Hand foot and mouth disease

Kaylee got sick this last weekend with an over 102 temp. We treated her with tylenol and the fever came down and she still seemed in good spirits. She was fine on Monday with no temp, but when I dropped her off they told me the babies in the infant room have Hand foot and mouth disease and now L. in her room has it. I was worried because I never heard of it. They told me it starts with a fever, then the fever goes away and sores develop on the hands and/or foot and /or mouth. They said it's just virus. When I picked her up that day they said she was pale and not acting like herself. I noticed sores on her feet that night. So the next day my Mom stayed with her and Eric took her to the doctor. The doctor confirmed she has this, that it's pretty common and that almost all adults have had it at some point and have an immunity. He wrote her a note to return to daycare today. They said she also had sores in her mouth that were already healing. Poor thing! Interestingly the disease is way more common in the summer and fall months. Hope she continues to get better today! I had an early meeting (5:45 am!) today and will go home a bit early to see how she's done at daycare today. Her grandma said she was in good spirits yesterday with her throughout the day.

New words:
Well not so new (about a month), "book"
"car"
"turtle"
"color" asking me to sit down with markers and scribble with her
"Grandma"
"Grandpa" (she's said these two in some form or another, but is getting it more consistently)

I was glad that one day she pointed to her diaper and looked up at me saying "poop!" she actually hadn't pooped, but peed. I gave her a big hug and congrats at telling me she went, and hope she will continue to tell us. First step toward potty training!

She's far from being able to pull her pants down and go potty. But she is taking her shoes and socks off and helps us get her arms and head into her shirts - she's getting more and more helpful.

100th post on this site!

New words:

"Open"

"Shake" like shake a rattle

"fish"

"Kayla"

"Watch"

"Look"

"all done"

"poop"

"ick"

"flower" said "folwer"

"purple"

Kaylee's doing great. Gotta make this quick cause nap time won't last much longer. She's learning how to get down the stairs. We want to take the gate down soon. She's not ready yet but working on it.

Cute stories from daycare:

One of her teachers said Kaylee's gotten so good at walking backwards, once she walked backwards all the way across the room to sit on her lap for storytime. The teacher was worried she would lose balance and met her halfway.

The teacher thought she lost Kaylee in the room the other day even though there was no way to do that with a gate on the door. But still she couldn't find her and Kaylee wasn't making any noise or answering to her name. The teacher started to get scared and looked in every corner of the room. She found Kaylee hiding in the refrigerator of the play kitchen in the room. She fit perfectly in there and hadn't actually closed the door all the way. The teacher peered in and Kaylee looked at her with a giant smile, very proud of herself for her exploratory conquest. The teacher was very relieved.

Kaylee got bit for the second time at daycare. The last time was quite a while ago. I asked for their policy on biting. They keep the biter's name anonymous. First they treat the child that was bitten with ice. Then they record the incident and tell the biter's parents. If the child bites unpredictably and repeatedly in a quick period of time, they may be asked to leave. The director said if they find the child bites around snack time they will make a snack for the child earlier. This left a mark on her hand for about 18 hours, but they said she cried less than last time. It was in the same location, so I'm guessing the same kid did it. Anyways, I wasn't mad but I wasn't happy. That day was a rough day for Kaylee, I found 2 accident reports. She was also scratched but they weren't really sure how/when it happened because she didn't cry. Kids her age just fall and get hurt easily so I don't sweat something like that but the biting bothers me. Hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon.

Eric watched her yesterday so I could go out with the girls to a movie we read in book club. It was really fun to be away. I missed her though and saw babies her age everywhere....I was glad to hug her when I got home. She's so sweet, she "talks" all the time, loves to color, she gets super excited to be at the park. We met up with my sister and her friend the other night, she showed off and hammed it up for them the whole time. She was on her best behavior. LEss whining and crying than usual. Smiley, giggly and ready for the attention.

Well gotta get going. Got stuff to do. Have a good weekend! Thanks for sleeping through the night last night Kaylee!

