Almost 9 months old already!

Wow, time sure has flown by. The past 9 months have been absolutely amazing even with all of the bumps along the way. Kyler is a happy, growing, learning little boy that has taught both David and I many lessons - from patience to how much love we are capable of giving. Although our life isn't perfect, we certainly wouldn't change anything!

Here's a nice update on how Kyler is doing..

Sleep: 

Bedtime is about 10:00pm, but we are working on moving that up. Typically, he sleeps until about 3:00am and then wants to nurse. After that he sleeps until 7:00am then nurses and sleeps until about 10:00am. Sometimes he will go back to sleep after that feeding but not always. Typical get up time is around 10:30-11:00am. At around 1:00pm, he takes his first nap which ranges from 1.5 to 2 hours. His second nap is usually around 5:00pm and is 1.5 to 2 hours as well.

Usually, he falls asleep on his side but then rolls onto his stomach after a bit. Ever since he learned to roll over he has become a belly sleeper. He can be a very light and restless sleeper, but usually he sleeps fairly well.

We are currently working on transitioning Kyler to his crib, but he absolutely despises the thing and we only have one bedroom so that makes it hard when he wakes up as he can see us. Hopefully we will find a 2 bedroom apartment fairly soon..

Most of the time, I put Kyler to sleep and he really wouldn't have it any other way. He usually gets quite fussy if I'm not there, but that's another thing we are working on.

This is what I often wake up to. Love it! (7 months)

Asleep on the airplane (7.5 months)

Butt in the air (KC, 7.5mo)

Eat:


Other than breastfeeding, Kyler is now eating 2 solid meals each day. We will soon be making that 3 solid meals once we find a couple more foods that Kyler likes. Currently he has a late lunch of yogurt, some pureed fruits and some solid fruits (like bananas). He absolutely loves yogurt and most fruits - especially pears. Dinner is usually pears, if he had something other than pears at lunch, a vegetable puree if we can find one (not easy here in Finland) and we're working on adding a meat but Kyler hasn't liked any of the meat meals we have found here (so far). While we were back in KC, Kyler had a couple of meat dishes that he ate just fine but the ones here have potatoes and carrots as top ingredients and he dislikes both of those. While we were on vacation in Scotland, he spontaneously learned how to drink out of a straw and now that has become a favorite thing to do.. I'm almost convinced he would drink anything if it had a straw in it. Also, when we go to restaurants, Kyler now sits in a high chair like a big boy.

Likes: Pears, yogurt of any variety, raspberries, apples, bananas, prunes, essentially all fruits minus some lingonberry mixes (very popular here), sweet potatoes, squash, cheese, cottage cheese, smoked salmon, Gerber Graduates puffs (yogurt and other variety) and water. I'm sure I'm missing some, but it's hard when he's had so many foods.

Dislikes: Any of the meaty meals we've tried here so far, carrots, peas, potatoes, porridge (unless it's warm and mixed with a ton of fruit) and rice cereal.

Prunes (6 months)

Chillin' (6.5 months)

Chillin' Again (8 months)

Foot (8 months)

Big boy at the table in Scotland (8 months)

Play:

Now that he is mobile, Kyler doesn't mind being on his stomach anymore and actually spends quite a bit of time on it. In the mornings I lay him down on his play mat and he stares at the toys for a bit and plays on his back, but once he's woken up completely he rolls over and goes, goes, goes. His favorite thing to do is to find any lint, dust bunnies or other random things that he shouldn't have and try to put them in his mouth before we stop him. With his small hands, he can reach places that are hard to clean (and he knows these places well) or when he's being particularly crafty, he'll find a book and shove it under something repeatedly to pull out dust bunnies. He's quite smart. He also likes to try and find any cords. Anyone want to fly over here with a baby play yard enclosure?!

Kyler still loves his jumperoo and can practically jump his way out of it. He's crazy and has some crazy strong legs.. which makes us wonder why he likes to use his arms for crawling. Unfortunately for us, he's almost on the highest height setting for his jumperoo. Crazy!

As for toys, he likes lights and sounds, but really anything that ISN'T a toy is usually his favorite. He like remotes, game controllers, dials (like on our audio receiver or on a thermostat), books (crumpling pages and eating them), paper, eye glasses and of course dirt/lint/dust.. just to name a few :p. He also quite enjoys banging things together to make all sorts of noise or slamming them on the floor. I'm sure our downstairs neighbors LOVE us!

There are times when Kyler is absolutely fascinated by his hands and stares at them, opens and closes them, rolls his wrist around, etc. (see photo). He is also walking quite well with our support and enjoys making raspberries or "seasoning" as we call it. He certainly keeps us on our toes and I'm sure he will continue to do so for quite some time.

