Happy Birthday Caitlyn!

Caitlyn had a wonderful first birthday party with the Edwards/Khoo families. To much of our surprise, she held up extremely well even as the party surpassed her usual nap time. It must have been all the excitement (or the sugar!) that kept her going. She was a very gracious host, walking from room to room to say hi to everyone and then stealing some food morsel off of a plate. Of course, the birthday cake was a huge hit with Caitlyn and she definitely scored big time on the presents. Thanks to everyone for coming and sharing this special day with us.

Click on the albums below and check out the pics from the party as well as a few others from this Fall (including Caitlyn’s Halloween costume. Her mother is partial to panda bears.)

Caitlyn's First Birthday

Fall pics and Halloween '08

11 months and counting...

Caitlyn has started a couple of ‘classes’ this Fall. On Monday, Jaety takes her to the YMCA for swimming. We’re not quite sure what her feelings are on swimming – she seems anxious to get in the water but once in, she puts on a very stoic face. She’s definitely not a big fan of lying on her back in the pool– with every attempt, Caitlyn’s legs are straight up in the air in the pike position as if she didn’t want to get them wet. But she has yet to cry or really fuss much when she’s in the water.

Caitlyn is demonstrating a real love for music and bops to the beat of the alphabet song nearly every time. (Uncle Peter would be very proud of the video below.) We play her music class CD in the car every time (God help us) and she seems to be recognizing the tunes. Her particular favorite is “Itsy Bitsy Spider” – she even tries to make the coordinating hand motions though at this point, all she does is raise her hands in the air.




The cuteness quotient has bumped up the past couple of months as Caitlyn is really into ‘hugging’ her stuffed animals and people. (See videos below.)







While she’s not running any sprints yet, I think we can say that Caitlyn has legitimately started to walk. She has grouped a few steps together – at first, this seemed to be happening once every 3-4 days but now, it’s happening 3-4 times a day. Just the other day, she walked from our oven to the fridge like a pro. Unfortunately, it’s been tough to catch on film since she seems to be more interested in the camera than anything else. We’ll try again next month.

September pics

Standing Tall

Unfortunately, we slacked off on the pictures this month but hopefully, we’ve made up for it with this cute little video of Caitlyn using her walker. She loves it and zooms around the kitchen and family rooms. We wish she was a bit better at steering though – once Caitlyn hits a barrier (which is about every 10 seconds or so), she’ll look to us with those big brown eyes to fix it and send her on her way.




Caitlyn has also started to stand on her own and (gasp!) even taken a step or two.

She did give us a bit of scare late last month when her temperature spiked to 102.5 seemingly in a matter of minutes. Caitlyn never likes to sit still and it was probably one of the few times when all she wanted was for us to hold and hug her. We definitely got our hugs in. Thirty-six hours later, she was fine.

Poor Caitlyn -- On our way to the pediatrician

September should be a busy month. Caitlyn starts swimming classes on Mondays and a music class on Wednesdays. With playgroup on Thursdays, she'll be a busy baby. We'll bring our camera.

Beach Blanket Baby

The big news this month was our week-long trip to Cape Cod, Caitlyn's first big vacation. We rented a house in Truro, MA with Caitlyn's Godfather Geordie, his wife Julie and their daughter Sophie who's just 10 days older than Caitlyn. As you can see from the following clip, the two little girls enjoyed running each other ragged!



One of the perks of Truro is that there's a calm bay on one side, big ocean waves on the other and even a string of pretty fresh-water ponds. While the girls weren't quite ready for the big waves, they both really enjoyed the bay and especially the pond. Jaety even dunked Caitlyn, who took it surprisingly well with a little spluttering but no crying.

Caitlyn learned a few tricks from Sophie such as asking for "brie" and cruising. And of course, Caitlyn's daredevil contribution was learning to climb stairs which Sophie soon followed. Neither set of parents were so sure about that achievement.

The four parents even had a chance to head out on our own -- we found a babysitter for two nights and had two amazing dinners. All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we're already searching for our next destination.

