Changing / growing so quickly!

Kaylee’s changing so much all the time, it’s hard to keep up and hard to remember what I’ve already recorded…but here goes…

For the past month or so, she has started to say complete sentences to us a lot of the time, examples of what she says to give an idea are:
“Can you help me with this?”
“Daddy, can you fix this?”
“Mommy, can I hold you?” This is her asking me to hold her, which is so so cute, I haven’t corrected her grammar.

Her vocalizations also translate into her self-play. She still loves to play with her baby doll. She loves to take its diaper off and put it on again…she says to her baby, “Are you poopy? Legs up! Time to change you! Owww, you got poopies in there. I’m gonna wipe you.” It’s so cute to see her doing this, it can keep her busy for a long time. It’s cute to see her reflecting things that happen to her everyday, it gives an interesting perspective on her experience to us. She also walks her baby around in the toy stroller we got for her birthday and says, “Does cutie pie want a ride in the stroller? Here we go.”

Kaylee was playing the other day with the neighbor girls (4 and 7, almost 5 and 8). It’s her favorite pastime. They were coloring with chalk and she drew her first triangle. She yelled out, “TRIANGLE!” as if surprised, then called the neighbor girls over to see her triangle, very proud of herself. She continues to try to draw one, and managed one other one. Other shapes she says she’s drawing but they aren’t those shapes. Mostly she’s progressed from just scribbles a couple months ago, to lines to lines concentrated on other images (like faces in a coloring book). One time she was drawing lines calling out that they were Kaylee, Mommy, Daddy, etc…

Kaylee sings lots of songs. She will also sing songs made up herself to tunes she knows well. She was singing a song the other day, calling out all the other things in the room in her singing, including us and then ending with a very loud “Poo!” All I can say, is having a kid is so fun and it reminds you totally that once you weren’t worried about a thing – that you could just be totally silly, uninhibited and pure in everything you did. Being a parent is so fun because you witness that in your child, it’s so refreshing. Reminds you what’s really important…

Kaylee and I made her her first fort the other day to play in. She was wanting to hide under the covers so much I was getting claustrophobic, so I put together a fort and she liked it very much and took a whole bunch of books into her “house” to read.

Kaylee fell the other day at the playground and (we think) sprained her ankle. She and her Daddy were chasing each other up to go down the slide (“Again, Again!”) She was shocked by the feeling of the injury and tried to walk, limping right away but still trying to climb and play and then finally when she got on all fours to crawl across the play equipment, we decided it was time to pick her up and take her home. She limped all night but then luckily in the morning, she woke up with no limp and was fine again. Now she tells the story, “We slide and then I fell down Kaboom! and say “owwie”. Daddy picked up and hold you and we hug…”

Kaylee now sits on the potty lid on the big toilet, but still hasn’t gone. I am in no rush but encouraging signs are she will wake up after a nap or an entire night dry (not always) and she will tell you she’s peeing/pooping while she’s doing it. So she’s getting to that level of consciousness about it that would be required to potty-train.

I have my ultrasound next Friday at the this time. We’re very excited to find out that baby’s okay and the sex! Can’t wait. Kaylee and Eric went with me looking for something in the maternity store yesterday. She left my sight for a moment and then I asked her, “Kaylee what are you doing?” She said, “Mom, I’m looking at the clothes.” She left the store with a whiney, cry pulling on the dresses as we went, she loved the clothes. She’s already a girly, girl what can I say??? She also liked to try on the baby bumps they have to help you try under clothes to estimate your growth in the next trimester. She said, “Mom, look, I have a baby bump!”

We went to a coffee shop this weekend with a caboose train that kids can climb in, Kaylee had fun playing peekaboo through the holes cut into the sides of the caboose.

She had a fun weekend - playing outside at a park with baby Evie, at birthday party for Kayla, and seeing baby Gabriella. It was a weekend of seeing younger babies!

