Kayleigh started smiling at 4.5 weeks old. Her favorite person to smile at is my dad, who can just look at her and receive a big grin. The rest of us have to talk, sing, coo, and pull faces at her to maybe get a smirk.

Over the last week and a half we have spent a lot of time trying everything we can to produce a smile. It's been a lot of fun and is getting better as her smiles have become more frequent.

She is starting to stay awake a little more now, sleeping maybe only 16 hours a day, rather than 20. She is still proving to be a very laid-back, easy-going kid.

Eyebrows and eyelashes are starting to fill in. (I was shocked when she was born with both nearly indiscernible!)

She is holding her head up very well - up and steady for about 5-8 seconds at a time - and she loves being held upright to look at everything, which is also a sign that she is seeing more and more.

We don't know how much she weighs right now, but she has definitely grown quite a bit - length-wise and width-wise. To my utter delight, she has developed fantastic "pinch me" cheeks where if you look at her profile, you can't see her lips and can barely see the tip of her nose, as they are hidden behind chubby cheeks. I LOVE babies with ample cheeks! Abby sometimes greets Kayleigh in the afternoons during pick-up from daycare with a squeeze of those delicious cheeks. :)

I'm having a hard time believing that Kayleigh has been with us for a month now. Time flies when you're having fun...how true!

Kayleigh's what we're considering a textbook baby. All of those books you read about regarding what parents should do to get that perfect baby so that they may all survive until the first birthday used to irk me because I figured only 5% of it actually pertained to less than 1% of all babies. Things like sleeping through the night by 3 weeks old, feeding on a set schedule, (here's the kicker) falling asleep after being laid down awake, etc., have all been shockingly mastered by Kayleigh.

Ok, things aren't perfect, but close enough. Only a couple of little things make parenting Kayleigh a tad difficult. For one, Kayleigh is an eager feeder and still doesn't always latch on well, requiring adjustments, which irritate her because, well, she's an eager feeder. Despite her eagerness, though, she tends to fall asleep almost 5 minutes into a feed, so we have gotten a stack of tricks for keeping her awake. The most annoying one, which we save as a last resort is wetting her face with some water and blowing on it. As our pediatrician advised, "think of ways to make her cry." The most annoying little Kayleigh "thing" is that the slightest wet diaper causes her to scream her head off. We went through 60 diapers in her first 3 days of life. As a result, we have ventured into cloth diapering in an effort to save our bank accounts! (More on cloth diapering in a separate post.)

So, in the past month, I have been doing a modified version of the Chinese post-partum confinement known as "doing the month." (We're modifying the traditional rules because most of them are just ridiculous and impractical in the busy, modern world. Things like not washing your hair for 1 month or strict confinement for the month - not possible with all the doctor's appointments and family activities.) My mom has provided an endless amount of delicious food - mainly broths and porridge - which have contributed to aiding recovery. I have stayed away from "cold" foods and have pretty much stayed home or at least indoors to prevent exposure to germs (for Kayleigh) and from wind (for both Kayleigh and me). A theory behind doing the month stems from maintaining the hot-cold balance of the body. During pregnancy, with the excess blood circulation, the body is considered hot. After delivery, the body is cold due to the significant reduction in blood, so in order to restore balance, nourishment and physical exposure need to be hot. The concept of hot and cold doesn't necessarily imply temperature, though. For example, ginger root with the skin on it is considered a cold food, but without the skin, it is considered hot. A clementine orange is considered cold, yet a Sunkist naval orange is considered hot. I'm thankful that my mom is here to guide me, since there is no way I can keep any of this straight in my head! In the meantime, I'm consuming copious amounts of delicious 8 Treasure Porridge, fresh soy milk, soy beans and spareribs broth, and Pig's Feet and Peanuts Stew....yum!

Kayleigh is doing great health-wise. Both Abby and Paul came down with colds which have persisted through the last couple of weeks, but both Kayleigh and I have managed to avoid getting sick. Since her cord stump fell off at day 11, we have been bathing her about twice a week, but since the weather is so dry here, she has developed some annoying dandruff and flaky skin over the last couple of weeks. With all the dry skin/eczema problems we have had to deal with with Abby, we are trying our best to keep Kayleigh moisturized.

All in all, we have had no issues adjusting to the new addition to the family. She is such an easy- going, mellow baby that our activities have not been disrupted much at all.

I have been enjoying staying at home and do not miss work at all yet. It's been fantastic to be able to spend more time with Abby and she sure keeps me busy!

The above is a picture of Abby with Kayleigh. Every evening, she asks us to put Kayleigh in her Gymini so that she can play with her. Abby will dangle toys in front of Kayleigh's face or dance around her trying to get her to move her head around.

This picture reflects how I feel about the fact that my baby is growing up too, too fast!!

Abigail's daycare throws a Spring Fling every year to raise money for a couple of local charities. Families buy tickets to participate in various activities and enjoy a dinner served at the school. Activities include face-painting, gymnastics on the Fun Bus, a jumping castle, duck "hunting", and many sports and games.

For the past month, families from each classroom have helped to create gift baskets for a silent auction. Also, families were asked to donate cakes or other sweets for the cake walk. As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, Abby won one of these cakes!

These pictures of Abby and her cousin, Annette, were taken April 24th by Annette's mom. Annette's family came to Colorado for a wedding (Uncle Jim and Val's) and they stopped by our house in Castle Rock before we all drove up to Denver for the ceremony and reception.

These two girls have only met a couple of times and yet they seem like best friends. I love these photos of the two of them.

We have been getting together for play dates with the Fishers and last Wednesday we enjoyed a tea party with the girls.

While the babies - Cameron is 9 weeks old and Kayleigh is 3 weeks old - slept most of the time, Gwen and Abby ran around the Fisher's backyard playing with bubbles and the sandbox.


Cameron (left) and Kayleigh

I made mini egg salad sandwiches and they were served with decaf mango tea as well as strawberry wafer cookies, strawberry Pocky sticks, chocolate chip cookies, and mini chocolate eclairs.

It was so much fun to enjoy a tea party lunch with the girls!





Tea Time!


They weren't trying to strangle each other - they were going for hugs!