My first Christmas...

...And my first trip to Kentucky! Well, that is, if you're only counting my out-of-the-womb trips.


Mommy, Daddy, and I are finally back in New York after a long, wonderful 2-week trip to Kentucky to celebrate Christmas and ring in the New Year with family and friends. With the car loaded with a kitty, a baby, and all of my "needs", we jetted out toward KY a day early to beat the noreaster headed our way and made the trip in 21 hours (it typically takes 14 hours, but apparently Mom and Dad don't usually stop every 2-3 hours to eat and change their diapers). It was exciting to get to see so many new places on the way. Here's a current list of all of the states that I've been to. I'm turning into quite the traveler! There are even rumors that I might get to go to England this summer, too!


States visited while in the womb:
New York - January 08
Massachusetts - February 08
Connecticut - April 08
Kentucky - May 08
Vermont - August 08
New Hampshire - August 08


States visited while out of the womb:
New York - September 08
Massachusetts - November 08
Pennsylvania - December 08
Maryland - December 08
West Virginia - December 08
Kentucky - December 08
Ohio - January 09

I was so excited that Mom and Dad had packed my Jungle Gym and my Mobile so I could feel more at home and get to play with my familiar friends. I just LOVE that monkey!! During my time in KY, I started grabbing it off of its hanging place on the Jungle Gym and putting it in my mouth. Mmmmm...monkeys taste good!

For some reason, I think this yellow creature is hilarious. I laughed out loud for the first time on the night on the 26th while watching this mobile friend go 'round and 'round.

I got some fun new toys, too. This ball flashes lights and plays music. I'm still not quite sure what to do with it, but for now it sure is fun to stare at!

Grammie made me this beautiful pink dress (with a matching blanket and booties!)

It was great to get to spend so much time with family! I was glad to get to meet so many of my cousins and aunts and uncles.

Here's a picture of "the girls" - Me with my cousins Clara (9) and Maggie (5)

I wish Clara lived closer so she could babysit me!

My cousin Tyler and I hit it off well, too. He may be 11 years older than me and a football player, but he also has long hair and I have an incredibly strong grip. HEHEHE!

During my time in KY, I discovered the television set. Let me tell you something - watching people play Guitar Hero for hours and hours into the night is REALLY exciting! Tyler, you will always be my Guitar Hero!!

My cousin Syndey (9) got me this puppet book of Horton Hears a Who. Sydney was even kind enough to read it to me! I sure hope Elli isn't jealous of my new elephant friend!
Sydney and me:I loved snuggling with my aunts!
And as always, HOORAH FOR GRANDPARENTS!

Here's me teaching Grammie the sign for "grammie" in ASL.
Gram sure knows how to make me smile! (And I think I know how to make her smile, too!)
It was great to get to meet my Grandpa Rawert. It turns out that we have a lot in common; for one thing, we both like taking naps!

Daddy and I got to spend a lot of quality time together, too!

For Christmas this year, I gave Mom one of the best gifts of all - the gift of dairy! Once we got to KY, Mom and Dad couldn't pass up the opportunity to get their hands (and mouths) on some Papa Johns Pizza. Four pieces of pizza and several cheese sticks later, Mom fed me the "danger milk" and everyone waited to see what would happen. And guess what? No screaming baby! That's right - I'm over my sensitivity to dairy now and so Mom can have milk, cheese, and butter again. And it was just in time for Christmas cookies! (Although my Aunt Monica had graciously made some dairy-free goodies for Mom).

Here's me pretending to eat a cookie. Oh, if only I had teeth...

On New Year's Eve, we spent time with some of Mom and Dad's friends from high school and I got to meet Baby Lily! Then, Mom, Dad, and I went to visit Grammie who was working at Walgreens that night.