Kaylee went to her doctor last week. She is now 26 lbs (I wonder if there's a difference between the lay-down scale and the floor scale - she is 25 lbs on our scale at home.) And the doc said she didn't believe her height measurement at 31 1/2" because it was too small, Kaylee was having a crying fit during the measurement so she disregarded it. But what was really funny was Kaylee's reaction To the testing of her cognitive abilities. The doctor brought out the block and asked Kaylee to stack them. Kaylee insisted that they be down on the bench with her so she had to move them all herself, line them up horizontally and THEN stack the blocks. As she stacked the blocks she counted them, “1,2,3,4,5.” The doctor was amazed to hear this. Then when asked to identify the images, she just said, “No, I don’t want to.” Then the doctor left to get a phone call and give Kaylee a break, brought in a teddy bear and then asked Kaylee if she would identify the images and Kaylee said again, “No, I don’t want to.” The doctor just laughed it off, saying that Kaylee was the typical image of a 2 year old who is striving for her independence and then simply asked me if Kaylee knows the names of these objects and I said “hands-down, I know she does.” When the doctor had to leave the room again, a helper came in to see how we were doing, and Kaylee sung her the ABC’s, loving the fact that she had a new audience.

Kaylee had a lot of fun with her grandparents and her cousin when she was in town. She loved chasing her 4 ½ year old cousin all around, laughing with her and coloring together with all her markers. She did not want to share her birthday toys, though we tried to mediate that situation so that they would try to share. Overall, they got along famously and Kaylee loved to call her “Ellie-bean.” They even slept in Kaylee’s bed together! It was very sweet! Her grandparents enjoyed seeing the two cousins interacting so positively together.

Easter eggs and Birthday

Quick Update: Kaylee is loving her new dayare. She is adapting well. We stay for a while after drop-off to help keep her transitions smooth. She seem a bit happier and more content at the end of the day, probably as a result of more personal attention.

Birthdays and transitions

Kaylee had a very fun birthday yesterday! Her daycare spent the day doing Easter things:
- Easter egg dyeing and a hunt
- Puppet show
- Cupcakes
- She got to wear her birthday hat.
After daycare we took her out for pizza and then my parents came over, gave her some presents in an Easter basket and dyed more eggs with her. She loved dyeing Easter eggs, mixing colors and seeing what the spoons and wand sounded like on the bowls. She also had fun breaking the eggs after my parents left (when not supervised by us! Yikes…oh well).

Update on Kaylee’s new bed – things are going great. She has gotten better at sleeping through the night in it, similar to what she was like in the crib. She still wakes up early sometimes like 5-6 am and then I go in an lay down with her. She thinks it’s lots of fun to read books on the bed with us before bedtime, and has spent a lot more time in her room lately. She has also given up the bottle totally this week and only uses a nukie at nighttime now (after we convinced her Jackson would get it after he did get one, and now she stores her nukie safely in her bedside cabinet during the daytime to keep it safe.) Therefore, we are hearing a lot more of our beauty’s little voice, which we missed so much while she had the nukie in. It feels like a way better fit.

Today is my birthday – yesterday was Kaylee’s. I’ll tell you Kaylee is the best gift to me. She is more than I ever could have expected and hoped for – being a parent is so rewarding and is a beautiful thing (even though it’s hard work). She is so much fun and is so loving right back in return! I get so excited about her birthday, mine just pales in comparison to the excitement I feel for hers. Little kids birthday’s are so much better – they get so much more excited and happy. Their reactions are so surprised and cute to the attention they receive on their special day, you just can’t match that.

Tomorrow she has her 2 year dr. appt. We will have to do the shots again – no fun but a must.

Today is the last day at her daycare – I am feeling mixed with sadness at the same time feeling excitement over the new daycare and wondering how that transition will go for Kaylee next week – I hope she likes it! They are very sad to see her leave and giving her lots of love I’m sure today and on her birthday yesterday. So she gets to leave in the midst of lots of festivities – which is very fun!

Stay tuned... I’ll let you know how the above two go very soon! Happy Easter everyone! We are excitedly awaiting the arrival of Eric’s parents and my little 4 year old neice to stay with us during a long weekend. I’m sure Kaylee will love having a stay-in playmate for the next few days! I’ve been telling her about it but she won’t understand until it happens I think…can’t wait to have Easter day with the extended family!