Kioko Kilonzo

It seems hard to believe that 8 days ago, in about 3 hours, we went from this.......

July 1, 2015 5 AM

39 weeks, 2 day

(blurry iPhone photo taken in a rush before the hospital)

To this........

July 1, 2016 -- 8 something AM

Kioko Kilonzo Mulandi

7 pounds 10 ounces

20 inches

8:13 AM

Kioko is a Kamba (Dexter's tribe) word meaning 'born in the morning' (turns out it is also a Japanese name meaning 'Meets the world with happiness' I'll take it!).  Kilonzo is Dexter's Dad's name.  Also, amazingly, July 1 is his birthday.  When picking the C-section date, that never crossed either of our minds.  A happy coincidence.  I hope Kioko can meet his namesake some day (soon).

Since I had a C-Section, delivery was easy and smooth.  The hardest was getting the spinal for the anesthesia.  Kioko was a little cool, temperature wise, so they cleaned him up and put him on my chest ASAP to try to warm him up.  Other than that, though, he passed all his tests and was perfect.  Once they moved me into the recovery room, he latched right on and promptly nursed for an hour!  I am so thankful that all three of my babies have been good nursers right from the start.  There is so much to be thankful for.

My first sight of Kioko.  Our lips kind of match.

Operating Room photo.

This was cool - this year, instead of having a cloth drape between the doctors and me, there was a plastic sheet, so I could see the doctors, and the baby as soon as he came out.  I couldn't see them operating (because, no thank you), but could still see them, see the baby right away, etc.  

My parents came up from MA to be with the Kyalo & Malaikah in the morning, and then to whisk them off to MA for several days so I could recover/adjust to a new baby/settle in at home a little bit.  I don't have the words for what a gift that was.  Before they left, though, they came and visited us in the hospital.

 flowers in her hair from Kyalo

Malaikah meeting Kioko.  She wasn't too sure about it all.

While I still recovering in the room, my legs were jumping all over the place, as if they had a mind of their own.  The nurse told me to stop doing that, but when I told her I had no control, she got a little worried.  Thankfully it did end on its own, but it was pretty amusing while it lasted.

Kioko was well bundled while in the hospital, but that didn't stop him from doing a cluster feed the first night.  I don't think either of the other two ever did that.  If we never go through that again, that'd be good.

Kioko was the lightest and longest of the three.  20 inches long seems quite long, and I wonder if he'll have some of the height that his Mering family has (not me sadly - Uncle Adam and Grandpa).  Also, it seems hard to know who he looks like.  The overall consensus seems to be like my dad.  Another surprise is that (so far) he has straight hair!  He has a tiny bit more than Malaikah, and it seems darker. But it hasn't yet shown any signs of curling.  Wonder what will happen.  There's no way it will stay straight.

After two days, they let us go home! 

On day four, I put him in the 'Silly' out fit that both Malaikah & Kyalo wore.  Had to be done.

There they all are!

This is one of my all time favorite pics of Kyalo.  

Who do you think Kioko looks like?  Maybe Malaikah?

I really love baby feet (who doesn't?)

 look at those legs!  Where did they come from?

here he is in his new car seat.  so tiny!

The big kids came home on Thursday night and we're easing into this new reality.  It isn't easy!  But we're getting the hang of it.  I think.

July 9, 2016

So that's it.  Tomorrow Dexter goes back to work, so it will really be the beginning of the new reality.   The biggest bummer is that because of the C-Section, I'm not supposed to lift Malaikah for six week. That'll be impossible, but will do my best. 

We got this.

21 months

Well, this is it.  The last update before our feisty girl is a big sister!  I can't believe it.  (Nor can I believe we're down to 2 weeks!)

This post is delayed, in part, because Malaikah had a 3-day fever situation.  There were no other symptoms (cough, vomit, teeth) but by Saturday she just seemed more lethargic so off we went to the doctor.

Thankfully,  she recovered well!

A bonus of going to the doctor is that she got weighed...24 pounds, 1 ounce.

This month she cut three (or four!) new teeth.  She was a big drooly mess for a few days, but otherwise seemed OK.  She's added a few more words (or half words), 'NO' (with a strong shake of the head and arm crossing)is a new favorite.  'Bo' for her bath tub boat, 'Hi' etc.  It does feel like every day a little more is coming.

