Kaiya’s First Year: Week 9

By far the most exciting news to come down this week is that we’ve been given the go ahead by Vibhu’s boss and most importantly, the US consulate to go home to California for the holidays. We spent a long day in Vancouver last week shuffling papers, standing in lines, and answering questions in front of officials. But it’s all paid off, as Kaiya has a visa for India and has been registered as a US citizen, and Vibhu has a delightful sticker in his passport that will allow him to come into the US for the next 10 years! So we’ll be embarking on the 16 hour drive south next week and spending the last two weeks of December at home in California!

Kaiya’s Big Leaps this Week:

• She has almost figured out how to roll over. She gets 3/4 of the way from her back to her tummy, but can’t quite figure out how to get her arm unstuck from underneath her. She usually gets frustrated, or maybe just uncomfortable, and rolls back up onto her side.

• Kaiya is doing great again with letting us know when its time to pee. She went through a period of about 2 weeks when she completely stopped telling us she had to go and would just pee on herself regardless of if we were nearby or not. During these two weeks I watched her closely to try and figure out if her communication had changed or if I just wasn’t tuned into her enough. Turns out she had just put EC on temporary pause while her little brain was preoccupied with other big developmental changes. She’s right back on track now with her little yelps and squeals to let us know when its time to go. And even before she gives a cue, we often know she has to go just by the expression on her face. We’ve gone from washing her cloth diapers every other day to every third to fourth day, which means we’re definitely catching more pees and the occasional poo!

• Kaiya was given her very first Christmas present from our good friend Rob and his daughter Sarah. Until now, Kaiya has not shown much interest in toys or stuffed animals, preferring instead to stare at hands, faces, and lights. But the soft teddy bear they gave her has piqued her interest big time, and she loves to reach out and touch it, stare at its cute face, and of course, have long, babbling conversations with it about what’s going on in her life. It’s pretty adorable.

• Kaiya’s favorite thing to do this week is experiment with her voice. She loves to hear the different noises that she can make, from high pitched yelps, to belly laughs, and everything in between. We’ve managed to capture some on video to immortalize her first baby babbles.

Kaiya’s first visit with Mr. Claus