Kessman

Semblance of Sanity

There’s a lot to report on the Kessler front! First, there hasn’t been much sanity to go around in my little world. Kessler was waking up between 5:45 and 7:00 a.m. at the latest. Even at 7:00 a.m., I just wasn’t ready for it. I haven’t been sleeping well, so I thought I was just tired. Even still, Mark gets up at 5:30, so I should definitely be able to handle anything later. I finally realized it wasn’t just that he was waking up earlier than I’d like it was that he was waking up quite upset. Often times he wanted to be held, but not while sitting. The day just seemed to go downhill from then on. Anyway, I resolved to get up earlier than him so that I could be mentally ready for it. I did this for about two days and it was great. Then, Kessler started to get up later and later. For the last week he’s slept in until 8:00 most days. A few days I had to wake him up at 8:45 so that I could get Makena to school. AND, when he wakes up he starts talking and talking and talking. It’s so sweet. When I get him from his crib he’s so much happier. Mark and I were even able to sleep in this weekend—though neither of could, it was nice to have a lazy morning for a change. In addition, Kessler has started doing marathon naps, up to four hours at times. I cannot begin to tell you how much better this has made my life (more the sleeping in than the extended naps). I don’t think I’ve completely realized it all yet (I’m very slow that way).

Speaking of naps, two days before Kessler extended his from 45 minutes to four hours, Makena stopped altogether. I thought this was going to be a problem but Makena is so beautiful and it’s nice that she has sometime to play without Kessler jumping all over her.

Kessler’s First Haircut

First, I forgot to bring the camera to Kessler's haircut!! The good/bad thing was that he cried from the time we put him in his little red convertible barber seat until about the time we strapped him in his car seat. Mark and I had to hold him down nearly the entire time while the wonderful stylist quickly made him look like a little man. So, there wouldn’t have been any good photos anyway. Does that make you feel better? Not me. Oh well. Here is our little stud:



Can we breathe now?

With Makena it was easy to commit to having our new life with child resemble our old life without. We still ate and traveled just as always. It wasn’t as easy, and some times were far worse than others, but as a whole it was fine. We definitely felt that keeping her in practice was better than locking ourselves inside. With Kessler we have had to make some changes. This is partially because Makena isn’t completely self sufficient yet but also because he is quite a bit harder to handle. He doesn’t like to sit still for long and the simple distraction techniques that worked on Makena do not work on him. We’ve definitely curbed the traveling and we’ve stopped going to nicer places to eat. But, we still go out, often with dread. We decided to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium today. It took us about two hours to get there, but it wasn’t too bad. Makena and I went to get a sucker (she remembered having one last time we were there in July). Mark and Kessler went to the otter exhibit. We returned to find Kessler glued to the glass. He was pointing and twisting and “talking” away. He didn’t want to miss a thing. We stayed there for several minutes before deciding to move on. He cried and made it very clear that he did not want to leave. We took him to the next big exhibit with sharks, cod and eel, etc—same reaction from Kess. He absolutely loved it. He would point and look at Mark and babble with amazement. We were elated to see him so interactive. I'm hoping we've turned a corner and can start looking forward to trips out of the house again.





We went for a short walk after leaving the aquarium. It was raining pretty hard, but we had such nice day we didn’t want it to end. I had to put Makena’s jacket on so Mark and Kessler went ahead of us. Again..the sweetest thing:






This was taken a little later:



I'm so glad things are getting a little easier.