Burrito Time

Drink Off Tap

Dressed alike

Today I had to work, but met the boys in town for lunch and a walk. I
found them dressed in matching outfits! Daka is missing the hat, Keet
the glasses.

Out for a stroll

Roasted red peppers!

Clucking Blossom

First outdoor music festival. We mostly went for a walk and met the
dogs.

Margarita Time

Keet and Linda

Linda and the blueberry hat

This is just the perfect example of how charming Keet is, and how
generous and talented our friends are. Linda Harriger here KNIT this
hat for Keet, and in less than a week. It even has a little leaf off
the stem.

Swinging at the park

Fit for a King

Well, it's the biggest purchase I've made for little man yet, but boy
is it cool! THE CHAROIT is the ultimate jogging stroller, which can
also be used for bikes or skis. we grabbed it off craigs' list and
took it to the trails directly after. Keet can cruise in style;
shaded, mosquito neted, or hermetically sealed in all kinds of
Alaskan weather. It's an investment, but we'll hopefully get years of
use out of it.

7am, already?

Spoke too soon

Well, today Keet figured out how to pull himself up to standing. I
watched him do it. Twice. Can he pull himself over the edge at this
height?! A while new set of worries begins.

Attempts at crawling

Keet moves around, but he's still figuring out the crawl. He'll do downdog, then plank, then poop out into cobra. Now I know the true origin of sun salutations. They weren't to greet the day, but to reenact our discovery of movement itself, of new possibilities, of wonder.
He'll wake himself up rolling over and pushing himself up into sitting. That's new this week. The first time he pushed himself up to sitting he did it in his sleep. Now he does it all the time.

I put him in his crib and had him hold on to the edge (he hasn't figured out how to pull himself up in the crib yet). He craned his neck back to watch the mobile spin.

Keet's 6 Month Check-up

Keet kissing his buddy, Oscar Misel (8 months old).



On Thursday, 5/21/09, Da-ka and I took Keet in for his 6 month check up with Joanne Spears. She's a nurse at the Public Health Clinic, and the appointments there are awesome. She spent a good hour with us, testing all of Keet's developmental skills as well as the weighing and measuring. He had to have a series of vaccinations too, but as she is a lactation consultant, there was no problem breast-feeding while she administered the shots (unlike at the Peditrican's office where he was restrained while the nurse put a needle in each leg. That was brutal for Mom to watch, much less for a 2 month-old infant!).

Keet is doing great. We knew that. He's way ahead developmentally (hooray 2 weeks late to be born!). He's already pulling himself up to standing, and is able to pick up small objects with his thumb and forefinger (though I don't let him practice that often enough - no teeth! )

He weighed: 17#12oz. (up 10#11oz. from birth!)
Height: 26.75 inches
Head: 43.8 cm (notice he has a metric brain, humm....)

He's totally in the 50th percentile for everything regarding his metrics, but ahead on his developmental skills.

So, there you go! Growing fast, but perfectly average.

Here's Keet with our neighbor, Logan. They have the same haircut. Logan has taken a shine to Keet and comes by every day now to visit him.

Orange Hoodies

Taken at our friends Dragos, Carrie and Calin's house

Summer

6 months on Mother's Day

Keet is Six Months old today, and on Mother's Day! We've had a nice day so far. It's been raining, and this morning it was even snowing a little. Spring has been slow to arrive, and although all the snow is melted, the leaves are just now opening on the birch trees. Last weekend was beautiful, but this weekend it is cold again.
Keet in our Backyard. May 3, 2009.

School is over, but work is never done. We are trying to fill two positions in the Theatre department, and have been bringing up candidates for the jobs (director and costume designer) all week. It's not over yet. Plus, there's much to do assuming we'll have a new Film Major in the fall. The screenings of Chronic Town went very well, as did the show opening for Da-ka. We both got lots of press coverage for our events, and there was a great spread about Da-ka in the Juneau papers.

Speaking of candidates, Da-ka officially got his job as Assistant Professor of Native Arts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Tenure track! I'm so proud of him. Of course they couldn't have picked a better candidate. This means that we are staying in Fairbanks for the long forseeable future. We thought we were, but its good to know that for a fact.

