A glimpse into our cozy little life
Our sweet baby girl, Colette Rocket Kuzda, is officially a 1 year old!
We had a fantastic celebration yesterday with her friend Peri, who was born just 2 days before her.
These girls know how to party!
There are loads more photos and a few videos from her birthday yesterday, so you should definitely expect that I will be posting more as I sort through them!
To my surprise and delight, Colette has decided she likes using a spoon by herself and she is pretty good at it! Well, not completely by herself. Zakk or I put the food on the spoon for her and then she gets it to her mouth, mostly successfully.
She also loves beets, blueberries, and raspberries. And I love how she looks like a clown while eating them.
And here she is doing her magic disappearing asparagus act. It’s her favorite food. Seriously, she can’t get enough.
And this has nothing to do with eating, but I had to share this picture I took of Colette when I got home from work on Wednesday. Apparently these are the shenanigans Zakk gets up to when I’m gone. And despite her expression, she actually seemed quite happy to hang out with pants on her head.
Finally, a sweet, smiley picture that I can’t get enough of. Zakk told me she was cranky on Wednesday, but then he sent me this picture. Maybe he was the one who was cranky.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, and other men who nurture, love, and support the kiddos in their lives.
And a special thanks to my dad and Colette’s papaw, Dean…
To my husband and Colette’s daddy, Zakk…
And to my father-in-law and Colette’s didus, John…
Love you all!
No, not Colette. Her birthday isn’t for a couple more weeks yet. Today is Zakk’s birthday!
Happy Birthday, love. You are an amazing father to our beautiful girl and I’m so grateful to have you as my husband and best friend.
In the last week, Colette has had a lot of firsts. The biggest change is that she started crawling!
I find the slightly disdainful way she plays with the caterpillar gears to be hilarious. I wonder what was going through her mind…
She is also pointing, waving, clapping, signing “all done”, and turning pages in the book being read to her. And she has been taking longer naps (she slept for 2 hours and 45 minutes one day, which is completely unheard of for her and a far longer nap than the 30 minutes she used to be fine with), probably because all of these developmental milestones are exhausting! It is so exciting to watch her grow and develop and to see the joy on her face when she gets something new.
Rocket would like to demonstrate how to get around while rocking out to the beat of your favorite tunes. Please enjoy.
Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.
-Marion C. Garretty
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas, aunties, sisters, grandmothers, and other women who love and nurture with a love so strong it has forever marked the hearts of those she cares for.
Today was an absolutely beautiful day full of sunshine and blue skies. Come along with us on our walk…
Zakk with a Rocket on his back
Rosemary, irises, calla lilies, and fuzzy looking greenery
Zakk, Rocket, and John (Dido, aka Grandpa) approaching some nice lady who gave us a ton of fresh bay leaves
I love the color of this VW Beetle
A rose bush just beginning to bloom
Gorgeous pink flowers
A solitary cloud
Stopped at Posies for refreshments
Stunning flower
Lavender
Lovely succulents
Really cool flowers along a nice entryway
Vivid red leaves against the brilliant blue sky
This house wants to be a boat
Wisteria
A sleepy girl peeking out from under her shady hat
Love the petals on these flowers
Me and my girl
Sweet Colette hanging out on the back patio later in the afternoon
We just got back from a week on the beautiful gulf coast of Florida with family and I plan to put up a post about that in the next few days. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of our sweet girl from this afternoon.
We recently had Colette tested for food allergies because of her projectile vomiting after eating oatmeal and the hives she gets when eating peas. Strangely, she did not react to either oats or peas on the skin prick test. But she did react to 10 other things, including egg whites, milk, peanuts, wheat, rice, rye, cashews, almonds, mustard greens, and string bean mix.
What does all this mean? We’re not sure yet. For now, the allergist said to avoid feeding her any of these items and told me to cut milk, eggs, and peanuts from my diet since I am breastfeeding her. We have a follow-up appointment with the allergist on Thursday to hopefully get the myriad of questions we have come up with answered. We also have an appointment with another allergist next Tuesday to get a second opinion.
From our research, we have found that if you don’t have a reaction to something on the skin prick test, it is pretty certain that you are not allergic to that item. She didn’t react to beef, pork, chicken, turkey, lamb, black walnut, hazelnut, chocolate, sesame seed, pecan, coconut, lima bean, soy, sweet potato, white potato, and as I mentioned before, oat or green pea. She also didn’t react to whole egg, but I’m not sure what that means for her diet in the long run since she did react to the whites. Zakk was really relieved she didn’t react to the hazelnuts or chocolate. He says it proves she is his daughter.
Conversely, if you do react to something (see the 10 items listed above), there is a 50-60% chance that was a false positive reaction and you are not actually allergic to that item. That seems like a lot of room for error. Hopefully it will turn out she is not actually allergic to all of those things and we will be able to breathe a big sigh of relief.
I was so impressed with how well Colette did as the reactions were occurring on her back. She honestly didn’t even seem to notice! I remember when I was tested for some non-food allergies several years ago and the itching on my forearm where they pricked me with cat dander, dog dander, ragweed, dust mites, and tree pollen was so intense I wanted to rip my arm off! Although she isn’t actually smiling in the photo above, she was plenty smiley and engaging during the appointment. The allergy doc told her he really liked her and said she was such a sweet baby (awww shucks…we agree!) and the physicians assistant was equally smitten.