In other news, Caitlyn's growing leaps and bounds. At her 9 month checkup, she was off the charts tall at 30 inches, but weighed in at a modest 18 pounds, 1 ounce, just under the 50th percentile. She's a long, lean crawling machine! We've been furiously babyproofing, trying to keep one step ahead of her. That may get even more difficult soon, since her pediatrician bets she'll be walking within the month.

Cape Cod - July '08 Click for more pictures

"Will you be my friend?"

Joka's been keeping us company this week, and she is Caitlyn's new best friend. Caitlyn squeals whenever she sees her and follows her everywhere. Joka's been a really good sport.

Thrilled and Terrified

On her 8 month birthday, Caitlyn greeted her parents by pulling herself up to a standing position. Her Mom and Dad were in the kitchen preparing Caitlyn’s breakfast when they saw two eyes peering over the ottoman. Oh, how cute…Caitlyn’s on her knees. But then she just kept rising, nonchalantly pulling herself up to a standing position! Ever since, Caitlyn has been pulling herself up on anything and everything – tables, chairs, her learn and groove table and numerous other toys which aren’t meant to be pulled up on. She greets her parents in the morning (and after every nap) by standing in her crib and giving a pseudo wave. Her Mom and Dad are thrilled by Caitlyn’s latest accomplishments, but also terrified by what lies just around the corner: cruising, walking, climbing! If she’s anything like her Dad, we’ll find her up on the dining room table by month nine.

In the meantime, Caitlyn’s preferred mode of travel is still the commando crawl. She’s gotten so good at it, her Mom thinks Caitlyn will bypass real crawling and go straight from that to walking. Still, the wounded soldier crawl gets her all over the house. Favorite tourist attractions include shoes, purses, air conditioning grates (see video below) and yes, electrical cords. Every day she helpfully points out new things for her Dad to babyproof.

In other news, Caitlyn still sleeps like a gem (12-14 hours a night!), can get herself in the sitting position on her own (though she doesn’t like to sit still for long), is obsessed with Cheerios and now has a second tooth poking through.

June pics Click for more pictures

We were torn. Should we stop her or break out the video camera and preserve the moment for later teenage blackmail?

Caitlyn, our intrepid explorer, ascends to the high plains of Mount Ottoman.

Why crawl on all fours when you can dust the floor as you go?

A Month of Many Firsts

In her seventh month, Caitlyn is really starting to locomote. She constantly rolls around the room or drags herself with her right elbow (this might be a form of crawling..hard to tell now.) And scary enough, she is already attempting to pull herself up on the furniture. Thankfully, she hasn't been successful yet. With the exception of having food in front of her or watching the occasional Baby Einstein video, Caitlyn just can't sit still. Babyproofing the house is in the near future.

In addition to some of the physical milestones, Caitlyn also went through a lot of other 'firsts' this month, namely:

1) First plane ride to Austin, TX so that Geraldine and Jaety could attend a wedding. (Thankfully, Nana and Gramps came along to babysit.) We also introduced Caitlyn to family friends, Mike and Cathy Giordano and Tara Dudley and her 5-month daughter, Zoya.

2) Also in Austin, Caitlyn uttered her first syllable, "Da Da Da." While Geraldine found it cute the first couple of times, she's ready for Caitlyn to move onto other consonants, namely, "Ma Ma Ma."

3) Jaety also took Caitlyn swimming for the first time. (Austin was nearly 100 degrees everyday!) She seemed confused by the event, but at least she didn't cry.

4) Caitlyn's first tooth is on its way out. You can see and feel it cutting through her gums. To help with the pain, Jaety and Geraldine gave Caitlyn her first, second and third french fries.

May Pics Click here for more photos

Tickle me Caitlyn...

Happy Half Birthday!

Caitlyn turned 6 months old this month weighing in at 16 pounds 11 ounces and 27 inches long. She’s in the 75th percentile in weight and head circumference and 90th percentile in height. There goes Geraldine’s theory that she perhaps lost weight or plateaued since her 4 month checkup. Her favorite food? Probably bananas and yogurt. And as you can probably tell from the pictures, she seems to think she can absorb food through her skin.