While Da-ka was out of town last week, and I was doing the Chronic Town screenings, I was pumping milk as much as possible, and sort of got tapped out! I had no choice but to start the boy on more solids. Here's a video of his first real spoon experience. It's the silver spoon mom gave him and the bowl Denny apparently made upwards of 30 years ago. It was mailed to Da-ka from Mary, Denny's first wife who had it, found out that Da-ka got the assistant professorship on Facebook, and mailed him the bowl. Now Keet gets to eat out of it.






Here's a photo of Keet's first day at the playground. May 8, 2009. There must have been 15 kids on the merry-go-round!

Keet has been practicing gateando, crawling. He'll move from sitting, to folding forward onto his belly, to rolling onto his back. He's a bid mor cautious on the hard floor than the bed (smart baby), but can scoot around on the floor quite a ways while he chases after his slippery toys.

Sitting!

It's amazing how much can happen in 2 weeks.

My newest "thing" is sitting! I'm amazing...

I'm still usually placed on a soft surface, or with a pillow propped behind me, just in case. But as of this last week, I'm not falling over when I try to turn around any more~

Spring and breakup have finally come to Fairbanks. The parents have only 2 weeks left of classes, then the semester is done and I have have family time every day!

Dad is waiting to find out if he got the tenure-track assistant professorship in Native Arts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It would be so great if that happens!
Mom just got appointed as the director of the UAF Film program, so it sounds like they might both be really busy in the fall. No one is looking forward to being apart come fall, but until then, we'll enjoy our summer!

Auntie Mackenzie should be visiting around July 4, and then we'll all go to New Mexico in early August for uncle Luke's wedding! Da-da will also be showing his work at Indian Market this year in Santa Fe, so that's very exciting.

Check out Da-da's show at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, May 1- October 24, 2009. No images of the show yet. Da-da travels to Juneau next week to install the show and have the opening. Like always, Mom won't make it to the opening. She's busy bringing up the director, producer, composer, and screenwriter of the fim "Chronic Town" which she co-produced way back in 2007. This is the big Fairbanks premiere, so she'll be busy too that same weekend. And me? Lucky for me, I have the "Grumpas"!

I was with Grumpa Mehner yesterday, and last week I had time with him too. I think they'll also be around with Da-da out of town. Whef!

One more note - did you check out all my cute clothes? Yup - I'm wearing my 6-9month clothes now, one month ahead of schedule. My new clothes from Great Aunt Louise, and Uncle Ron, and Auntie Mackenzie are featured in this week's issue of "Keet: The unofficial Story".

First Food

Hello!
It's been quite a week!
We went out to the Hotsprings on Monday night, and swam with Dada and Mama. Then Tuesday night we went to a dinner party in honor of our artist friend Tanya Aguiniga. There we were, Mom was eating organic strawberries like a spring-fevered mad woman, and suddenly, I lunged for it! Well, see for yourself. My first food. Good choice! You can't really tell, but I shuddered after each taste! The pediatrican doesn't recommend solids until after 6 months. He also recommends starting with vegtables, and not rice cereal, as he says there's a corrolation between obesity/Type 2 Diabetes/ and starting ceareals as first foods. Interesting. We're registered for a baby food making class in May, so for now, no more strawberries!

Happy Baby

Happy Baby Pose!

My first Trip

Sorry for the long delay in posting! It's amazing how much can happen in a month.


For Spring Break we went as a family down to Anchorage and Juneau. Mama was presenting her film at a conference and Dada was getting ready for his Solo Show at the State Museum in Juneau. I went along for the ride. One real treat was getting to meet my GREAT GRANDMOTHER, Anita McNeil in Anchorage.
She gave me my name Xhe-Dhe.
Here I am with 4 generations of my family, Dada (Da-ka-xeen Mehner), Akka (Shirley Tuzroyluke), Great-Grandma (Anita McNeil).


I also got to meet some of my cousins, great-aunts, and uncles. Here I am with cousin, Taj.