I also got to meet some of Mom's friends from college while we were in town. After Mom and Jacqueline spent almost 2 hours sharing traumatic childbirth stories, we're pretty sure that we've scared Betsy and Ryan into never having kids. Sorry, guys. Just remember, it "usually isn't like that".
I did great on the trip back. We make the trek back to NY in one day (in 16 hours!) and only stopped 3 times. We had a wonderful time in KY and wish we could have seen even more friends and spent even more time with people. Merry Christmas and Happy 2009 to all of you!!!!

Christmas is coming...

Isn't this outfit adorable?

It even came with a hat!

Even Zoli's getting in the holiday spirit!

I can't wait until our trip to Kentucky at the end of the week. I'll get to see my Grammie, Grandpa, and Gram again and FINALLY get to meet my POPS! :) I'm looking forward to spending time with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, too, and seeing all of my parents' friends. Look out KY - here I come!!

3 months old and growing...

I've been feeling MUCH better now that I'm off my antibiotics and am also sleeping longer at night since I don't have to wake up a million times for diaper changes. HOORAY! I'm clearly not spending as much time on my changing table anymore because Zoli has discovered it as a comfortable place to relax. You better look out, Kitty, or Daddy will put a diaper on you!

Instead of tearing through the diapers, I now spend a lot of time during the day playing - I just can't seem to get enough of my jungle gym!
Did you know that I have a birthmark on the back of my head? Well, I have a birthmark on the back of my head! Mom and Dad decided to take a picture of it before it got all covered up with hair (which IS growing, by the way. Slowly but surely!).

Finally, I wanted to share with you the whole host of nicknames that my parents have for me lately:

Squirmy Wormy

Lil Miss

Baby

Little One

Poopasaurus Rex

Kaira Beth

Punkin Diddle

Sweetie McSweetums (or just Sweetums for short)

And of course...LittleBit

Put your hands together!

Here's my new trick. I started doing it last Wednesday at our Bible study group right after the final prayer. I saw everyone else doing this and decided to try it, too!

I've heard rumors that I also have feet, but I haven't found them yet...

VCUG: The Long Story

Here's a video of me sharing the long story of my VCUG test on Thursday. For those of you who don't understand my language of coos, grunts, squeals, and flailing limbs, I've included English subtitles.

Kaira on Thanksgiving Day 2008

My first video post. My little fingers still have some trouble getting the firewire cable connected to both the camera and the computer.

VCUG: A-OK!!

The short story is this:

I had my VCUG test yesterday and everything came out (literally) just fine! It turns out that my Urinary Tract Infection back in October was just a strange fluke and I don't have anything anatomically wrong with me. HOORAY!! And the best part is...that means that I can stop taking my antibiotics...which will mean that I can stop taking my probiotics...which means that I can stop taking my anti-fungals...which means that I may still be able to redeem my career in politics!! (Although the pro-fungals out there will probably always raise a fuss that I never took their side.)

Stay tuned for the long story...

Is it December 4th yet?

Well, it was just a matter of time given all of the antibiotics I'm on, but sure enough - I got thrush. I was already using anti-fungal medication on my diaper area to cure/prevent a yeast infection, and now I have to take another oral medicine to cure the yeast infection in my mouth. And Mom has to take medicine, too, to cure the thrush that I gave her. Hey - I was just trying to share!

Only 3 more days until my VCUG test, and then hopefully I'll be able to stop this crazy medicine regimen. Please pray for me!

Guess what?

I weigh 10 pounds!!

I got a weight check on Wednesday and I am now in the double digits. HOORAY! And that also means that I've finally caught up with Emma! What?!?!? What's that?!?! You say that Emma's now 12 pounds, 13 ounces?!?! Great...just great. Someone forgot to tell that girl to wait up for me. Well anyway, I'm finally starting to outgrow the size "Newborn" clothes that I have and fit into the adorable 0-3 month old clothes! Good thing, too, because I'll be 4 months old before I know it at which point it'll be totally inapproriate to wear "baby clothes".

