No Title Today

Saturday I got in the holiday spirit by making chex mix and peppermint bark!! Yummy!!! I still need to make some spiced cider and of course, fudge. Kasey and I like to make fudge and apparently we're really good at it. It always turns out so smooth and delicious. I love the holidays.

I always assumed that Kalin's first taste of chocolate would be at one of his birthday parties this year...I was wrong. He had his first taste on Saturday, completely by accident. I guess I had dropped some chocolate on the floor when I was breaking up the baking chocolate for the peppermint bark and Kalin found it. The only way we knew what he had done was by the chocolate around his mouth and on his hand. It's too bad we didn't get a picture of it. I guess he enjoyed it though.

We got our Christmas tree decorated on Sunday while Kalin was napping. When he woke up we turned off the lights in the house except for the Christmas tree lights so Kalin could get the full effect. He stared at all of the pretty lights for awhile before exploring. I've been re-organizing the tree today based on how high he can reach and where he tends to focus his attention. Breakables go up high and all the soft ornaments that I don't mind him playing with are on the bottom half of the tree. I love our tree. It's the perfect size for our little house. A cute little 5 footer. I figure I'll be re-decorating the tree a couple times every day as Kalin takes ornaments off to play with and I'll have to keep reminding him not to play with the lights but I'm ok with that. I can handle a little extra work for these next few weeks.

I actually got a few presents wrapped today too!! I'm so on top of things this year. Of course, I've only done about 10% of my holiday shopping but at least those gifts are wrapped and under the tree!!

As has become habit, I will leave you with a few observations:

When we were down in Hemet for Thanksgiving I got see my niece, Hailee, wave. She has the cutest little princess/Miss America wave. It's so sweet and dainty and she loves to display that skill!! Then we have Kalin. Kalin has a big, manly wave. He doesn't wave often but when he does, it involves his entire arm moving up and down.

Kalin's babbling and "talking" has definitely increased this past week. So I have been naming items more frequently and listening very closely to what he's "saying" to see if I can pick out any language patterns. I think he sometimes does say "Hi" and means it. We went to visit Kasey at work after our walk but Kasey was on the phone so we waited outside his office. Kalin got antsy in the stroller so I took him out to let him walk a little bit. He walked right into Kasey's office and said "Hi" (or what sounded very much like it). I'm getting very excited to hear his first words and to have him communicate with us in this way. Of course, as with all things in a baby's development, we could still be months away from this milestone.

I've only seen Kalin bleed a few times in his short life and it's always so sad. The first were the heel sticks in the hospital when he was only a couple days old. That was really sad because they had to stick him 3 or 4 times to get enough blood for the tests. Then there was the blood from the very first time I clipped his nails and accidently cut his little finger (oops!!). There's been a little blood from his shots but that's not too bad. A couple months ago though he had a bloody nose. I didn't see him fall and hit his face but that must have been what happened because he started crying so I picked him up to console him then noticed blood dripping out of his nose. That scared me for a second because I've never seen that much blood come out of him before. Thankfully, it stopped really fast. But today we had another incident with blood. He was leaning on his toy helicopter when it slipped out from under him causing his face to hit it and causing him to scream. At first I thought he just bumped his forehead but then he pulled his hand out of his mouth and there was blood on it. While he was screaming, Kasey and I were trying to console him, wipe the blood off him, and figure out what was bleeding. We were afraid he had knocked a tooth out because the blood seemed to be pooling up around his gums but we were glad to see that all 4 teeth were accounted for. Once we got him calmed down (using a teething ring, I don't know why that works but it works when he's just plain ol' cranky too) and cleaned up we noticed that he had bit his top lip. Poor little boy. I've done that many times and it is NOT fun!! I don't like to see him hurt but I guess it might be something I'll have to get used to. Given his genes and adventurous spirit, we might end up with a few broken bones before he's all grown up.

One of his favorite things to do today was to look at the world upside down. He would stand up and bend at the waist, putting his head on the ground, and stay like that for a few seconds. I guess he just thought things looked funny that way. Kasey asked him if he was going to be a center in football. He kept doing it though so I started to do it back to him and he got a big kick out of that. Then he started reaching back for thing between his legs which would throw him off-balance.