.funny face tuesday: 30mar10.

happy birthday papa harry!  we didn't get to see him today, but we'll see him tomorrow before we leave for new mexico.

here's this week's round of kaiya's funny faces...as you can see it's getting harder and harder to take pictures of her because she keeps trying to get the camera.

.poor miss kaiya bear.

Warning:  this post may be a little TMI for some....as it contains information about little miss Kaiya's poops.  (will she hate me or what?!?)

It's not uncommon for babies to get a little constipated once they start solid foods.  And at first, miss Kaiya was still going regularly, like usual.  But a few days into the solids, she started having "adult-like" poops, meaning they were formed nuggets.  Or coins, as daddy likes to call them.  haha.  Well that progressed to nothing coming out at all.  And once nothing started coming out, Kaiya started making these grunting sounds, and her face would turn all red, and you know she was trying to push out a poop but it just wasn't coming.  :(  We kind of laughed at first, but it was so sad to see her struggling with no success.  And it didn't bother her so much, she wasn't fussy or anything...it was more bothersome for mommy and daddy.  We tried giving her water, diluted apple juice, diluted prune juice.  Nothing seemed to work.  So yesterday, Aunty Dawn helped us try to help Kaiya with the good ole thermometer up the butt trick.  Didn't work.

So...it was off to Dr. Carolan's we went this morning.  We knew if anyone could get something out of Kaiya, it was him.  And sure enough, he did the thermometer up the butt trick and got quite a bit out of her.  She was sad, but as soon as it was over she was back to her happy self.  She's also got a little stuffy nose, so we asked him to check her out since we leave for New Mexico on Wednesday.  Lungs and ears got the all clear.  As if that wasn't enough torture that we put her through, mommy remembered to ask about the H1N1 shot, since she's 6 months old and able to get it.  Both Dr. Carolan and Aunty Flo (nurse) recommended getting it because they said it's coming back around again.  So, Aunty Flo gave her the shot, and she cried for a split second after she realized what happened, but stopped as soon as daddy picked her up.  She even gave Aunty Flo a big smile on our way out...making Aunty Flo feel a lot better since she's always the "bad guy" who gives the shots.

Dr. Carolan told us to try giving Kaiya some more water, with a little added Karo Syrup so she'll actually drink it.  He also recommended we get some infant glycerin suppositories...however, our chances of finding them on Kauai are slim to none.  So we're gonna wait until we get to New Mexico and hopefully we can find them there.

So poor little Kaiya bear had a big day today.  But hopefully she'll be able to poop like her old self in a day or two.  She's still happy, talkative little miss Kaiya...just a little on the sleepy side from the H1N1 vaccine.  However, she's ready for her first big trip to the mainland on Wednesday night.  She'll finally get to meet Grandpa Dave!  She'll also get to meet her Great-Grandpa John, along with a bunch of other Aunty's and Uncle's.  Mommy should probably start packing soon!  Let's all pray that Kaiya sleeps on the plane, or at least isn't the fussy, crying baby on a 5 hour red-eye flight!  (Papa Harry got us earplugs to distribute to passengers around us, just in case, though!  Always prepared!)

.kaiya's hina matsuri doll.

I just realized that I forgot to post the pictures of Kaiya's doll from Grandma Barbara and Papa Harry.  So here it is...isn't she pretty!

.yucky yummy.

Little miss Kaiya has now tried a few different types of food.  She started with rice cereal, moved on to Sweet Potatoes (which she LOVED), and is now eating Apples.  We baked them and pureed them into a smooth consistency.  We even bought the sweet variety.  However, just like adults, babies don't always like their first tries of certain foods.  We're not sure if it was the texture, or just the new flavor...but Kaiya wasn't too keen on the applesauce we made.  The following video was taken the first day we tried to give her the applesauce.   It only took her a couple tries to warm up to it, though, and she now eats it up like there's no tomorrow.

.army crawler.

I've been telling you how Kaiya's been able to move around and get to things that she wants.  She's not quite crawling on her hands and knees, though.  She gets up on her hands and knees, like she's going to attempt to crawl, but then she falls on her belly and scoots around that way.

