Funny is Funny

Don't think that Karissa, in all her innocence at 10 months of age, somehow learned this from her father. One day, actually more than a couple of weeks ago. Then, her brother was all too happy to join in. The video speaks for itself.

First Bath Together

Some things don't need a whole lot of descriptive dialogue. This is one of those. The video speaks for itself. Karissa is about to the point where she's outgrown a bath in the kitchen sink, and as it turns out - she loves the water just as much as her brother.



... And The Shiner
You may or may not be able to notice in the video a new shiner on Kole's eye. If not, I'll put the accompanying photo. On Monday, Kole got a little too frisky, which he is prone to do, and fell running for the back door - falling face-first into our Plantation shutters we have there. I'll go ahead and add one additional photo - the shutter that was also on the losing end of Kole's fall. He gave a good, hearty, full-throated cry, but it wasn't long before he was back up and shaking it off. A nice blue egg began quickly forming on the side of his eye. Another one of those It could have been worse scenarios, so we feel fortunate that this was the extent of the damage.

Stand For Something

This is it. This is the actual moment. Today at 1:55 pm, Karissa made her first successful solo stand upright. She's been grabbing onto things and getting up on her knees for a couple of weeks now. But today, after church, as Kat and I were essentially minding our own business knowing that she was in a little safe play area in the back of our living room, we first noticed her taking the assumed position with hands on the toy box. Without watching every moment, we turned our attention elsewhere. A few moments later we check on her and - boom - there she was, standing up.
Her first official pull-up comes at the age of 9 months, 18 days.
Kole's first pull-up was at 8 months, 24 days.
But, Karissa pulled another milestone of sorts - two on the same day. She's now cutting two more teeth. The two teeth on either side of her bottom two front teeth began poking through today. It's more than a relief to see, since Karissa has been going through some fairly uncharacteristic stuff the past week or two. One day she barely ate a thing, barely taking 10 ounces of formula through the day - though she does now also eat some solids, cereal, etc.
Still, an exciting twist to a pretty average day.

Taking a Stand and a Major Scare

Karissa is very close to pulling herself up on her own. If given a hand up on something to balance her weight, she normally can hold herself up for close to a minute before her little legs get wobbly and give way.
She now crawls with great ease, but it may not be what you'd call a true crawl on hands and knees. Her method is to outstretch her right arm, then with her grounded forearm as an anchor thrust herself forward. Her left arm is really a maimed flipper in this process, providing more balance than anything.
We have her first official crawl on video. I'm waiting to get her progression on tape in different intervals, then post it once she's really scooting along, to show the true evolution of her crawl.
Last night, Sunday, July 3, was an event I'll never forget. A bold statement, I know, as many episodes of the kids tend to disappear before too long. But not last night.
Kathy was putting Kole to bed and I was standing Karissa on my lap, which she loves to do. She loves being upright. I had had here there for more than 10 minutes, and had spent some good time with her doing that as we watched "True Grit" last night. But as Kathy was reading Kole a story in bed, I put Karissa down to wander around for a little bit and maybe tire out so she can take her last bottle and go to bed herself.
I heard her cough and looked down just quick enough to see that her face was red. Her mouth was open and she appeared as if she wanted to cough again but couldn't. I reached over quickly and grabbed her and put her on my lap. She provided a quick hack but her face was still beet red and a tear was rolling down a cheek. I put a finger in her mouth and swabbed across and made a sweep back and forth and felt nothing. Her face was still red and she didn't appear to be breathing.
I've had time to think about this. I keep rewinding my brain DVR over and over, replaying and pausing the events. I've had time to digest the entirety of the event, which will obviously have a happy ending. But at that moment, after swiping a finger through Karissa's mouth and finding nothing foreign, and still seeing her red and breathless - it was the most frightened, scared for my life, and freaked out I have ever been. Ever.
I am 40 years old and to my knowledge I have never broken a bone in my body. The few car bang-ups I've been a part of have never produced one drop of blood. I had a knife pulled on me as a threat, but from a distance. I had Malaria when I was 11 years old, but I was medically ignorant and did not know any significance of what was going on. I had chills and fever but never knew to be scared for my life. In hindsight, my life was never in danger.

