letter to kian: 9 months old!

dear kian, yesterday you turned 9 months old. time goes by fast and soon you'll be one year old. i keep daydreaming about a birthday party for you. i've always done that, look forward to things... it used to drive me crazy how it was so hard for me to focus on the present because i was always looking forward to what will happen in the future... i like to think that's one of the things you're helping me change... you're making me enjoy the moment as it happens. i still think about the future a lot, but it's mostly because it's fun to imagine what will happen, where we'll be, what we'll be doing, and i do have a very active imagination. but i'm a lot more present, a lot more conscious of the right here and right now. this is it. and i'm enjoying every second of every day.
i had no idea it would be like this. before you were born i had no idea how natural motherhood would be. i find it a little strange how people have been doing this for thousands and thousands of years and somehow everything has become so complicated that most people are actually scared of being parents. and they let fear and insecurity take over. when in reality being a parent is the most natural thing in the world. perhaps i'm over simplifying things but that makes it easier than over complicating things... ha!
i guess what i'm trying to say is that i hope i always feel this way. i hope we always have this bond. i hope we keep things simple. i'll always be your mom and you'll always be my son, my first born. i love you and i loved this past 9 months. whatever the future brings... i'm totally enjoying your babyhood right now. happy 9 months!

life with kian...

has been a busy one! he's going to be nine months old next week and i can't believe how fast time goes by and how fast he's growing and learning new things.
our trip to costa rica and the us was amazing. he did so much better than i could have expected... i was really nervous about flying with him but every flight was great and at least one person (specially flight attendants) in each flight commented on how well behaved he was. one of them said that in his 10 years as a flight attendant he had never seen a baby so quiet and content as kian... i was so proud of him! he only had a hard time on a bus ride (7 hours from paso canoas to san jose) but it was probably because he had a cold and a bad cough. he was also great meeting new people and being around a lot of new faces... i wish he could remember this trip in the future, but at least we'll have the pictures and we can tell him about the first time he went to the beach, the first he got in a swimming pool, the first time he met aunts, uncles, and cousins and how much love he received from everyone.
as soon as we got back his first tooth came out and i was so thankful that it waited till we got here to come out cause poor baby was in pain. the second tooth came out after a few days so now he has two bottom teeth... they look so cute.
he's been eating a lot! especially after his 8 month check up when the doctor told us to give him more food. he's weight is fine (10 kg.) but he was definitely ready for more solids. his schedule (most days) go something like this: wakes up around 6:30 am (when paul wakes up) nurses a little and goes back to sleep, gets up around 7:30-8 has breakfast (fruit, cereal or yogurt), plays for a while, snack around 10 (fruit), nurse and short nap, lunch around 1, play some more, another nursing session and nap around 4, dinner around 6:30, bath, nursing and bed time around 9:30. he got used to sleeping next to me during the trip and waking up in the middle of the night to have some milk so now we're working on getting used to going the whole night with no milk like he used to do before the trip... so far it's been 3 days of sleeping through the night with no interruptions... although this morning he woke up at 5 am. :s
these past few days he's really started moving around a lot. he kind of crawls... he still can't get his tummy off the ground yet but he can definitely go from one place to another. paul put a big carpet on the living room where we put some toys for kian to play with... until today he would stay on the carpet... today he started going from one side to the other and realized the floor is more slippery than the carpet so he likes that better...
what else? so far (or as far as i remember) he's eaten fruits (apple, banana, pear, guayaba, papaya, melon, tangerine, mango), veggies (squash, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, spinach), cereals (rice cereal and cereal puffs) and lentils, and yogurt.
while i was in california i got a baby book and i'm proud to say i already filled it up. it was a little hard going through thousands of pictures and picking favorites but it was a lot of fun going back and seeing how little kian used to be and how much he's changed in just 8 months.
sometimes i can't believe how much love i have for this little guy and it makes me a little nervous thinking about (sometime in the future) having another one... would i love them just the same? how can so much love be possible?? but i'm sure that just as our hearts grew a little bigger to make room for kian when he was born, they'll grow a little more for the next one too. right? sounds good to me.
ok...time to go to bed!

sharing

en las mañanas Kian se despierta y lo traigo a nuestra cama... a veces se vuelve a dormir, otras se queda despierto y nos quedamos ahi conversando.
hoy agarró su chupete y lo puso en mi boca. me reí y le dije, no thank you, and he gave me a cute toothless smile.