Happy Thanksgiving!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Yes, that's right. To celebrate the holiday, I'm wearing a Halloween outfit. Why, you might ask? Well, the outfit didn't fit me on Halloween and I figured that by sitting in front of a Christmas tree, things would even out to be totally appropriate for Thanksgiving. Who says you can't average categorical variables? Plus, my pilgrim outfit was at the cleaners. My Halloween shirt says "Mommy's under my spell." which Mom thinks is pretty scary because she always said throughout the pregnancy that she felt like someone had cast a spell on her. HEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!!

p.s. I'm thankful for my friends Katie and Howard who got me the adorable outfit and for my Aunt Mary who sent the cute pumpkin socks!

The Ins and Outs of My Life

Mom and I have FINALLY MASTERED BREASTFEEDING!! After two long months of nursing with a nipple shield, taking supplemental bottles of breastmilk, and spending 2 hours a day pumping, we are finally down to just the basics. I suck...and I'm proud of it!

I have my appointment with the pediatric urologist on December 4th to have my VCUG test to see if I have urinary reflux. Until then, I'm on a preventative antibiotic to keep me from getting another Urinary Tract Infection. Unfortunately, the anitbiotic also kills off all of the healthy bacteria in my colon, so I'm also taking a probiotic to try to keep the diarrhea to a minimum (I'm going through 30 diapers a day!). Well, there goes my future career in politics. Nothing says "flip-flopper" like being "anti" and "pro" issue at the same time.

What's that creature?

What has 3 heads, 8 legs, 1 diaper, and a tail?


A SnuggleUp-agus!!

p.s. In case there was any confusion, I'm the one who wears the diaper.

Active and Smiling...

At my 2 month check-up last Friday, I came in at 21 3/4 inches in length and weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces. That puts me at the 25th percentile all around. Not bad for a premie!

I can't believe that I'm still smaller than my friend Emma Woods was when she was born. (Emma is the daughter of Becky Woods, Mom's college roommate and maid of honor. Emma was born just a week after me!) I sure am growing fast, though. Check out my chubby cheeks - Mom and Dad just love to kiss them!!

I've been smiling a lot more lately, and cooing now, too! Now that I've been more active, Mom and Dad bought me this awesome rainforest jungle gym to play with. I LOVE IT! I sit under it, swat at the hanging animals, coo, and kick my legs a million miles an hour. All that playing sure is exhausting!

I've also been enjoying my swing. I'm pretty sure that those bears are plotting something against me, though, so I keep my eyes on them.

After 2 months of diligently avoiding it, Mom and Dad finally gave in and bought me a pacifier. That's right - I now have a "binky", a "paci", a "nummies", a "Nuk". Hoorah for non-nutritive sucking!!!

We got a new [used] car this week and I'm somewhat embarassed to admit that it's an SUV. Mom would like to apologize for all of those rude comments she's made in the past about people who go out and buy an SUV after having 1 kid. But, it turns out that infant carseats are huge and don't fit well in regular cars. Who knew?!? (We've had to scoot the passenger's seat up so far that no one can sit there!) Anyway, Mom and Dad were trying to figure out how in the world we were going to get the three of us plus Zoli (the cat) to Kentucky for Christmas and realized that it was going to be impossible with the vehicles that we had. And since the thought of leaving me with a pet-sitter over the holidays simply broke Dad's heart, we got a bigger car.

For the past two nights, I've been sleeping in my room all by myself!! Before then, Mom was sleeping in my room on the Futon to be close at hand to feed me or change me whenever I needed her to. But, I've been sleeping longer during the night lately (sometimes going 5 hours between feedings) and so she's now sleeping across the hall with Dad.