And in a couple of eye-blink moments of Sunday I did fear for my life. Not just Karissa's life - she is my life, and I was worried stiff. So stiff - I choked, the metaphoric way. Something I didn't think I was capable of. If given the chance to strum the strings of my ego and play a song, it would include 20 years worth of making quick, decisive decisions, acting mostly on instinct and careful preparation and rough-sketched anticipation with accuracy that ranks in the narrow, front slopes of the bell curve. Making television production of sports look easy; spontaneous and unpredictable moments seem as if they were following a script, a camera always in the right place, pointing the right way.
But with the red-faced Karissa on my lap and after ruling out an impediment in her mouth, I freaked out. I swear I would have forgotten the number to call 911. Completely caught off guard and allowing Panic to knock over all the cool emotion characters in the room of my brain, I did the only sensible thing a person does with Panic at the helm of the ship. I screamed like a mental patient for Kathy. If I had kept my cool, I would have called for her in a raised voice - she was in another room on the other end of the house - but without fear in my voice that could get Kole concerned or freaked out.
No dice. I forget precisely what I said but I shouted for Kathy twice to come here NOW! Not a raised voice, but a shout dripping with panic.
Kathy appeared in the living room almost instantly. I had Karissa holding her like a football, my left hand holding up her chest as she was leaning over facing the floor - figuring that something could be jarred free from her throat or mouth and fall out. I gave some firm pats on the back, and I say pats because that's all I meant them to be. If there were a surveillance camera where I could truly rewind the DVR, I'm sure any reasonable person would not describe it as a "pat", but more of a pounding.
My heart was beating out of my chest as I handed her to Kathy - for no real reason except that maybe she had a better idea than me of what to do.
Kathy took Karissa and by the time she was seated I could see that Karissa was obviously breathing - maybe she had been while I had her and couldn't see to tell - she was moving her mouth, she was swallowing, she was crying. There were at least 20 more seconds of tension to see what might be the issue. Just a couple of days previous, Karissa quite casually spit up, if not a full vomit, and there was some sort of piece of paper in it. She didn't seem at all upset by it, but it was a lot of spit-up/vomit that got all over her. It was a convenient lesson that there are small innocuous things all over the floor that she may put in her mouth.
This episode, in the end, produced absolutely nothing ... besides two extremely nervous parents and a heart rate for the father that is close to getting back to normal. We watched her carefully for the next few minutes, but it appeared to be nothing. She either swallowed whatever had been an obstruction, or perhaps she just gagged on her own saliva or another toy. All she had around her before this started was a big stuffed animal. There were no other little toys or Legos or anything around. I can't think of what it could have been. But, however it happened, it passed. Karissa's color turned normal. Kathy eventually allowed herself to cool off.
What do I say now - False alarm?
It didn't feel like it. That was Level 10 panic. It's disappointing I didn't pass it like I would have liked to. But it's a relief that it wasn't anything beyond a really big scare.

3 Years / 9 Months

Kole and Karissa had a joint doctor's appointment yesterday. It was Kole's 3-year check-up and Karissa's 9-month. Here's the stats:
Kole
Weight: 34 pounds (75%)
Height: 39.5 inches (90%) this was his very first vertical measurement. All others had been done laying down, head to heal.
Karissa
Weight: 18 pounds, 12 ounces (85%)
Length: 28.75 inches (50%)
Head: 43.5 cm (30%)

Obviously, Kole is still ahead of the game on the growth chart, in comparison with other boys his same age in the US. Karissa is pretty much average, though she's slightly on the full-figured side. Her head measures 43.5 centimeters around, which puts her in the 30% range - meaning 70% of US girls her same age have a larger head.

This is the result of her misshapen head that we got the helmet to help correct. That experiment is now over. A day before her 9-month check-up, Karissa had her final visit with Cranial Technologies where final castings and pictures were taken. The first shot really isn't to show much of her head shape changing, but to show how much SHE changed in such a short time. Such a noticeable addition of darker hair. And she's able to hold her head up a little better than she did when she was just a 6-month old. They had to wet her hair down to better show the shape of the skull, so her little fluffy chick feathers aren't prominent here.
The most telling shot of how her head changed the most is the bird's-eye shot - but really, the picture doesn't do the change justice. It's more of a thing you had to see for yourself to really know the difference. Photos are limited to just one dimension, but if you really had a good study of the top of Karissa's head before and after, the difference is pretty significant.

As noted above, her head circumference is 43.5 centimeters, which is on the smaller side for her age. But as she grows older her head will fill out - as will her hair, and no one will know a lick of difference anyways.
What's more important is that she's totally, 100% healthy and happy. She makes little teepees on her hands and feet - not quite crawling, and not quite standing up, but she definitely wants to be upright even if it's only her butt sticking up in the air. She has event shown the ability to grab hold of the coffee table or a chair leg or crib rail and attempt to pull herself up.
She is slowly getting more gabby, and her front four teeth shine when she giggles. She cuddles. She sees you from across the room and smiles and flaps her arms. She was such an unexpected surprise, I guess it was 18 months ago when we were first clued in to her arrival, but she is such an integral and special part of our lives. Kole is the squeaky wheel that gets the majority of the grease. He is 3 and needs attention and engaging most of the time. And then there's the little princess, quietly nibbling on a toy, disinterested in the chaos her brother is stirring up, waiting to lock eyes and acknowledge that she is content.
She is a joy to be around.