Kivrin Anne

Mommy survived Kivrin’s first shots today- the baby got stuck three times and she cried louder and more distictively in pain than any time I have ever heard her in her whole life before, including right after her birth.

The pictures were all taken with my phone before the shots — for someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word innoculation, I thought she looked surprisingly nervous.

We followed our friend Scarlett’s advice and administered some baby Tylenol right before and some comfort nursing right after, so that by the time we left the office, Kivrin was grinning at her favorite nurse again, even though Diane gave her two of the shots a few minutes earlier. Everyone marvelled at her excellent neck/head control and her alertness. She weighed 13 pounds and measured 23 inches long.

Kivrin charmed them all with her “social smile” including a tween with an ankle sprain in the waiting room who was upset to think that such a little baby was sick (and she didn’t feel better when I explained that Kivrin was healthy and just due for her first round of immunizations!)

We don’t have to go back until January for her next round of shots- although we have to play health-insurance-roulette before then to guess whether lower premiums or a lower deductible will be a better deal for us in the coming year. The optimist would pick lower premiums and hope for a safe and healthy year, but the realist is about to send an infant to a child care center…

The nurse put a “hello, kitty” bandaid on each of Kivrin’s thighs to cover up her injection sites. It’s been 12 hours since her shots, and besides taking two long naps today, she hasn’t seemed to be sore or fussy (for which I am VERY grateful!)

November is here and with it comes more family holidays, getting ready to return to work, getting Kivrin ready for her child care center, getting ready for Christmas, trying to write a novel in 30 days — and I thought we were busy before!

I have lots of cute pictures (and video!) from the past week and I’ll get it posted as soon as I can. Kivrin is awake more during the day now, which means I take more pictures, but have less time to share them with you…

This morning we taught Kivrin about elections, beginning with reading about the candidates online and considering our choices. Dan and I went to vote together and just handed the baby off between us so that no one had to vote one-handed. The picture is outside of our polling place – Kivrin is modeling a new outfit from her Gramma Mary.

Grandma Denise knows just what to do with baby girls-hug them and play with them. She and Grandpa even tricked Kivrin into taking part of a bottle (although using a football game on television might be considered cheating!) Kivrin loved spending the afternoon with Denise before our long car ride back home.

Kivrin was happy to get snuggle time with all of Papa Staley’s family.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Gwen held her when she was sleeping.

Aunt Carol got some smiles – (Uncle Gary held her too, but I didn’t get a picture – will have to get one at Christmas!)

Aunt Gloria brought Kivrin a little Illini teddy bear!

This picture was taken right before Kivrin hit her cousin Allan in the face while flailing around. He didn’t even get upset!

We got together with Lissa’s friend Dave from high school, plus his wife Shannon. We were especially excited to meet their daughter Kaitlyn! It makes me feel so grown-up to be arranging play-dates for our kids (although with babies this young, this play date was arguably still mostly for the enjoyment of the grownups).

Kivrin enjoyed a lot of Nana time while we were in Collinsville! They talked and played and snuggled together. Nana even braved the balcony on Sunday morning to sit with Kivrin during church!

There is just something irresistible about dressing a baby in the clothes of their older relatives. We’ve done it with Colin’s clothes, and one of my baby dresses and now as a special treat we dressed Kivrin in two dresses that her Gramma Mary wore as a baby over 50 years ago. Nana saved the dresses and even sewed a new white under-slip for Kivrin to wear. I’m not sure what it says about us as parents when the only time we put dresses on our baby girl is so we can take pictures and try to imagine ourselves in her (tiny) place.

We stayed in Kansas City on our way to Collinsville so that Kivrin could go trick-or-treating at her Grandma and Grandpa’s house!

Here are some of the ways that Kivrin and I amused ourselves while we had colds this week.

Now that Kivrin has better head/neck control, we can go face out in the hug a bub.

Kivrin has red-rimmed eyes from her cold.

Playing together in the hallway mirror is one of our new favorite activities.

Sleeping on the princess pillow is a special treat when Kivrin is sick and crabby.

Kivrin is getting serious about reading – she especially likes books that have lots of different voices and motions when we read them — this one has monkeys jumping on beds, heads getting bumped, mama calling the doctor, the doctor’s stern advice — and lots of repeating of all of those things. She loves it!

In these last days of maternity leave, I am trying to run some errands where I can take Kivrin with me. After we successfully got my car’s oils changed at the Ford dealership, we discovered the joys of the Ed Bozarth Saturn waiting room — a nice couch, vending machines, a big television. Kivrin was so charming that the women in the office gave her a “Bozie Bear” — the bear looks kind of huge in this picture, but keep in mind that the baby is quite small!

Kivrin is on day four of her very first cold so I haven’t been taking too many pictures this week.

She’s got watery eyes [not pictured] a crusty ring of spit around her mouth [not pictured] and a very snotty little nose [also not pictured]. We have been using the nasal aspirator around the clock, and Dan got the new humidifier up and running, but other than that we are just waiting this one out with lots of cuddling and snuggling.

We took these earlier in the month, but waited to post them for the holiday!