Here she is scooting around to get to some toys.  Enjoy!

.funny face tuesday: 23mar10.

Kaiya and Caleb decided funny face tuesday needed to be done during breakfast.  They both ate all their breakfasts and decided it was time...Kaiya also wanted to show off her two little bottom teeth!

.kaiya goes for a walk.

Mommy and daddy decided to take Kaiya on a walk along the Koloa bypass.  It has a great view of the south side of Kauai.  And it's the way daddy goes to work everyday.  It was a great walk for mommy and daddy, a little over 2 miles.  Kaiya tested out the BOB's ability to do a little off-roading on loose gravel and grass.  Best stroller EVER!  It's our new go-to stroller, we take it everywhere...and it will be coming with us on our trip next week to New Mexico.  Maybe we can test it out in some snow, depending on the weather.

Here's some pictures of the view during our walk.  Both of the south shore...and the view mommy had of Kaiya.  By the way, the walk was so tiring for Kaiya, she fell asleep about half-way through.  Tough life.

.a letter for kaiya.

We sent one of Kaiya's birth announcements to the White House and look what Kaiya got in the mail!!

A lovely little note for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to welcome Kaiya Papaya (Kaytin's nickname for her) to the world!

On a different note, the bumbo seat wasn't cutting it when it came time for Kaiya to eat.  She would fling herself back to stare at whoever was behind her.  So mommy and daddy went to Baby Blutique to buy her a new highchair.  It's a Combi Hero 3-in-1...so it's a highchair, but you can remove the seat to put it on a regular chair (like a booster), and then you can also put it on the floor so she can lounge and watch TV or whatever.  It also has different height adjustments, and the seat can recline...in case she falls asleep while eating when she gets older.  She loves it, so far...and we love it because she can't fling herself backwards!  

.whip it up.

Our new adventure is whipping up Kaiya homemade baby food.  It's fresh, cheap, and pretty easy.  Good thing daddy's a chef, and at one of his first jobs when he was in high school he had to puree up all kinds of food for the elderly at a nursing home.  Anyway, here's some pics of the whole baby food making process.  

First vegetable: Yellow Sweet Potatoes

We bought a cheap-o steamer at WalMart, so we washed, peeled, and cubed the sweet potatoes.  We bought two large ones.  We put them in the steamer for about 20-25 minutes and they were ready to be whipped up.  Daddy blended them for a minute or two until they were a smooth consistency.

He then put them through a fine-mesh strainer.  The consistency was like pudding.

Then, we transferred them into some silicone trays that perfectly portion the puree to 1 oz. cubes.

Froze them overnight and voila...30 cubes of sweet potato ready to be thawed and devoured (hopefully) by little miss Kaiya.

The whole time, cousin Kaytin helped out.  But she also had time to pose for a picture.

 

.talk story.

We decided to take Kaiya to the Hanapepe Farmer's Market to see if they had any produce we could use to make her baby food.  However, when we got there, the market wasn't open yet.  So we went into a bookstore called "Talk Story," which mommy has been wanting to go to for a while.  It's an amazing book shop, they have vintage books, new books, used books, a huge children's section (for such a small store), a bunch of cookbooks, and basically it's a great find in Hanapepe.  Daddy found two cookbooks and mommy found Kaiya a bunch of Berenstein Bear's books, which both her and daddy loved when they were little.  Plus, we got a kama'aina discount.  So we only paid $25, for books worth about $100!  The owners, who were very nice, said that they buy books back for credit, and they take requests.  Why not support the local business...eventhough we love Border's also.  But they said that they buy about 300 books/week, so their stock is always changing.  I'm sure we'll be back!

And back to the original reason we went to Hanapepe, the Farmer's Market.  Well, there weren't any "yellow" vegetables.  We were planning to make sweet potatoes for her first food, but they only had the purple variety.  Luckily, Eleele Big Save carried the yellow variety.  So we're on our way to pureeing Kaiya's first taste of sweet potatoes.  Let's hope she likes it...cause she's kind of over the whole bland rice cereal deal.

