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Kivrin practices her back-to-front roll and cheers on the Illini

Of course Kivrin waited until the day AFTER her 6th month doctor’s appointment to roll from back to front for the first time. Now that she can do it, she practices constantly, even while cheering for her favorite basketball team. Unfortunately, Illinois lost this Big Ten semifinal game to Purdue, but Kivrin fell asleep at halftime, so she doesn’t know that her cheering didn’t work… March 14, 2009

Kivrin is trying new foods every few days now. This week she has enjoyed apple juice (well, sort of —  she gets it diluted with 4 parts water) in a cup, and pureed green beans. Her list of foods she has tried is: Pureed sweet potatoes, carrots, banana, avocado, peas, green beans, apples, rice cereal and oatmeal cereal, plus apple juice . She still liked teething on a nice cold celery stalk, and while she always smells like celery afterwards, I’m not sure she’s getting any food there, just a veggie-flavored teether.

 These photos convey a false indepence — We help her hold the cup most of the time, although she is getting better about helping support it. We would prefer to always hold the food-laden spoon, but Kivrin has other ideas about how feeding time should go and (especially right before bath night) she sometimes gets to try to feed herself.

Kivrin was showing off her new sweater from Gramma Mary — it is fine gauge fair isle knitting, much too complicated to knit by hand, but a very beautiful and comfortable sweater. Kivrin can lean forward so far that you would swear she was about to crawl, except for her front leg still tucked in front of her body.

All of that leaning forward allows her to scoot around on her bottom, and I was doing the dishes at the sink and turned around to find that Kivrin had scooted all the way up to the chair leg and was holding on tight! (Don’t worry, she can’t pull up to standing yet, but give her a few weeks….)

I read that babies like to choose their own toys from a basket, so I started just setting Kivrin next to the toys — and Kivrin definitely enjoys getting everything out of her toy baskets!  She empties the basket piece by piece, choosing a toy and then setting it down and moving on to something new. Since she is also scooting around now, the kitchen floor is often covered in an assortment of baby toys that she has spread around.

The library’s summer reading tshirts arrived and we couldn’t wait to dress Kivrin in her “Be Creative @ your library” onesie. From past bad experiences with trying to get pictures of Kivrin wearing certain clothes, I believe in taking the photo right away for new outfits, so we posed this picture of Kivrin with her books. (And my instinct paid off — that onesie just came out of the laundry and already seems to have a small stain on the front!)

Kivrin has lots of wonderful bath toys, but her absolute favorite thing is to watch us pour water out of a cup. She grabs the stream of water, watches it splash, sticks her head underneath it. Right now we are using a plastic TSCPL summer reading cup, but for an authentic experience, I might get out one of the Tupperware cups that I remember using in the bath when I was a kid.

Kivrin had a great visit with Dr.Iliff this morning. She weighed 16 pounds and 15 ounces, which we can safely round to 17 pounds I think. She measured 25 inches long and her head was 17….I didn’t see the unit on the measuring tape… I’m guessing centimeters though?

Kivrin got her finger pricked for an iron test (11.1) and she didn’t cry at all. She also had two vaccinations today, and the nurses administered them at the same time. Kivrin only cried for 10-15 seconds afterwards and had already smiled at the nurses again before they left. A few minutes later though, everyone in the office was pitying the poor sad little girl who was wailing so loud and so long… Of course they found out later that Kivrin’s 90 seconds of miserable crying was just a result of not wanting to put her shirt over her head and arms…and had nothing to do with shots at all!
No more doctor’s visits until June, and no shots scheduled for that visit.

In other news, everyone at Lissa’s book group shared baby photos today and Kivrin is quite popular. And tonight Kivrin got to meet our friend Yolanda and her daughter!

I also discovered that the big cat, who is afraid of the baby, is less afraid of the baby than of thunderstorms, which terrify him. He spent all evening trying to get close to us, even after the baby pulled out handfuls of his fur. The baby didn’t notice the storm, although her classroom plays a rain storm CD in the nap room, so maybe it just made her sleepy.
We had fun watching the rain from the back porch too, although I wish we could have gone for a walk.

Kivrin sometimes gives kisses now, and they are wet. Very, very wet.

I read that 6 months is a good age to introduce a doll to practice nurturing skills. If wet kisses are a sign of love, then Kivrin care for her doll quite a bit! This adorable pink and purple sweater is a present from Gramma Mary.

