It's Truly Summer

"Welcome to my summer home!"

The heat wave has come upon us here in San Diego. This is what we have been waiting for all summer. We have been spending more of our days outside, enjoying nature. (Can't complain since all those poor folks on the east coast are getting hit with Hurricane Irene. We really hope all our friends and family in the east are doing fine in the midst of the storm.)

We have been taking weekly trips to the zoo, but Kalista has also taken a liking to the playground at her school (Alcott Elementary). Her teacher, Jodi, told us about it before summer break started, so we checked it out. It was designed for the little kids in mind by the occupational and physical therapists at the school. Kali loves every inch of the playground.

Practicing her game of Tic-Tac-Toe

Getting over her fear of the tunnel

Swinging like a monkey again?

When we're not outside, we have been working on other fun projects. Jen attempted to join the world in the cake pop sensation. Let's just say it was an EPIC FAIL. Evidently, the secret to awesome looking cake pops is to add a scoop or bar of Crisco. (It was a surprise to even find out that Crisco came in bars.) Here are the results of the "epic fail":

Not bad for the first time! We'll call them Mummy Pigs

Oh..found this picture while we were pruning our albums. We went to Souplantation sometime last week or the week before and there was a balloon magician. We watched Balloon Wizard create balloon sculptures in minutes...boom...boom...boom, a Mickey Mouse Hat, a monkey on a vine and a whole lot more. Since Kali loves dogs, he made one for her. We all watched in amazement. Kali loved it so much that she decided to wear it.

I love it!!!

Teething Woes

We started off the week with Kalista's one year pediatrician appointment for her S-H-O-T-S. We suppose from this point on, we will be spelling out key words to protect Kalista's little ears. So needless to say, she got her infamous vaccinations. As usual, she was fine throughout it all.

Oh my, those little teeth are sharp!! Kalista is teething and trying to put everything in her mouth. As you can tell in this picture below, she is trying to eat our furniture since her teething biscuit didn't do the trick.


Putting Orajel on her gums has been tricky since she will take a bite of you with her new pearly whites on the bottom. And like we've said before...those two little things are sharp! We LOVE the nighttime strength Orajel since it is a blessing. Kalista no longer wakes up in the middle of the early morning crying from the pain. Those three o'clock morning wake ups seem to make mom an ogre beast for the rest of the day. Watch out Shrek!



The positive thing about teething is her increased her appetite to gnaw on almost anything. Healthy foods are obviously not on that list.....except carrot sticks. That apparently is still the exception to the rule.


Now that she can make decisions, she will often take her non-favorite foods and feed them to the dogs. She will either drop them over her high chair and look down to see if Joey and Bella will fight for it or she will sneak it under her tray so they can come up and get it from her. When we catch her in the act, she gives us this look. It is exactly the one you see above in the picture--we call it the "who me?" look.

We have good news! Kalista's teacher, Jodi, came early this week along with Linda, the school speech and language therapist. She told us that Kalista is on track with her speech and language development, even though she has not been getting the same oral input (meaning eating, sucking, swallowing) as her peers. That was very reassuring to know, since research has been shown that non-oral experience can delay speech development in some kids. We knew Kalista was going to be a chatter box someday.



We had our OT/feeding therapy this morning and we have found a common thread in everything that Kalista likes to "eat". They all seem to be solid and very flavorful. She loves the taste of Doritos Nacho Cheese chips, pretzel sticks, Veggie Stix and Fruit-by-the-Foot (since it is attached to paper). We know it all sounds like junk food, but we are happy that she puts any food into her mouth. Earlier this evening, Kalista decided to venture into uncommon area and accepted baby corn back into her circle of trust and honeydew for the first time. We also noticed that if we use "adult" utensils instead of her own cute, bright colored plastic kid version, then she is more willing to try. What a D-I-V-A!

Our OT and probably parents across the world would cringe at the sight of the next few pictures. We really are not raising a junk food addict, but it was too funny not to capture it on camera.

It has been a long discussion in OT about Kalista not wanting to drink from all five different sippy cups that we have for her. They all have something different about them: sippy lip/no sippy lip, silicone/plastic, handle/no handle...you get it. We've even tried cold, ice cold, room temperature and warm beverages with no success. So...it just so happened that we had just finished drinking a can of soda and rested the can on the coffee table. Our little protester of sippy cups decides to cruise herself over to the table, takes the empty soda can and tries it out for herself. Yah....explain that one!

(Um yeah...no endorsements here...right?)

The funny thing is that it looks like she has mastered the art of drinking from a can.

Playgroups and More

Hello everyone! We have had one very busy week. Grandma Evelyn and Grandpa David were in town for the first half of the week. It was great having a few extra hands around the house. We love visitors...especially family. Kalista loved spending time with her grandparents. She also had a chance to spend time with her cousin, Lexington, over the weekend. He turned one this past December...so they are close in age.

What else have we been up to? Well....we have been doing some mini renovations all over the house and moving furniture around. In the process, we decided to convert our living room into a large play room. It seems to be a big hit for the little one. She loves spending time playing with all her toys and flipping through her books. Kalista has also started a new phase in self exploration. She can't seem to get enough of the buttons and zippers on her clothes. She has also found her belly and rubs it like Buddha sometimes. It's actually pretty cute when she does it!


This past Wednesday, Jen and Kalista finally made it to the bimonthly "Baby and Me" playgroup at a local elementary school. They got to meet some great moms and babies. They even met up with Kalista's teacher over there. Kalista instantly recognized Miss Jodi to give her a hug. She had a blast and tired herself out, as she fell asleep on the way home. As usual, she was quite the social butterfly that day and made a lasting impression on many.

The Weekend Already?

It is a restful weekend all right. Matt and Kali are picking up Matt's parents in Los Angeles this weekend and bringing them down to San Diego for the week. Jen is holding down the fort and caring for the dogs, since it is wet and wild here with the recent storms.

Kalista attended her first individual occupational therapy session this past Thursday and cried through most of it since she is just in that phase. We swear she does eat and drink at home. Occupational therapy via Skype may be the answer...too bad OT involves hands-on activities with Kalista though....doh!

Kalista and her teacher, Ms. Jodi, get along very well and we have been working on a little sign language, mirror play and possibly getting Kalista more mobile on a scooter board. Jen found a great deal on a plant stand on wheels at IKEA for under $5....so we'll see if that will work for now. We are thinking since Kalista doesn't want to crawl, she can sit on the scooter board and use her legs to scoot around the house. Obviously, we want her crawl, but that tummy sure gets in the way when she stretches out her legs. She is definitely motivated to get going, we just need to find a way. She is starting to hop on her butt to get from one spot to another. It works but it takes 15 minutes to get 3 inches....not very efficient.