Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

Coming home from work I look forward to recliner time with Kaiya. After she eats we sit down and debrief the day - usually over the "circus book." It's a book made out of fabric and you can detach the velcro-attached lion, horse and other animals. Kaiya loves when the horse walks over from my knee, jumps to her arm, and gallops all the way up to her cheek and gives her three or four little kisses… and then starts again from my knee… and again… and again.

We all survived week one of double duty in the Ciho household. Granted we only had 17-month-old Kyria (KEER-ee-ah) twice this week, but adding her to the mix was actually a lot of fun. She is so well behaved and absolutely adorable. Kaiya is completely fascinated by Kyria. She follows her around like a little puppy craving attention. Kyria, however, is not too fond of her little shadow and I really can't blame her. Kaiya tries so hard to touch her and "talk" to her, but Kyria looks away and says, "No! No!" Occasionally, Kyria will hand her a toy she is done playing with and say, "All da." Kaiya screams with joy. Kyria also provides encouragement for me to keep setting Kaiya's boundaries and telling her no when she oversteps them. Kyria knows well what she can and cannot touch (testament to her wonderful parents) and I'm already looking forward to when Kaiya knows the same. Kyria looks at the fireplace, shakes her head and says, "Haa-t." Kaiya crawls full-force towards it and tries to climb up on the fireplace screen. Kyria sees my mobile phone and says, "No. No." Kaiya grabs it and immediately sticks it in her mouth. I know my sweet Kaiya is just starting to learn that there are boundaries in her world, and seeing how good Kyria is encourages me to be patient and diligent in teaching Kaiya those boundaries. Week one down, four (or so) to go!

One of the hardest things about being a parent is to see your child in pain or suffering and be able to do very little about it. This past Thursday, I thought Kaiya was coming down with something because she had been extremely irritable, clingy and looked tired even after a good nap. She seemed sick, but didn't have any symptoms. She didn't have a fever, runny nose or even a cough. She was eating and sleeping fine, but she was sure cranky. We put her to bed early hoping she was just tired and needed sleep. Friday was more of the same, but by late afternoon she was running a fever. I called the doctor's office and the nurse said there were a lot of nasty viruses going around so I needed to treat the fever and just watch her closely. After a dose of Infant Motrin kicked in the fever came down and she was ready to play. Our Kaiya had returned! Unfortunately, Saturday the fever was back and so was cranky inconsolable Kaiya. We continued to give her Motrin every six hours and watch and wait for whatever her little body was fighting to surface. Sunday morning it surfaced, literally. Kaiya's tummy, chest, back and neck were completely covered with a light red rash. I freaked! I was ready to take her to the emergency room, but the weirdest thing was she no longer had a fever. After talking to a nurse at our doctor's office, my mom who talked to my Uncle who was a pediatrician for years and a friend with her home medical book, we concluded that she had Roseola, a viral illness most commonly affecting babies between the ages of 6 months and 1 year. Roseola's trademark rash is the last stage of the illness and sure enough the rash was gone when she woke up this morning.

You better grab a cup of joe if you're planning to read this entire posting. It's long. Andrej and I often say after something interesting happens that we should blog about it, but unfortunately neither of us do until so many things have happened that we can't even remember them all. Here are some of the highlights…

• Kaiya has graduated from the "belly slide" (see Videos) to a full-on crawl! We are so proud…well, at least we were for about a day and now that we have entered into the world of "No, No Kaiya! Danger!" we are wondering why we ever encouraged the whole crawling thing. As frustrating as it can be (for both parents and baby as she is removed from the fireplace screen for the hundredth time) it really is amazing to watch her move about and discover her world.
• As of tomorrow Kaiya will graduate to yet another new level. We are official resigning her infant car seat. She has been pushing the weight and height limit for a while now so for safety's sake we've got to make the change. It will be hard for us because we've gotten used to hauling her around in that seat, awake and asleep. It is so easy to transfer her from the car to the stroller to the grocery cart and everywhere in between. I'm sure we will all get used to it soon and will probably be a lot happier.
• Last but definitely not least our little rolly poly (see Rollover posting) has pretty much given up rolling over in her crib and screaming. She still rolls over, but we stopped flipping her because as soon as her back hit the mattress she would roll right back to her tummy, climb up on the bumper and wail. Mom grew tired of the flipping game and Kaiya found out that she can sleep just fine on her tummy. We've even found her a few times sound asleep pulled up on the bumper. It hurts my neck just looking at her. Although this sounds like a rather happy ending to a frustrating few weeks, life with a baby couldn't be that easy. Her new thing is pulling up to standing and of course wailing when she is ready to get down and go to sleep. However, if we help her down and put her on her back she gets frustrated and rolls back over and pulls right back up on the crib rail. If left alone, she desperately tries to sleep standing up. She will eventually flop down on her bottom and then try desperately to sleep sitting up. We know this because we purchased our favorite baby item thus far, a video monitor. It really helps dissipate our frustration at 3:30 am after an hour of trying to get her to stay horizontal and sleep when we can watch her try to balance herself in a sitting position, suck her fingers, rub her ear and sleep all the while bobbing back and forth. Oh the joys of parenthood! I'm trying to follow my friend Cristy's comment (from Rollover) and keep in mind that this first year will go by fast and I won't even remember these few nights of missed sleep as she practices her tricks, but I must admit Ryan's comment of using duct tape is starting to sound better and better. :)

Just to prove that Andrej and I do still exist and things do happen that do not revolve around our little one, here are some of our own updates…

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Last night, I had the opportunity to guest-speak at Topher's Linux class at Cornerstone University about installing Linux along side MS Windows without messing up the Windows. I also talked about some other fun things (keep reading). My whole motivation to come to the class was that I wanted to help those students avoid mistakes I made in the past when I "hosed" my work laptop AND home computer (on several occasions). I offered coming to the class about 2 weeks ago and Topher agreed that it would be a good idea…

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I knew last weekend when it was over 60 degrees in West Michigan in March that we needed to make the most of it because it certainly wouldn't last long. So make the most of it we did! We bundled Kaiya, packed the stroller and headed out to find a park, preferably one with infant swings to give Kaiya a new experience. After two failed attempts (PARK CLOSED UNTIL APRIL 30…still not sure what is up with that) we landed at Richmond Park where we ran into some good friends also out enjoying the sunshine. We found the swings, but after seeing them I wasn't sure Kaiya was old enough so we went for a stroll instead. Sunday was a little colder, but definitely another day to be spent outside. After a little more consideration I really wanted to give the swings a try. We headed back to the park and with a blanket stuffed behind her, Kaiya fit snug in the swing. I'm so glad we tried it because she absolutely loved it. I'm still not sure if she loved swinging more or watching all of the kids running and jumping around her. She squealed with utter delight (see video page). One little boy, hearing her shrieks, ran over and started pushing her in the swing. At first it scared me and I wasn't sure how to react (yes, I am an overly cautious first-time mom), but thankfully his mom followed with my favorite word for small kids around babies, "Gentle!" He listened and Kaiya kept trying to turn around to catch a glimpse of the little person pushing her. It was a nice weekend and a taste of spring that is surely around the corner.

Dnes rano som Kaiyi cital z jednej z nasich slovenskych detskych kniziek - Krtko v zime. Krtko ani snehuliak ju velmi nezaujili, co sa vsak neda povedat o psovi zachranarovi na sneznom skutri. Nase citanie skoncilo na strane s velkym obrazkom tohto (zda sa) bernardina, ktory skoncil pokrceny a zaslineny. Kazdopadne vsak budeme pre velky uspech coskoro v citani o krtkovi pokracovat.