The girl has attitude and personality up to the sky.  I offered her some crackers the other day, but she had seen the cookies I'd made over the weekend so of course she wanted those.  Still, I gave her the cracker. She dropped it to the floor and stepped on it to grind it in to a pulp.  Just needed some high heels and black leather pants to really complete the look.

And even still, she's so sweet.  I recently found Kyalo's copy of 'The Little Blue Truck" and read it to her.  That same day, I found her sitting in her chair reading it:

Not the most earth shattering video, but listening to her say 'bee bee bee' for all of the truck's friendly beeps is about the sweetest thing.  Best is when Kyalo and I read it and she says all the beeps.

At a T-Ball game for Kyalo.

 she's ready to get in the game.

I think we're going to have a long relationship with Baseball

 frolicking in a near by yard.  

Sunday best for a recent church service.  The dress is from Kenya

it would be too much to get them to both smile at the same time.

These final days are really bittersweet for me...Malaikah has been such a great baby, and watching her grow and become more independent is such a joy. I'm afraid with the new baby she will get lost in the shuffle of life.  

The adventure is really just beginning!

20 months

Our little ray of sunshine turned 20 months last week.

She is a spitfire with a lot of energy, and attitude.  This month, she learned how to climb down stairs successfully.  This is good news for me because that's one less time I have to carry her.  One baby in my belly is enough! She also now says 'up' which often comes out as 'hup'  and papa has morphed into 'bah-pan' which is too cute.  And if you stretch your imagination a bit, she also says 'go.'  Even without words, we can communicate fairly well.  I taught her to say 'please' in sign language, although it is actually 'more' so it is the Mulandi Sign Language, since that's the only sign Kyalo knew, too.  Ha!  Whatever works!

Mother's day pictures:

little ham!

Still loves books, blocks, balls and her big brother.  I think she is daring and fearless.  She sleeps with books scattered in her crib, plays with the blocks or MagnaTiles endlessly.  Still loves all the carbs, but we're working on veggies and other things.  Oh, and if you need a door shut, she's just the girl to do it!  

I am always amazed by how much she understands.  I can ask her to go get or do something and off she'll march to do it.  People have told me that she seems intelligent and engaged and all other things that makes my mama heart sing.

{20 months - May 10, 2016}

Kyalo started T Ball again a week or so ago, and his first game was this weekend.  Check out the newest black bear:

how old does he look? oh, my.

And Malaikah's ready to play, too.

 kind of looks like a Bobblehead

"Put me in, Coach"

Plenty more T-Ball pictures to come, of course.

This little skirt is one my mom brought back from Kenya in January.  Love it.

It is hard to believe that next month's update is the last one before Baby comes -- just six more Sundays as a family of four.  I think the change will be hard for her.  She'll miss the attention, of course, and having to share more time and things.  The next few months are going to be very interesting!

* F I V E *

Last month, Kyalo turned five.  Time for an update!

It is really hard to believe he's so grown up, on the brink of kindergarten, growing in independence (and defiance!), a lover of baseball {still}, books, ice cream, his sister, his cousins and life in general. He loves school, is super social, is eager to be a part of everything.  He is thoughtful and caring -- I hurt my back badly a few weeks ago and could barely move, one night he had woken up and asked me to tuck him back into bed.  As I hobbled in to help him, he said, "how's your back feeling, mama?"  He generally plays well with Malaikah, though as she has become more independent sharing has become harder for both of them.

This has been a good year for him.  He started a different school in the fall and it has been really wonderful, nurturing place for him.  They focus on play, on art, on books.  He regularly comes home with art projects -- so many that we covered the play room wall with them.

Two minutes after I took this picture, he took everything down 'to make room for new work'.  So, we're working on filling it back up before the end of the year.

He has grown so much this year.  At his well visit appointment I learned he'd grown 3 inches!  He's really lost his baby face and just looks all boy.  A good example of this is the photo below.  Both pictures were taken March 20th.  The one on the left in 2015, the right, 2016.  We started T-Ball again this month and one of the moms said, 'I feel like Kyalo has doubled in size!' That's a good way of putting it.

For his birthday, we had a handful of gifts (mostly art-related) for him, and a couple bags of his favorite pistachios.