a proud dad :)

"If Kian isn't the best baby in the world, he's definitely in the top five." -Paul

el tiempo pasa...

un mes en la vida de un bebé quizás sea como un año en la vida de un adulto porque aprenden y cambian tan rápido... Kian sigue creciendo y cada vez lo conocemos un poco más. ya sabemos cuando está cansado, cuando tiene hambre, cuando está aburrido... ya reconocemos sus miradas y los ruidos que hace. aunque también al mismo tiempo que crece, cambia... ya no le gusta mucho estar acostado, prefiere estar sentado o parado (con ayuda, obvio), incluso cuando necesita un poco de ayuda para quedarse dormido.

en las mañanas, casi siempre, se despierta de buen humor, sonríe y conversa. duerme siestas durante todo el día, a veces de 20 minutos, a veces de 2 horas. al llegar la noche se pone más serio y muy pocas personas pueden hacerlo sonreir. a las 10 generalmente es su última leche y se duerme hasta las 6, 7, u 8.
creo que le encanta salir a pasear, se distrae y está más tranquilo generalmente. creo que a veces se aburre de estar todo el día en la casa y ver las mismas dos caras. a veces se pone inquieto, especialmente si tiene hambre. todavía le encanta bañarse aunque estas últimas semanas que ha hecho frío ya no lo bañamos todas las noches.

cada vez se interesa más por los juguetes que le ofrecemos. por ahora lo que más le gusta son los links que eran de keilani. los agarra, los mira, se los pone en la boca...
 a veces cuando está muy cansado o no puede dormir y llora le canto la oración "is there any remover of difficulties save God?" y se queda en silencio escuchandome. que bueno que todavía no diferencia una voz desafinada de una afinada!
obviamente que es mi hijo y me parece el bebé más hermoso y más bueno y más todo del mundo! pero de verdad agradezco todos los días que sea como es, que muy pocas veces he sentido frustración/impaciencia/desesperación/impotencia.

algunas cosas que han pasado desde la última vez que escribi algo acá:
-le sacamos carnet de identidad y ya está en proceso su pasaporte americano y birth certificate
-festejamos el cumple de su primo Franco (y mientras veía a unos 10 niños de entre 8 y 10 años corriendo por todos lados pensaba que no quiero que Kian crezca!!!!)
-festejamos el cumple de su tía Laila
-su primer corte de pelo (en realidad un mechoncito que Paul le cortó pq se le había hecho un nudo enorme)
-su primer pic nic
-estuvo de visita su tía Zay

y no se me ocurre que más!

another moment i don't want to forget

hoy por primera vez kian se rio a carcajadas. más de una vez. por un buen rato. estabamos en la casa de nadia y willy. primero mientras lo cambiaba, después con willy. increible pensar que fue la primera de millones de risas que ojalá tendrá en su vida... ojalá que su futuro esté lleno de risas!
just when i thought he couldn't be any cuter... he proves me wrong :)

Abril

Este mes se cumple 1 año desde que Kian llegó a nuestras vidas. 8 meses en mi panza, más 4 meses fuera, son 12 meses... 1 año! Qué rápido pasa el tiempo...
Lo mejor del embarazo fueron las noches, cuando sentíamos sus patadas. Nunca dejó de sorprenderme cuando se movía. Pero a pesar de lo bonito que fue el embarazo, nada se compara con tenerlo acá afuera!

Hoy mientras manejaba de vuelta de la U estaba pensando en las cosas que me encantan de mi hijo (todavía me parece raro decirlo), una lista que se seguirá completando seguramente toda la vida... (estaba pensando eso porque la otra vez vi el blog de una señora que escribía las 25 cosas favoritas de sus 4 hijos adultos y me pareció re tierno) anyway... una lista incompleta:

- cuando se despierta de sus siestas en las tardes y se queda en silencio mirando alrededor, como esperando a que alguien se de cuenta que se despertó
- sus sonrisas
- su seriedad
- cuando levanta una ceja
- cuando (cree que) conversa
- como me mira a los ojos mientras le doy leche
- cuando termina de comer y sonríe o "dice" algo y yo imagino que me está agradeciendo y le digo "you're welcome!" y sonríe
- que le encanta bañarse
- que duerme toda la noche (desde hace como 1 mes)
- cuando se ríe a carcajadas dormido

me encanta su pelo suavecito y desordenado!