.kaiya's 1st st. patrick's day.

Kaiya's 1st St. Patrick's Day.  We had to go pick up her prescription for vitamins (see other post), made a trip to Costco...where we saw Grandma Barbara walking in, and on the way out we stopped to get some Costco hot dogs and bumped into Uncle Rudy.  So we sat down and had lunch with him and talked about Kaiya and his new granddaughter Sienna.  Kaiya showed Uncle Rudy her BOB stroller because he talked about getting a jogging stroller for Sienna when she gets a little older.  She also gave him a bunch of smiles and "talked" to him as well.  And stared at us while we ate our hot dogs.  She's great at the staring contest game...she usually wins.  

Her new move has been to grab her feet.

Trying to reach for the camera.

.funny face tuesday: 16mar10.

(she was fascinated by the tiger on her diaper...kept trying to grab it)

.tip top and you don't stop.

Since mommy and daddy forgot to pick up Kaiya's vitamins after the doctor's appointment, they went into Lihue the next day thinking it would be ready since Dr. Carolan called in the prescription the morning before.  Uggghhhh...WalMart pharmacy sucks.  The pharm tech tells me that they don't have the vitamins, but they can call another pharmacy of our choice to see if they can fill Kaiya's prescription.  So I told them to try Papalina Pharmacy, which is right down the road from the house.  Well, they call them and they have it...but the other pharm tech asks why because they (WalMart) have it in stock.  So after waiting about 15 minutes for them to call it into another pharmacy...the Pharmacist says, "Mrs. Barsness, we actually have it in stock, but it's going to be about 30 minutes."  Ummm...don't you just have to pull it off the shelf?  Not like you have to fill the bottle up with the medicine.  But, surprisingly, I didn't say that...I smiled and said, OK I'll come back in a bit.  Meanwhile, daddy and Kaiya are driving around the parking lot because we all thought it would be an in-and-out situation.  So mommy walks out empty handed...and needing to figure out what to do for half an hour.  We decided to take Kaiya on her first trip to Tip Top Cafe!  Not like she could eat anything, but mommy and daddy haven't had breakfast there since before Kaiya was born.  Daddy had the Loco Moco and mommy had eggs, hash and fried rice.  And was it ever so yummy.  Kaiya was a good little babe and sat in her carseat the whole time...drooling and dreaming about the day she can take bites off of our plates.  After breakfast, mommy ran into WalMart and picked up the prescription without hassle.

That was the morning we decided to pick up Kaiya's first vitamins.

.kaiya eats.

Today was little miss Kaiya's 6 month well baby check-up with Dr. Carolan.  She did excellent at the appointment.  She even gave Dr. Carolan a few smiles when he was doing his little leg/hip dance with her while singing his usual song (da dum da dum....). Kaiya weighed 16 lbs. 5 oz. and was 24 inches long.  Dr. Carolan said she's consistent on her growth, staying in the 50th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for head size, and 10th percentile for height (oh boy!).  We went over her solid food feeding schedule, got a clean bill of health, and a prescription for vitamins (which mommy and daddy forgot to pick up due to the excitement of buying her Rice Cereal!).  She had the oral vaccine and two shots again.  However, she only cried two whimpers when Aunty Flo (the nurse) gave her the shots.  Such a big girl!  Her next well baby appointment won't be for another 3 months, when she turns 9 months old!!!

When we got home, we couldn't wait to let her have her first taste of rice cereal.  She LOVED it and couldn't get enough of it.  She did well with the spoon, too.  She even wanted to try feeding herself, but it was already a mess when mommy was doing it, so we just let her chew on the spoon a bit.  Daddy also took a video, but I'll have to upload that later.  In the meantime...check her out...EATING!!!

Getting ready to eat.

I'm so hungry...I can eat this bib!

Are you really gonna feed me...or are you just teasing again?!

Oooohhh.

Yummmmmyyyy!!!

Give me MORE!!!

I can't reach it if it's all the way over there.

Sooo glad I can finally ditch the milk only diet.

Mmmmm, thank you so much mommy and daddy.