Jumperoo! (6 months)

Playmat Time (6.5 months)

Kyler LOVED his first balloon! (7.5 months)

Ahhh, my hand! (8 months)

Pee and Poo:

Just kidding.. I wouldn't really write about that on here. Though we have had some fun times from when he shot poo onto the floor and bed when he was a tiny little baby to the super icky and messy blowouts (ask my mom about this one.. she has experience from our last visit to KC), I'm sure nobody really wants to read about Kai's BM's and wee-wees. :)



Sorry it's been so long since I wrote, but based on the fact that this blog took me over a week to complete, it's simply not easy to do. I hope you enjoy all of the pictures and the update on Kyler. We will keep folks updated on when our next trip to the US will be. I will add more photos at a later date, but I wanted to get the blog up, so this is what you get.. live with it :p. For now, I will leave you with a couple of photos from Scotland.

Hey, look at me, Daddy! (8 months)

Dinner with Mommy and Daddy! (8 months)

Adapting to Life in Finland

Kyler, David and I arrived back in Finland on 21.3 and things have been pretty crazy ever since. Kyler was sleeping for about 6 hours before we brought him here, but for the first couple of weeks it was hard to get him to go even 3 hours. As you can imagine, this was rough on us (especially me, as I was letting David sleep since he couldn't help feed him anyways). Not only was he not sleeping well at night, he was crying a ton, not napping, screaming his head off anytime we put him in his crib and being an overall booger. The past week or so has been better, so we're hoping that he'll be back on schedule soon.

Since being here, Kyler has started eating solids. He didn't care for the rice cereal AT ALL and it backed him up too, so we only did that for a couple of days. We've since moved on to pears (like), peas (meh, but gave him gas), sweet potatoes (love) and squash (love). Who knows where he gets his preferences from as you won't see me eating sweet potatoes or squash :p.

We've somehow skipped over size 2 diapers in moving over here - we bought one pack before we left - so that was a bit weird. The weight range on the size 2's was 4-7kg and size 3's was 5-9kg (or something like that).. silly Europe. Other than that, most everything is the same over here as far as baby stuff goes. The cost of baby supplies (toys, food, etc) is much higher here, so most people pass their baby items down. We have been given a crib, changing table, pram (stroller), some books and other miscellaneous baby items. This has been a huge help for us and has saved us quite a bit of money so far. Sometime soon, we'll be going to the baby store so I'm sure I'll more than make up for that savings.

Our apartment is certainly beginning to feel a little small and will only get worse when Kai gets more toys. We were able to bring most of his toys that he had over here, including his playmat, which has been an absolute blessing though it takes up a good deal of our limited floorspace. Kai loves to bounce so we're going to get a bouncer/exersaucer which will pretty much eliminate any free space that we currently have. We're looking to move to a larger, preferably 2 bedroom apartment in the coming months.

As far as development goes, Kai is talking, laughing more each day, sitting up with limited help, really playing with his toys and can roll from his belly onto his back. He has no interest in rolling the other way as he HATES being on his belly. He will roll onto his side (which he loves) and if you start to pull him over onto his belly, he can do it with ease, but exhibits no interest in doing it on his own. He doesn't have any teeth yet, but we're thinking that'll change any day now - he's been a cranky droolbucket :p.

Well, I think that's about it - I'm sure I've bored you enough already :p. Hopefully things will calm down and I'll be able to post more frequently soon, but for now, enjoy these photos!

Kyler's Photoshoot

Snug as a baby in a bassinet on an airplane..

Back to Finland

Well, it's been a while since I have posted on here, but I figured that this would be the best place to announce that we will most likely be heading back to Finland in a couple of months. David is already back in Finland (and has been for 3+ weeks), but will return mid-February for about a month. After that, assuming everything is in order, Kyler and I will be flying back with him. Although it is hard to move away from family, especially now that he's been with us here for a while, moving back is the best option for our family. David's job is great and his employer is being extremely generous and helpful in getting us back over there and really, we don't have many other options as we have plenty of bills we need to pay - especially after we get Kyler's final hospital and doctor's bills.

For family in KC, if you'd like to come by and visit Kyler, you are welcome to as long as you are in good health :p. We'd love for everyone to really get to meet him before we move so far away again. Just send me a message on Facebook or something and we'll get something figured out!

Kyler is doing great - growing so quickly and learning new things almost every day! He's been a great baby so far.. hardly ever cries and minus a few little quirks he's pretty easy-going. Currently, he is going anywhere between 4 and 6 hours at night (usually it's towards the longer end when I give in and cuddle with him in bed), which is great in my mind. Since he was premature, they usually use his "adjusted age" for development and other milestones, so according to that, he's only about 5 weeks. If you consider that, he is very ahead of his age as he tracks objects well, responds to stimulation with smiles and giggles, holds his head up well, does his "mini push-ups" during tummy time, makes noises (coos and other such cute sounds) and even puts his full weight on his legs (which he's done for almost a month now!). Obviously he does other things too, but those are the biggies that I can think of and I don't want to bore you with my ridiculously long list of everything Kyler can do :p.

David gets to see him on Skype a few times every day, but it's extremely hard for him to be away from his little boy. I'm hanging in there and gaining even more respect for single mothers as well as military wives who have children. This certainly isn't how we planned for things to go, but we're doing our best to roll with it but we can't wait to all be together again!

Again, message me on facebook or shoot me an email at angela.kay.rhodes@gmail.com and we'll figure out a good time if you'd like to come hang out with the little dude before we leave in a couple of months!