8 week update

I'm official! I finally got my birth certificate in the mail as well as my social security card, which is great because that's what was holding me up on getting my first job. But wouldn't you know it - they spelled my middle name wrong on my social security card. They got "Kairos" right. They got "Rawert" right. But somehow they had trouble spelling the most normal looking part of my name - "Elizabeth Johnson". Apparently it causes problems when your middle name is 17 characters long because they dropped the final "n" altogether, much like Skidmore did when they gave Mom her e-mail account (rjohnso1). So anyway, now Mom and Dad have to gather together a bunch of official documents and stand in long lines at the social security office to re-prove my existence and citizenship. I guess that whole job search thing will have to be put on hold. That's ok. I really had my eye on Lehman Brothers anyway so now I'm back to the drawing board.


My appetite sure has picked up quite a bit after I got out of the hospital for my UTI visit. The same week that I was dischared, I gained 15 ounces in 5 days (going from 7 pounds even to 7 pounds, 15 ounces). I even ate 4 ounces in one sitting a couple of times! Yep - my plan is to skip pounds 8 and 9 and go straight to 10 pounds by my 2 month check-up next week.

You may recall that Mom was going to cut back on dairy products to ease my digestive issues. Well, it turns out that she's had to give it all up completely because I'm allergic to cow's milk. Mom and Dad discovered this when I started having my acid reflux issues. They read that many times dairy products cause the problem. Of course, there are other things that can often help alleviate acid reflux, too, like propping up the cradle on an angle, using a bottle nipple with a slower flow rate, and holding the baby upright for 30 minutes after feeding. Well, Mom and Dad changed all of those things at once and VOILA, the acid reflux and loud painful screaming went away. Now, Mom's research methods students would be quick to point out that changing all of the variables at once is bad science. But when your baby is displaying colicky symptoms, all you really care about is stopping the crying, not finding the cause. But since then, Mom and Dad decided to better test their hypothesis that the reflux was caused by the dairy by completing the ABAB experimental design. Afterall, Mom wanted to know if their freezer full of Stewarts ice cream really was off limits. So one day last week, Mom started off the day by eating all of the dairy products she could get her hands on: cottage cheese, ice cream, milk, butter, cheddar cheese, yogurt, oh my! And by the time my evening feedings rolled around, I was NOT a happy camper. The next day, Mom went back to her dairy-free diet and I went back to being a happy baby. TADA! Now I'm wondering what to do with the 50 ounces of "milky" breastmilk that Mom had previously pumped and has stored in the freezer. Is it legal to sell such a thing on ebay or is that sort of like selling a kidney?


When Grammie and Grandpa were here last week, Grammie kept getting me to smile by holding me and saying, "Smile for Grammie!" I'd do it but then stop before Mom and Dad had a chance to see it. HAHA!! I'm such a tease. Once the grandparents went back to Kentucky, Mom kept trying to get a real smile out of me and was finally able to, but only by saying in a highly inflected tone, "Smile for Grammie! Smile for Grammie!" Sorry, Mom, but Grammie is the only one worth smiling for. Either that or perhaps just the thought of Grammie gives me extreme gas.


Here's me cuddling with Grammie:

And here's me helping her decide what her bid should be during a game of 500:The second time that I smiled in front of Mom and Dad was late Tuesday night when my mom told me that Obama was going to be the next President of the United States. Seriously. Now that may surprise some of you, especially given the fact that I sleep with a stuffed elephant in my crib. But, Obama does claim to be the "Change we need" and with my frequent pooing and peeing, I need to be changed a lot.

"I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee"

For Halloween, I dressed up in this bumblebee costume that my Aunt Jennifer sent me. I'm pretty sure it will fit me next year, too!!

You'll notice in this picture that I'm trying to make my costume a little more scary by giving the camera the middle finger. Maybe that's my stinger?

These photos need captions...

Any ideas?

PHOTO 1:

PHOTO 2:

How do you like me now?

I looked in the mirror for the first time the other day and noticed that I am pretty much bald. You'd think that my true friends would have told me this before it turned into the embarrassing situation that it has now become, but alas, I was left to discover this on my own. Thankfully, though, I found out about hair replacement surgery and decided to have the procedure done. What do you think?