Left to right, Maya, Keet, Farrel, Taj, and Yeil. Thier grandma, my Great-Aunt Margaret.
Then in Juneau I got to meet my GREAT GRANDFATHER, Chris McNeil. Great Grandpa is a fisherman. He was born on the Canada side, and really Nishga'a (not Tshimshian as Dad's CIB card says). Great Grandpa (Dada-dada-dada-Da) showed us a map of where the family land is, at the headwaters of the Nass River near Observation Point.

Great-Aunt PattyMom and Patty's daughter, Jessica.

It was a great trip, I flew like had the genes of a pilot...next trip isn't planned until August, when I'll get to go to New Mexico to see the other side of the family! Should be a fun trip, by then I'll probably know how to crawl and will want to!

He Stands!

I guess I gape at him with my mouth open all the time...Who knew?
Keet loves to stand, and is quite strong.

Days grow longer

The days are so bright now, we are officially out of the dark! Sunset is around 6:30 or so now, and it's light around 7ish now. Life in Alaska certainly requires a new approach as a mom.

Here we are on a couple of walks. What to do in the woods when baby is hungry? Feed him.

Speaking of Walk, Keet is not happy lying around anymore. He wants to be on his feet! He'll pull himself up to standing (if you help a bit) and is just so proud to be upright!









He's getting stronger and stronger all the time. Our days are pretty busy. We end up spending a bit of time at the University of Alaska Fairbanks every day. Da-ka's back in the art building now that the renovation is complete, so Keet mostly hangs out over there. My office is just around the corner, so sometimes we take a booby break.

Keet at 3 Months Playing with Rattle

It's my birthday (33) and Keet is officially 12 weeks old today too. He was actually conceived on my birthday last year, so it's his creation day as well. Hard to believe how much life has changed in the past year!

He's begun to imitate sounds (Ah and Ou are his favorites). Maybe some video of that eventually.

I got the floors clean today. An accomplishment for any birthday girl. Then we went for a swim.
Keet did great swimming. He's typically so chatty and expressive at home, but at the pool he's quiet and very observant.

The Diaper Cake Munchkin

The diaper cake was a gift from Cousins Michael and Princess Worthy in Anchorage, and the Munchkin suit was a gift from Fabrizio, an Italian Pilot my Grandpa Perro flies with.

Grabbing Toys

It's been an exciting week for Keet!

He got his first series of vaccinations about 10 days ago, and was fairly fussy for a few days after that. I felt a little railroaded into the entire series from my pediatrician, who insisted that if I opted Keet out of the Hepatitis B that he'd have to have 4 shots instead of 3. It's just so hard to watch the nurse pin the baby's legs down and stick two needles in him simultaneously, one in each thigh. Ahh... his first brush with Allopathic Medicine, and my mom wonders why I shy away from it!

Innaguration Day was very joyous:

"Makes me Spit Up" - it made him do more than that, and moments later, I had to change his clothes again!

Then on January 23, Keet reached for his first toy and brought it to his mouth. Now he's a pro with the toys! This is his first toy he grabbed, little osito Blanco:



He also Giggled a rolling giggle that night, and found his toes! Milestones all around.

keet at 10 weeks

Visit from Grandpa

On the Left = My Great Grandpa Alvin Salganek and my Mom

On the Right= My Grandpa Larry Salganek and I.

My Grandpa, Larry Salganek, came to visit me for the first time. We started off the new year with Grandpa's visit. The temperatures stayed at -40F and colder the entire trip. It was all we could do to stay warm by the fire!
Actually, it wasn't that bad...

I was also able to get a portrait with both of my grandpas, Denny Mehner and Larry Salganek with my dad:

Keet at 2 Months

This is our first video post. An experiment!
PappaDog Grandpa (papaperro) is here, and the weather is a punky -40 and colder! Lame-O.
Fortunately it's cozy and happy indoors. Plus, the light is coming back to Fairbanks, we gained 4minutes and 36 seconds today. At the end of the week it will be an extra 30 minutes of light a day, and by the end of January, it will be an extra 2 hours...