Kivrin and I tried out the ring-sling as a side-carrier, and it works great! (taking a self-portrait of two people who are sharing a ring-sling is trickier – this shot is our reflection in the hallway mirror).

Kivrin can blow raspberries on her own and blow them on someone else too!. She can blow great big snot bubbles and wipe them on her own hand/sleeve.She is babbling more than ever before and she loves to get excited, laugh, clap and have a good time.

Leaning forward to get what she wants is going to turn into crawling … but lucky for us it hasn’t happened quite yet! March 4, 2009

It was “green day” at school and Kivrin wore her best green outfit – a comfy pair of pajamas that feature parent and child robots and the phrase “small but intelligent.” The kitties were lonely while we were out of town (thanks Carrie for checking in on them!) but I still don’t think they missed the baby…

Using the book light in the car helped ease Kivrin into sleep while driving at night and helped her stay awake longer after dark. As much as you like when your baby sleeps while you drive, you still don’t want her to be sleeping for the 4-6 hours right before bedtime…

At Grandpa’s house, Kivrin helped Grandpa use his special folding ruler. If he handed it to her right side, she held it in her right hand. If he handed it to her on the left, she used her left. When he put the ruler in the center, she reached up and grabbed it with both hands!

This nap didn’t last much longer than it took me to find the camera, but I thought Kivrin looked tiny and adorable wrapped in the the blanket I knitted for grandpa and sleeping in his big arm chair.

Back in the car for the last time (for awhile) Kivrin was cheerful and ready to play.

We stopped frequently to play during the drive, all across Missouri. Here Kivrin is playing ball and helping drive the car at a rest stop diaper change.

Making music is fun too, especially with the musical maracas.

Even a good natured baby can get tired of riding in the car seat day after day.

Kivrin met her Great Grandma Donna Ruth Fogt in Marion, Ohio . Kivrin especially liked Grandma’s smiles, and her glasses.

Kivrin liked playing on the floor at Girard Ave, where generations of Fogt children have played before her.

And Kivrin might not have actually looked out the window, but we did drive her past the classic Marion tourist attraction, the Harding Memorial. I’m sure we will visit it again — the cemetery where Great-Grandpa Fogt is buried is just past the memorial.

One cool benefit of staying in a hotel is that we had access to a swimming pool. After some frantic shopping in Collinsville to locate appropriate swimwear for the family (it took three stores to find swimwear for everyone in February!) we finally got to enjoy the very warm and very humid pool.

Dan took Kivrin in the water first, and they practiced splashing around a bit. I liked pulling her around in circles, or lifting her up and then splashing her down again gently. We didn’t try anything fancy yet, like putting our faces in the water. We went swimming every morning we were in Ohio (always followed by quick baths to get the chlorine off the baby’s skin).

estimated distance 752 mi – about 12 hours 9 mins (not including baby)

An assortment of toys kept Kivrin happy and entertained, at least for a while.

We finally arrived in Marion, Ohio, at midnight, and Kivrin wakes up to meet some relatives. Thirty minutes later, she shows no signs of ever getting sleepy again.

Eventually she sleeps. But the next morning she is bright eyed and ready to play before eight am. (That’s before seven am Topeka time, but it sounds so much more relaxing to imagine that we stayed up later and slept in later during this trip…)

We stopped in Collinsville on Thursday night before continuing our driving on Friday after lunch. Here are the adventures we crammed into a 14 hour layover…

Grandpa got out the old wooden high chair from the attic (that is drawer liner on the seat to keep Kivrin from sliding around) although Kivrin has been doing more eating than playing at our practice feedings lately.

Kivrin can scoot on her bottom in pursuit of things she wants to reach. Here she was pulling toys out of her duffel bag and while trying to reach more toys she scooted herself into the bag.

Nana came over for lunch (and brought yummy vegetarian baked beans) and some snuggles with the baby. Here they are sharing some smiles.

Aunt Gloria came by to visit and she was showing off some gifts she is sending Madison (Madi, if you are reading this blog, please act surprised when your care package arrives!) Kivrin scooted across the floor to reach the stuff. I don’t know what it means if Kivrin’s first interest in playing with dolls is Project Runway paper dolls?

Kivrin was supposed to be napping, but she woke up early and played “got your nose” with Grandpa. A hint for those of you who haven’t played this game recently — babies have surprisingly strong hands and amazingly sharp little finger nails, so this game sounds and looks much cuter than it actually is….