Rolling over is her new trick. She rolls to get to things and the objects of choice include her Mozart Music Cube, a remote control, rubber ducks and tags. Her newfound talent, however, makes diapering rather interesting…between her trying to roll over while we’re changing a poopy diaper or trying to stick her whole foot into her mouth, we're wishing we had a third hand at times.

April pics Click here for more pictures

March Update

Caitlyn loves her food -- as Jaety says, "She's definitely a Khoo." We Khoos enjoy our food in obscene quantities. Unfortunately though, she tends to bat away her bottle (full of nutritious, calorie-packing, well balanced formula) in favor of 'people' food. So far, she's scarffed down avocado, bananas, carrots and squash. And, there has never been a time when she's turned away a spoon -- we usually feed her until she finishes the entire meal. We have to keep an eye on Caitlyn whenever we are all at a table 'cause the little one will definitely try and swipe some food if given the opportunity.

Her physical milestone this month? Well, today, she rolled over from her back onto her tummy though she couldn't figure out how to get one arm out from under her body. Time will tell if this was just a fluke or is legitimately a new 'trick.' She's also started making some threats to crawl but has yet to really advance forward. The motions are all there though. We are all anxious to see what else she's got planned for us in the next month.

Thanks for checking in!

March Pics (click photo for more pictures)

4 months already....

Believe it or not, Caitlyn turned 4-months old last weekend. At her check-up, she weighed in at 14 pounds, 15 ounces and 25 1/4 inches long. She's in the 80th percentile in height, weight and head cirumcumference...she's one very consistant and proportioned gal.

We got the go ahead to start some rice-cereal with her since Caitlyn has been staring intently at what Geraldine's been eating and so far, so good. Most of it actually manages to make it into her mouth. With the above average drooling, tugging at ears and hands in the mouth, it appears Caitlyn is also in the early stages of teething. Poor girl has been trying to put anything in her mouth to stop the pain.

On the brighter side, she's been doing very well sleep-wise recently, giving us an 11-hour span a few nights ago. At the most, she gets up once in a 12 hour span for a total of 3-5 minutes. She even manages to entertain herself (albeit noisily) early in the mornings before we are ready to get her. We hope this isn't a fluke.

February pics (click photo for more pictures)

The best medicine

What's so funny? We don't know.

Roll Over, Roll Over

The first step towards gymnastics olympic gold? (Turn on sound for maximum effect)

A couple of weeks ago, friends from California (Alan, Neary, Sinclair and Jamie) made the trek out to New Canaan to visit us and meet Caitlyn. It was great to see them again and we can't wait for the next reunion (perhaps at Alan and Neary's wedding out in CA.)

In other news, Caitlyn had her 3-month check-up last week and has already more than doubled her birth weight. She weighed in at 13 lbs, 11 ounces and is 24 1/2" long. That puts her in the 75th-90th percentile in weight and 75th percentile in height. She has rolled over a number of times from her tummy to back (the extra weight provides momentum) and is smiling a ton. And for some reason, she tends to laugh hysterically when Geraldine feeds her. We also think she's very chatty. Hmmm....wonder where she gets that from. Enjoy the pics!

Visit from CA friends (click photo for more pictures)

Caitlyn's Christening

On Sunday, January 13th, Caitlyn donned a beautiful white gown and matching bonnet, and proceeded to St. Aloysius to get dunked in holy water. Well, really, she just had a little splashed on her forehead by the priest, along with some blessed oil as well. In other words, Caitlyn's been baptised. Her godparents, Tricia and Geordie joined us at the altar, while four generations worth of family members looked on. Afterwards, we had a great celebration back at Jaety's parents house.

Christening (click photo for more pictures)

Our first Christmas with Caitlyn was great. On Christmas eve, all of Geraldine's family came over for our first meal in the dining room. Then Christmas day, we had brunch and presents in front of the tree, and then off to Nana and Gramps Edwards' house for a second round of presents and dinner. All around, a great two days.

Christmas 2007