You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2009.
Kivrin and Mommy reading Hand Hand Finger Thumb by Al Perkins and Where is Baby’s Belly Button by Karen Katz.
Daddy’s dirty socks!!! They are so amusing. You can hug them, throw them, pick them up again and again, and drop them behind your head, only to discover them right there behind you, completely delighted to see them and grab them all over again.
The last 10 months have flown by. Kivrin’s personality is emerging more every day. I would describe her as extrememly social, very physically active and daring. She likes banging her toys to make loud noises and will squeal with delight when she sees one of our cats. When I asked Dan, he described her as boisterous and fickle and also a cutie pie. Her newest “skills” lately include trying to carry mutiple toys in the same hand (2-3 legos, 2-4 gears, etc.) and getting frustrated when she can’t carry everything and crawl at the same time. She says “mama” pretty regularly now, and although sometimes it seems related to seeing me, most often it seems to mean “this situation isn’t to my satisfaction, fix it now.” She hasn’t said “dada” yet but is adding to the combinations of sounds she says to make up longer words lately and has been babbling happily both to herself and to us. She is picking things up and putting them behind her head a lot, sometimes pretending to talk on the telephone, often just dropping the thing behind her. Three teeth on top are working their way through the gums this week. In the past few days, she has started standing unassisted for 10 seconds at a time. Dan says she was trying to see how many times she could clap before grabbing onto his leg again (apparently, it is three). She loves to take a cloth (a scarf, a burb cloth, a wet washcloth, etc.) and a toy (her monkey, her doll, her sippy cup, a lego) and wrap up the toy with the cloth and then cuddle it against her and then uncover it and do it again. She is eating more table food, scrambled eggs and pancakes, spaghetti, mexican rice, and drinking whole milk out of a sippy cup. She’s still nursing during the day and at night, but has no trouble taking a bottle when mommy is away, and Dan even offered her a cup today instead of a bottle for one feeding, with some success.
This is the best clearance sale $6 I’ve spent lately — a wooden tractor trailer complete with logs and a driver. Kivrin loves pushing it around, taking it apart and most of all – banging the logs together and on everything else in the kitchen!
Sometimes now Kivrin will yawn after someone else does, but mostly she is still the one causing us to yawn!
Well, we tried to make a holiday card since it has been awhile since our Easter card….but we can’t seem to get any great shots. Here are the best three of Kivrin wearing her special 4th of July t-shirt.
Smiling at her daddy
Showing me the gross wet leaf she picked up off the porch
Laughing with delight at herself
recorded and uploaded from mommy’s new iPhone!!!
Kivrin made her daddy a very special gift at school to celebrate his first father’s day. The framed picture has a cute poem, Kivrin’s picture and a handprint.
Unfortunately, Dan had to work at the library on Father’s Day, but Kivrin and Lissa tried not to do anything fun until he got home again. The cats even joined us for an afternoon nap!
Kivrin walked out to work off extra energy while we waited out the rain delay. The 3:10 pm game started about an hour late, which suited us just fine. The rain dropped the temperatures a bit, too!
Mommy-daughter bonding at the baseball stadium. Kivrin spend the whole game in our laps and she was extra-snuggly, even in the heat.
Kivrin may be saying “Look at that play in left field!” while Dan smiles at the camera. Traditionally Lissa has cheered for the left-fielder as her favorite player, but Ankiel started in left and Lissa could not bring herself to cheer extra for the wild-pitcher-turned-outfielder. Kivrin likes clapping and cheering, so we mostly cheered for everyone.
Although we packed cheese cubes and peas and O’s, Kivrin also enjoyed a small piece of no-salt ballpark pretzel. Earlier in the afternoon, she succeeded in distracting Lissa long enough to get a big handful of nacho cheese, which did NOT go into her mouth, and by some miracle also did NOT get on anyone’s clothing. (Okay, the miracle was that Lissa had to lick cheese off Kivrin’s hand when we couldn’t find any napkins…)
Kivrin was asleep at the end of the game, and Dan carried the sleeping baby down the steps during the last out. Cards won, 7-1.
We were all soaked with sweat after an afternoon at the ballpark but Kivrin was the only one who changed into clean comfy (Cardinals!) pajamas in the parking lot before we drove home to Topeka.
While I’ve kept a scorecard for the past 10 years or so when I go to a baseball game, I didn’t even attempt it with the baby in my lap. My facebook updates (from the iPhone) and this nice photo of the scoreboard right before the last out the game will have to do….
June 20 at 3:05pm
Lissa Staley is at the K, about to watch the Cards! Baseball, my friend, it has been too long…
Brian:GO ROYALS!
Leigh Anne: No way! Go Cards!!! (says the girl who lives in Brewers land and almost went to the Cubs game in Chicago today!!)
June 20 at 5:06pm
Lissa Staley is breastfeeding in stadium seats. Go Cards!
Amy: Hope you didn’t charge her eight bucks
Lissa : Ha ha! This is the best thing I’ve heard all day! The people around us were all cool with it, but your comment is delightful!
June 20 at 6:56pm
Lissa Staley has a perfect baby— we’ve sat through 8 innings already with no trouble! Go cards!
June 20 at 9:04pm
Lissa Staley baby nursed to sleep in the ninth inning but woke up when we got to the car and refuses to fall back asleep!
June 20 at 9:24pm
Lissa Staley classic baby- finally fell asleep at the Adams St. Exit back in Topeka, an hour past her bedtime.
