Beware the girly-girl....

Looks like somebody got dressed by Dad before Mom had a chance to notice or object. So much for not putting her in dresses.....

Still, I've got to admit that it's pretty darn cute. (And at least it's not pink!!)

Daddy's little girl....

Getting to know each other right after birth

There is little that makes me melt so much as watching Brian and Kai together...

Enjoying one of her favorite places

Getting in some tummy time with Daddy

Sharing secrets

Heading out for her first walk

Who's my little girl?

First Playdate

Rockin' the Bobby Socks look...

A couple of pics while I sort through the last two weeks and figure out what to post about. We had a very nice family baby shower, some fantastic meals provided by friends, the world's best shower cake, some wonderful gifts from my FanAp friends, the tyranny of baby acne...really it was chock full of goodness.

Here are Kai and cousin Dash (8.5 months) enjoying their first one-on-one time. Given that they live only a few houses about from each other I foresee many more sessions like this in the future. :-)

Hey! Who is this over here that I see?

Awww...Come on Mom, I only want to say hi...

...and maybe just have a taste or two

Growing like a sprout...

Kai continues to do well. She's a growing baby (last week's doctor's appointment had her in the 50th percentile for weight, 95th for head size and 100th percentile for height) and amazingly awake, aware and agile. As I described her after our last appointment, she's a "tall drink of water."

Unfortunately, to be a tall drink you have to be full. A lot. Becca's feeling a bit tethered as Kai is embracing the breastfeeding thing and eating like a champ. Seemingly all of the time. The offshoot of this is that when Kai wakes up from sleeping, she usually wants to eat. Now. Like NOW!!!

(Feed Me Woman!)

So the cute pics of Kai are fewer and far between for now. This is more of what we see when she's awake. That's not a bad thing; she's continuing to grow and is just getting used to pesky things like a digestive track. It is good practice though for having to understand the various screams and determining which you can do anything about. I've been fortunate; in an effort to give Becca some more sleep, I've been taking Kai for some bonding time in the mornings. I can't even begin to describe the feelings around having this thing that you helped create curled up on you. Plus it's nice to have some time with Kai early on since most of her time is spent within a 5-10 foot radius of mom. Someone has to teach her the finer points of baseball :-)

Brian

What's in a name?

Given the number of questions we have received about Kai’s name, I thought I’d write up a little something explaining where it came from.

KAI
Pronounced: “Kai”. (sorry….couldn’t resist)
Think of it like the “-ky” in “Sky”.

The first time Brian mentioned that as a potential name, I assumed it was in honor of Kai Ryssdal, the host of NPR's Market Place and the object of a serious man-crush of Brian's.


That might indeed have been where the idea of the name came from, but Brian said he much preferred it as a girl’s name instead. A little bit of research showed that not only was it also a girl’s name, but that it was much more commonly used that way.

It has multiple meanings across several cultures and languages but the one that spoke to us the most was that Kai means ‘Sea’ or ‘Ocean’ in Hawaiian and Japanese. The ocean, especially the Oregon Coast, is a special place for us and we have celebrated a number of special moments and milestones there in our 9 years together.

And as it turns out, the ocean connotation also works particularly well with her middle name....

NIDA

Pronounced: “NEE – DUH”

Nida is not a name per se, but rather the name of a place. Nida is a small village in Lithuania located on the Curonian Spit, a tiny stretch of land 98 km long and only 3 km wide between a lagoon and the Baltic Sea.

Nida was one of our favorite places during our around the world trip. Some of that was because of the place itself: forests surrounded by huge dunes on one side and rough coastline on the other, gingerbread houses, fishing boats, etc.



But it was an extremely meaningful place to us because it was the place on our journey where we first exhaled and let go of a lot of the type A-ness that we carried and thought about how we'd like to live the rest of our lives and the type of people we'd rather try to be.


And we thought that that discovery and wakening was a neat moment to pass on to her.

(see here for a slide show of pics from Nida and here and here for Nida blog entries)

NICKNAMES (so far)

Short-stuff/Shorty
(less applicable now that we found out she at the 100th percentile for height for her age)

Fuss-budget/Fidget/Squirmy McSquirm
Usually used when she’s fussy/squirmy/crying etc

Puddle
Cuz she’s a really small ocean

Houdini
Cuz she breaks out of any swaddle we put her in and refuses to have her arms shackled at all.

Spike
Just cuz (ed. this JUST might be because Becca is a Joss Whedon fan. Just sayin')

Becca

Happy Opening Day!

For most folks, March 20th was the start of spring. For me, as a lifelong baseball fan spring doesn't start until Opening Day. While I was a bit bummed that the Red Sox were rained out of their opener, that doesn't mean Kai and I weren't ready for the occasion.

How do we say "Youk!" again daddy?

To answer the obvious questions:

1) No, I don't care that she's a girl. She's going to learn to love baseball (despite her mom's eventual efforts to the contrary).
2) Yes, I'm starting her VERY young on the path towards Sox fandom. However, no pink hats allowed :-)
3) Yes, the onesie is a bit large; the only ones I could find were 3-6 months so Kai is wearing it more as a nightshirt/dress look for now.

Kai says go Sox!

Brian

Chapter one...

Home from the hospital for 24 hours and just starting to have the whole 'oh my god we have a baby now' sink in. Actually, to be fair, I'm still just trying to adjust to the fact that we have a little girl...for some reason I had been sure it would be a boy. But now that I'm getting used to it, it's pretty cool...she's pretty cute. :-)

We'll be trying to do a lot more posting now that we actually have something to post about and we'll try and put pics up here or on flickr (or Facebook) for those who are looking for a baby fix. (link to be updated soon...)

Mostly I just wanted to thank all all family, friends, and Felbernauts who sent us such wonderful words of congratulations over the past few days. It's really nice to know that Kai already has such a great group of folks looking out for her.

And finally, a Kai Burrito:

So I've been totally grumpy about the whole dressing girls in pink thing
but I have to admit...that's pretty adorable. :-)

Becca

Kai's First Day

We're thrilled to announce the arrival of our daughter Kai Nida Davis to the world. Born March 31, 2009 @ 10:58pm, weighing 8 lbs and 21 3/4 inches in length, Kai is a baby ready to tackle the world. Kai and Becca are resting and doing well. Dad on the other hand is a nervy mess :-)

For the record, Kai got Becca's hair, her good looks and her propensity to talk. She got my head and shoe size. If she gets Becca's brains we're all doomed!

We'll let people know once we're home and settled in enough to start having visitors. In the meantime, keep positive healthy, sleep filled thoughts heading our way!

B&B