Our weekend

We had a fun weekend. Friday night the neighbors came over iwth their 5 kids and we all watched the season finale of "So you think you can Dance." Kaylee put on a show for them, dancing and spinning. They of course thought she was hilarious. She was so excited to have people over, she didn't stop the entire time. As soon as they left, she fell into a deep sleep.

The next day my parents gave Eric and I a break. We went on a date. We saw a movie and had dinner out, then ice cream. It felt really good to just be us. And I miss her a bit less when I felt she needed me so much the first year. She seems more independent now. She didn't fuss at all when we left. She looked up blew us a kiss and said "Bye" and went back to playing with Grandma and Grandpa. We thought she was going to go straight to sleep when we got home because she didn't sleep that afternoon (she did nap in the am instead), but then she surprised us by staying up until 11! I think the storms had something to do with it. Also the novelty of being in the basement during a tornado drill.

Sunday we had a kick-back day. Did art time, went grocery shopping and took her to the park. She tired herself out real good and slept through the night. A great beginning to a new week!

New words:
"Stop it" after I say it to her. Mimicing. Like when I say it as she throws her food off her highchair tray.
"Hot" and she blows on her food
"Soup" for ramen noodles
"Angel" for the name of the dog across the street

Another new thing, Eric thinks she has suddenly improved on walking backwards as well.

Have a great day!

At our Cancer Center Grand Opening and at the Park

Thanks to her Grandpa Dennis for the beautiful photos of Kaylee playing at the park and of our time at the grand opening of the cancer center that I worked on.

So an update on our search for in-home providers…the two ladies I interviewed didn’t make the cut so our search continues. One had references on the fringe and one bad reference and the other one, we weren’t sure of her family situation and her dogs. Eric and I won’t send her with anyone we don’t have confidence in so I’m not sure it’s going to work but will keep trying.

Kaylee has been able to go down the slide (a small one) by herself now for a couple of months. She loves it and thinks it’s funny to peek through the little holes in the tunnel to look at us. She giggles and says “Mama!” and “Dada” and “Peek.” When she doesn’t like being dried off after her bath, the past couple nights she calls out “Grandma” like she’s looking for her to rescue her from being dried off. When her Grandpa visited, she said “Grandma” an awful lot. I’m not sure whether she was missing her Grandma or mistakenly calling her Grandpa “Grandma.” I suspect the latter, she doesn’t have her words straight a lot of times. In the hot tub (we keep it at 98 degrees and it’s not chlorinated so it’s okay for Kaylee) the other night, she loved the lights and kept saying “Orraaanga” Her pronunciation of words is still very strange sometimes, her tongue and mouth are still figuring out how to get the right sounds out. She loves to say that word though, orange continues to be her favorite color. She looks up at the lights a lot now, curious about how they go on and off. She coos at the sky sometimes while outside, mesmerized the clouds, the breeze and the birds outside.

Kaylee had some success the other day with a fork. She was very proud to get the grapes on the fork and into her mouth. I clapped for her. I haven't been able to get her to do it again though. I tried cereal with some milk and a spoon with her as well, she made a grand mess of this and didn't eat anything!

Yesterday at the park, Kaylee made a little friend. She approached her with outstreached arms and said “Hiiiiii!” Then Eric though she tried to introduce herself, because he heard her say “Kaylee” to her. (She has been saying her own name a couple times the last couple weeks.) The little girl came to play with Kaylee. The other girl was silent the entire time, but accepted the woodchips that Kaylee wanted to pass to her while Kaylee happily babbled. Kaylee can now respond to some of our commands like for example I say “Sit down” to her before she can go down the slide.

The other day when I picked her up at daycare they said that Kaylee could differentiate my heels from other parents picking up their kids. They said she heard my heels, started bouncing with excitement and reaching out her hands. The other day they also had her playing in the infant room, they said she acted really proud showing the other babies how she knew how to work everything and that she was the big girl on campus. When I came in to get her, she was all the way on the other side of the room. She bee-lined to me with wide-open arms yelling out with excitement until she reached me. It’s so nice to be greeted this way, I know Eric is greeted very warmly when he picks her up and when he gets home from work as well.