Cale: Was she crying for 30 minutes before that?
Lissa: I was super-entertaining in the backseat. Just wish I had packed better books, because I flipped the pages on boring old “bright baby–animals” from Lawrence to Topeka!
Lissa Staley at 10:20pm June 20
I would recap for you, but it turns out that with a baby in your lap you can’t keep a scorecard. There was at least one HR, and the most exciting moment was when the Royals had full count, bases loaded, 2 outs, winning run at the plate in the bottom of the 8th. That is what baseball is all about!
Let’s cut to the chase in case you are really tired of pictures of the Topeka Zoo. You’ve never seen this one, I promise! The zoo had a special members only event tonight to welcome the new hippopotamus, Tucker, on his first day in Topeka. He’s a 6 year old male, and here he is pictured in the indoor hippo pool, eating veggie treats from his trainer.
We went to the zoo straight from work and it was HOT! We didn’t mess with strollers or carriers — Kivrin’s outfit from school was cooler than our work clothes, even on casual Friday!
The zoo in the evening has a different feel — many of our favorite animals were already sleeping, like these flamingos who were hunkered down in the path of the Tropical Rainforest exhibit, much to Kivrin’s delight.
This was the first (and probably only) time we have ever seen the armadillo in the exhibit. He was FAST, scampering back and forth and around his home. Kivrin loved watching him, pointing to him and she leaned way over to try to catch him!
Kivrin is an expert pointer now, and here she is showing you the zoo’s other hippo, Mara, emerging from the water in the outdoor hippo exhibit.
Kivrin and Dan pose for a quick picture together near the front of the zoo. Sorry for yet another weekly blog post about the Topeka Zoo — if there was anything else interesting to do here, we would be blogging about it instead! We do go to the library with Kivrin at least once a week, but it’s too much like work to take pictures of the baby at the library and then write about how great the library is for children and families, which is why those pictures tend to end up on the tscpl.org website anyway.
When I get time, I’ll fill in with more stories from last weekend, but here are some cute ones of Kivrin wearing her fancy Sunday dress, hat and shoes. The rest of the pictures are on flickr now.
The whole time I was growing up, Pine Lake Road was totally dangerous to walk down. Now that I have a baby, they added curbs and a sidewalk. It’s really easy and relatively safe to walk to the park from Grandpa’s house!
Mommy and Kivrin coming down the slide together.
Daddy and Kivrin on the swing, I think she is watching a dog though.
We’re at the top of the world, or at least the playground…
I tried to teach Kivrin to crawl through Nana’s coffee table, but she’s too little still. She liked playing peek-a-boo though.
Kivrin has started playing with dolls and blankets. Here she is wrapping her monkey in a blanket…over and over and over…
Once Kivrin mastered climbing up the two steps at Grandpa’s house, she started trying to climb back down. Shhe’s not very good at it yet. 🙂
Kivrin and Grandpa were playing together — Grandpa hides the ball under one of the cups, then mixes the cups around. Kivrin almost always found the ball on her first try!
Denise and Kivrin playing “So Big” together on the floor.
Wow, that’s a lot of rain. We didn’t walk outside in it, because it was really coming down.
Kivrin doesn’t like the bathtub very much right now, but she sure does love playing in water.
Grandpa made her this awesome water table (it will double as a sand table, too) so that Kivrin can stand up and play in the water.
Kivrin loves spashing although she ends up startling herself and shutting her eyes.
Look at this huge happy face!
Kivrin loved the chimpanzees.
Riding on the carousel at the zoo was very fun for all of us!
We spent the most time in the penguin house. Dan liked it because it was so chilly. Kivrin liked the penguins swimming around, jumping and splashing.
Kivrin was supposed to sleep on the way to the zoo. Instead, she postponed her morning nap until noon and passed out on the train.
Grandpa helped carry the sleeping baby back to the car. (And she let us eat at the Imo’s on Hampton too!)
Next time we might even see a little more of the zoo.
Kivrin is getting closer to walking every day, she loves standing up while she plays, especially in the garden house at her school.
In other news at our house this week…Dan and I went out for the evening last night to see “Moonlight and Magnolias” at TCTA (community theatre) while our friend Sheila played with Kivrin. Even though I was nervous about how Kivrin would do with a babysitter, we enjoyed the play (I got nachos AND carrot cake at intermission, and Dan had a beer!) and Kivrin did great with Sheila for a few hours.
On Monday, Kivrin had her 9-month checkup with Dr. Iliff . It had the potential to be a tear-free visit, since there were no scheduled shots. Unfortunately, just as Dr. Iliff walked in, Kivrin crawled face-first into the step-stool under the examining table, so she was inconsolable for most of the exam and (as always) not on her best behavior for the doctor.
She’s 26.25 inches tall and weighs 19.4 pounds. We are starting to introduce some whole milk now from a local dairy (mixed with breast milk). Nutrient-wise we are focusing on protein and iron as we introduce more foods and continue the transition to table foods. Her next checkup will be after her first birthday!
While kernels of corn aren’t recommended for infants because it’s hard to digest, Kivrin was interested in my corn on the cob at lunch today so I let her try to take some bites. I can’t say for sure how much corn she ate, (not much, everything in the photos is what I managed to eat before she crawled over to help me!) but she had fun chewing on the kernels with her two bottom teeth.
Kivrin Anne 
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