally gave pumping a try. I've sort of been afraid of pumping, but once I got the gismo all hooked up and going, it was really no big deal. A little uncomfortable. A little boring. But no big deal overall. I pumped one little bottle full. Enough, or at least what we thought was enough, to hold Kyle over while Mommy was out having fun! Many of the Loyola girls were there, and it was so nice to see everyone and have some much needed adult interaction for a few hours. While I was gone, Chris took Kyle to Grandma and Grandpa A's house. They went for a walk around the block, watched the Cubs game, and played with the doggies. Apparently Kyle loved his bottle! He had no problems taking it and seemed to really like it. So much so that he had a little (well not SO little) blow-out all over Daddy :). So far I plan to keep pumping a little bit each day so that I can have more fun girl outings in the future!

The only picture I could snatch so far from Sylvia's shower! I really wish I had taken the time to snap some shots. Everything was really lovely.

First bottle! Yay ;)

Birth Announcement

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Back

Earlybird Playtime

Kyle and I love to play ball, read, roll over, and pretty much laugh really big, really early in the morning. It's kind of our thing. Here are some pics of all the fun we have!

Rainy Weekend Visitors

July has been such a HOT. DRY. HUMID. kind of month that it has almost been a blessing to welcome a few rain storms to the Chicagoland area. With the rain came plenty of fun visitors. First came GG, Robo, and Uncle Kevin. They were here on Friday to play with Kyle and bring Kyle's Mom lunch :) It was pretty much a win win situation. In honor of such a special treat, Kyle wore his glow-in-the-dark, Mini-Alp outfit that Uncle Tom (Robo's hubby) decorated for the Ky Ky Man. It's pretty cool. Second came Auntie LoLo, freshly tanned and glowing after spending the past two weeks in Italy! Lauren, Kyle, and I took a nice stroll to Starbucks for some Iced Passion Fruit Lemonades and exercise. After dashing threw the rain to make it home for Kyle's lunch time, the three of us cozied up to a few episodes of the Kardashians and heard all about Italy! Thank you very much for the limoncello and chocolates! They will taste yummy with the cherries I bought.

Wishful Thinking

It's been a month since I had Kyle, and I'm sort of getting tired of alternating between the only two pairs of maternity capri pants I own. Don't get me wrong. It makes laundry a whole lot easier. But it makes me feel a little down that I literally have no other options in my closet. Not that I'm going anywhere or doing too much of anything, but I would like to jump of that colored denim pants fad before it passes me by! So, after giving it much thought and enjoying a very succulent bacon cheeseburger from Outback last night (our anniversary treat), I decided that Weight Watchers is a must of my to do list. 1. Take care of the Ky Ky Man. 2. Drive yourself crazy counting points (but have fun hopefully losing those pesky LBs while doing it). Rather than reward myself with food for getting Kyle to and from the doctor in only two major diaper changes (not an easy task when you're a newbie at this stuff), I decided to buy myself the Bamboo Belly Bandit. It is sort of ridiculously expense (who knows if it even works!), but it looks like I'm willing to do pretty much anything for a shot at wearing colored denim :) The instruction say to wear the band for about 6 weeks straight, 24/7. We'll see how committed I am to this. To find out, just ask me what I'm wearing come the end of August. If it lacks color and has the word maternity in it, I either failed or got majorly ripped off!

One Month Check-Up

This afternoon we returned to our pediatrician's office for Kyle's one month check-up. Weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs 3 oz, Kyle Sir has gained over two pounds over the past four weeks! That puts him right around the 75th percentile for weight. He has also been doing quite a bit of growing and is now 22 1/4 inches long. What a giant! Height-wise he rounds out the 85th - 90th percentile.

After confirming that our Ky Ky Man truly does LOVE frames (or pictures) as he kept grinning ear to ear as he looked up oh so lovingly at the framed photos of babies on the wall in the doctor's office, we also confirmed that Kyle DOES NOT LOVE shots. In fact, Kyle DOES NOT EVEN LIKE shots. In fact, Kyle PRETTY MUCH HATES shots. It's true. As soon as the needle went in his little thigh, that grin immediately transformed into the biggest frown ever. And then there were waterworks. Oh, poor Ky Ky Man. He took it like a champ, but would rather have stayed home and thrown a carpet party for the two of us, I'm sure. Besides the second Hepatitis B shot, Kyle also had to have a shot of silver nitrate painted over his navel because his belly button has been a little red and leaky as a result of a small piece of tissue that has apparently been stuck in there ever since his umbilical cord detached. This is known as umbilical granuloma (I googled that). Hopefully that silver nitrate will do the trick! Otherwise we may have to go in for a second dose of it.

I also asked about Kyle's gas issues (he gets very stiff legs and cries hysterically from the pain on a daily basis), his crusty eyes (his tear duct is blocked which causes his tears to solidify and form a layer of crust/goop around his eyes when they are shut), and the flat(ter) side of his head (he totally favors the right side of his head when sleeping). The doctor told me not to give him anything for his gas. She said all babies have gas and it will get better as his digestive system continues to mature over time. Sadly, there is not much we can do about his crusty eyes either. His eyes - thankfully - are not infected and the ducts will unblock themselves over time, as well. As far as the flat(ter) side of his head is concerned, the doctor said it's not that bad, but we should definitely make an effort to get him to lay on the other side while he is awake (like during tummy time) and to gently turn his head or get him to take an interest in people/things in the opposite direction whenever we can.

All in all, Kyle had a very good check-up today, and we are very proud of our little boy!