A BIG week - Grammie's visit, the first reach, and thumb discovery!!!!

Age of Lady Kaitlyn:  3 months, 1 week, 5 days (this is getting tricky to remember...)

Family,

And a good Sunday afternoon to you from the Queen City - what a week!  The house is oddly silent at the moment, as the Bull is sitting alone by himself in the living room.  Wife Muffin is on a train to O'Hare (Aunt Kim's bachelorette party was this weekend), Grammie has just turned onto I-85 S, and the munchkin is upstairs PASSED OUT thanks to her newest discovery.  But I get ahead of myself - let's start back on Tuesday. :-)



Bottom line:  this week has been AMAZING.  I've had all my girls (Muffin, Munchkin, Momma, and Katie - the Corolla) all under one roof!  Mom (a.k.a. Grammie) arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and the week has just been a run of perfection in no uncertain terms.  Somebody take my blood pressure, please - it's gotta be at an all-time low.

Tuesday night was the first of many BIG milestones achieved this week - FIRST DATE NIGHT FOR THE PARENTS!!!!  Now I know that some will disagree with that statement (since we've technically been out of the house 3 other times sans munchkin), but this was the first time the Bull and Striker had been out of the house for a dinner date.  As always, Grammie was a wonderful caretaker/babysitter, and  Kaitlyn was her usual angelic self (knock on wood).  I must say that mom's comments are HILARIOUS - she just CANNOT get over how well behaved Kaitlyn is.  Common quotes from the week:

1.  "You lay her down in her crib awake and she just goes to SLEEP!  I've never seen anything like that.  I have to call Steve (my stepdad)."

2.  "She's not even crying!  That baby never cries.  She goes to be happy and wakes up happy.  It beats anything I've ever seen."

3.  "Is she already asleep?  I don't even hear her!"

4.  "Do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

I have one word for EVERY FUTURE PARENT who might stumble upon this blog:  BABYWISE.  Trust me on this one.  I like to think that it's a combination of K's amazing disposition and JT's relentless dedication to keeping the munchkin on a schedule, but I think my mother is more in the "you have no idea how lucky you are camp."  And whilst this is a VERY true statement, I'd like to think that we had a little to do with it. :-)

About .0003 seconds before I went Dikembe
Mutombo on Jenny and said "Not in my house!!!

JT left us in great shape on the milk supply front.
As fate would have it, we only used a total of
8 bags.  Oh, and a fifth of Tanqueray, of course...

Wednesday was a big milestone in the day, as (we think) Kaitlyn reached for the first time!  Now I realize that we sound like "those parents" - look at my genius child, she's got an IQ of 182, the most perceptive child since Gandhi, etc - but I really do think she reached for it.  She can definitely grab things (my finger, her bib, the bottle, etc), but this was the first time she grabbed an object (our Lion rattle) and actually held onto it (around the mane - Simba would have been so proud).  Now granted, getting her to repeat this epic feat of coordination has proved somewhat challenging, so I'm sure the pundits might dispute the validity of this claim.  However, she's managed to reach about once per sitting during wake time, and I am squarely in the camp that she's poised and ready to start smacking Mufasa around.  The side note story to trigger our memory banks when we read this 30 years from now is when I was trying to show Kaitlyn how to slap the lion and, thinking that Jenny had a solid grip on it, swatted the poor critter in the face.  Well, Mufasa rattled all the way to the windows in mid-flight because I had jus SLAPPED IT OUT OF HER HAND.  Kaitlyn just looked at us more than slightly confused. :-)




Thursday was Sammy's day out, and mom took me out for dinner.  We had a blast catching up, as we always do, and Jenny stayed at home with the munchkin to pack.  But the BIGGEST news of the day came on this day, as THE MUNCHKIN FOUND HER THUMB!!!!  That's right, sports fans - our little girl no longer needs a pacifier.  In fact, our little girl no longer cries.  She has about .00003 seconds of pouting, and then - WHA-BAM - there's a little thumb in her mouth.  But a few things to point out about her technique:

The word...is NIRVANA.

1. She can only suck the left thumb at this point, meaning that she now ALWAYS sleeps with her face in that direction.  She might mix it up a bit during the long sleep at night, but the nap is now ALWAYS facing the wall.  Side note - the Bull has tried DESPERATELY to fit that right thumb into her mouth, but this kid is having none of it.  Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE the fact that all signs point to her being a lefty.  That being said, I don't want all signs pointing to daddy dropping five grand on helmets for the munchkin.  I am monitoring her cranium daily - so far so good.

2.  She will miss her thumb on the first pass or two.  In fact, it's pretty much a given that she's going to punch herself in the face at least twice before she finds her thumb.  I can't help but cackle watching it - it's a voyage of discovery EVERY TIME SHE NAPS.

3.  When she does latch on, she sucks on that thing hard enough to suck the marrow out.  She goes from "ready to kill daddy and play a role in the Exorcist" to "all is well - put on the white noise."

And red eyeballs.  Don't forget those...

4.  She can't figure out what to do with her fingers, and so she wraps them around her face, covering her nose and pawing her eyes.  I'm not really sure what I can do about that one, but the effect is that on Friday her eye was RED.  Side note of good news - her stopped tear duct is finally open!!!!  Again, I have the best wife and Kaitlyn has the best mum ever, as Jenny's daily massage (plus a drop of breast milk) have resulted in the munchkin's eyes no longer being sealed shut from gunk (technical term) upon waking - way to go, perfect pumpkin!  Side Side note - K has stopped pawing her eye as of Saturday afternoon, and at this point all is well.

CLEAR, CLEAN EYES!!!!  Take a bow, muffin!

The weekend FLEW by but was an absolute blast.  My mom spoiled me to no end - cooking, cleaning, washing, feeding the munchkin - I was basically "tits on a boar hog" worthless.  She continued to be amazed by K's sleeping patterns (take a bow, JT), and I continued to laugh at the look on her face every time I laid K down in the crib awake and then walked away - too funny.

Grammie and the Munchkin (wardrobe courtesy of Old
School Cool and the Tavares clan).

The munchkin is still holding strong at 10.5-11 hours per night, and she even gave us an 11.5 night over the weekend.  It's always a mixture of witchcraft and science to figure out when to put her down, and I will certain welcome back my wife's sage wisdom when she's back from the Windy City (she left Friday morning).

Hard to believe that June is almost over, especially since July is going to be crazy.  We've got 2 road trips with Kaitlyn, and I've got 2 international work trips.  The first trip is just a scant 8 days away, and I am NOT looking forward to going 5 days without seeing my girls.  Haffa get lots of cuddles and smiles (from both of them) over this next week!

Mom - thank you SO SO SO SO SO much for coming this week - you were a life saver, and it was perfect!  We love you and will see you again in about 2.5 weeks!

Love,

Sam and Jenny (in the security line at O'hare - seriously missing status :-))