Safe to say, he was pleased.

At his request, I made vanilla cupcakes with strawberry frosting.  

A random assortment of pics from the past few months:

 about to eat a mini dosa at an AMAZING Indian restaurant we discovered earlier this year.  Sadly, it is all the way in Portland so we don't get there too much.  He loved it.

In March we were in CA visiting my brother & his family.  This picture of Jack & Kyalo is one of my favorites.

As usual, we were in Essex for Easter....

 twins!

next Easter, there will be five!

In April we took a little farm class at a near by town -- Kyalo and some friends bottle fed baby goats, fed chickens, gathered eggs, planted seeds, brushed horses and mucked their stalls, and did some little science experiments each week (do YOU know how tell tell if an egg is fertilized or not? I didn't).  It was such a sweet time, watching the kids get fully engaged and engrossed in it.  And also, I bought a dozen eggs from this farm -- eggs Kyalo helped to gather -- and they may have been the best eggs I've had.

 first time riding a horse!  loved it.

Shallots!

One of his gifts was a little superhero set that he had to put together.  He wore it around a lot...

even needed it for feeding the goats!

and who better to use the second set he got than trusty Lion?

The first T-Ball game of the summer is this weekend (if it isn't rained out), and then the week after his final game Baby comes!  And then life will simultaneously come to a standstill and speed up. Other than T-Ball we don't have too many plans for him yet...but I do hope we have a fun summer ahead.

This was a good year, and the year ahead will only be better and more eventful. 

19 months

Malaikah turned 19 months on the 10th, and she is a joy and a spitfire and keeps us on our toes!

I really think she is fearless -- she loves climbing, slides (even climbing UP the slides), stairs etc.  She's working on walking down stairs and fell down our cement steps the other day.  While she cried, she was not particularly interested in my hugs and kisses and begged to be put down. Once down, off she marched to try again.

She has the sweetest smile, and a wave for everyone. Often she'll just wave her way through the grocery store. Ha!  The best, though, is when Dexter comes home from work. She gets SO excited and happy.  Squealing, clapping, waving, running to the door waving so she's right there when he walks in.  There's really got to be no better way for him to come home.

LOVES to be outside, and if I tell her to go get her shoes or coat (if she hasn't already done it voluntarily) she will start to clap.  

Thankfully, we've had nicer weather (just not today - SNOWING ALL DAY) lately so we've been able to be outside, digging, playing baseball (of course!) riding bikes.  She's got a pretty good handle on this bike that was Kyalo's.  She spends most of her time chasing Kyalo around while he bikes.  I am ready for spring to show up and stick around.

She still doesn't have any solid words.  Makes some funny noises for various animals sounds, but nothing immediately recognizable, says 'Pah-Pah' occasionally for Papa and has recently added 'unh uh' to her list of words.  So, she's got a solid grasp of NO.  Even still, she communicates well by pointing, or clapping when I ask her if she wants something.

Has one good long nap in the morning (which is when I crank out a lot of work for AMHF -- a part time gig I started back in February. If you don't know about it, check it out!), and is generally in bed between 6:30 & 7:00 every night.  Sometimes she gets cranky in the afternoons so I just put her in her crib for a little down time, and she usually comes out of that happy.  She always wakes up happy!

I've mentioned many times that she loves to read, and I always keep a stack of books in her crib. I thought it was so sweet, though, how she tucked this one ('Snuggle Puppy' by Sandra Boynton) under her arm.  Who needs stuffed animals?

On Wednesdays I've been going to a Eucharist service as a local Episcopal church for about a year.  This worked out perfectly because Dexter didn't work on Wednesdays so I could leave the kids.  He has started working now on Wednesdays, so I have to take Malaikah (Kyalo's in school).  Fortunately it is a small, intimate group who is very tolerable of children making messes and noises.  And the priest, Nancy, is great.  Didn't mind having Malaikah 'help' during communion.

We are just about two months away from adding a third to the mix here, and I find it unbelievable. Kyalo will be great -- he's hoping for a sister 'because I like girls' (which is different from what he says about the girls at school, but whatever), but I worry how Malaikah will transition to not being the baby or in the spotlight so much.

We are soaking in these days -- and I'm living in hope that she'll add a few more words between now and July 1!