Today I missed her so I called Eric to see how she was since I had early morning meetings. He put me on the phone with her she said “Hi Mom” and after I said “I love you” she said something like “I love you” a bit garbled back to me. So sweet! Made me miss her even more!

Happy 16 months Kaylee!

Happy 16th Months Kaylee! We are having so much fun with our little girl. She is so cute and playful, playing peek-a-boo, making funny noises, giving kisses and dancing and spinning. The dancing and spinning is so cute because it is still sort of uncoordinated and after a spin, she is very dizzy yet she has to give it another try just seconds after recovery. Like I said she is climbing everything, she can jump off the couch now but still needs to be watched since she could have a fall.

We had a bad night with Kaylee last night with a lot of waking. She wouldn’t take a bottle and wanted the comfort of nursing only. After nursing, she still wasn’t happy and Eric had to hold her for a long period and every time he put her down she woke up again. This morning I let her sleep a bit late because I anticipate she’s going to be real tired today. Hopefully she will take a long nap and catch up so that this evening will be okay.

New words: “Strawberries,” “Updown,” “On and Down “ (we’ve been teaching on and off with light switches,) “Eat,” and for a while she’s been saying “ear,” “eye,” “nose,” “shoes,” and “sock.” She talks the most around Eric and I and gets shy around others. She also seems to talk the most in the morning. At daycare, they were excited to report to me that she said a cow says “moo” and a dog says “arf,arf.” Also her teacher was amazed that Kaylee said “Thank you” to her once. News to them not so new to us since we’ve been hearing her speaking skills getting cumulatively better everyday. Happy 16th Month my beautiful and smart little baby! We are so proud of you!

Update and outcome

Now Kaylee likes to climb on everything. Especially her highchair and her exercauser. The exercauser is that toy she stood in when she couldn't stand yet, when she was about 6 month old, she's much too old for it now. But she loves attempting to launch her whole body up and over it, into the seat bucket.  I have had to fill the thing with teddy bears to deter her, and that's not really working I may have to hide the thing away.

New words:

"cracker"

"here you go"

"there you go" (while handing something over)

"mine" (this one will be fun I'm sure)

She still calls me Jenny from time to time, but is also getting better at calling me Mommy. And not only when she's crying, which I love more than I can tell you.

We got Kaylee one of those toys you can ride outside, it converts to a walker. She doesn't really seem to get the riding thing, and cries when I have it converted. She wants the walker back.  We also got a wagon she has been pulling around.  

One of the neighbor girls (6 years old) said something cute a couple months ago that I forgot to blog about. She said "I think Kaylee should be in a baby walking contest. She is so good at walking she could probably beat all the other babies  in a race. We would just line them up and let them go, and Kaylee would win." Very very cute.

We took Kaylee to a park to play this weekend, a group of people stopped us after we'd passed them asking us to come back so they could see our cute baby. Then the lady said that she thought we should enter her into a beauty contest because she thought she would win.  Of course we are prejudiced and totally think our daughter is gorgeous, and with strangers verifying it for us too...suffice it to say we are very proud parents of a lovely little girl.

I have not written here yet that we are researching in-home daycares a bit. I have done an interview last week which went very well. And will do another of a different person's this Thursday.  We love our current daycare but it is very expensive. If we go in-home we would save $120 a week!  Of course the daycare provider must be loving, fun, licensed and trained, skilled, not have too many kids and not too many in the less than 2 age range. (We are finding a lot of them have way too many kids licenses allow them to have 10 kids!)  Also the home has to be clean, organized, fenced yard, non-smoking, with lots of evident appropriate toys and activities available, and close to a park. So we have certain criteria we're searching for, I really liked the lady and her home so Eric will meet her this week, i'll check references and we'll go from there... we love her current daycare so this is very hard to do.  If we leave, it will be on good terms so that we can use them for backup on days her provider may be sick or on a vacation that doesn't match with ours.  Wish me luck on the search! 

"I love you"

Yesterday I squatted down in the kitchen to get face-to-face with Kaylee and "talk" to her. She came around to my back, gave me a big hug and a little kiss. So sweet. I reached over to her, kissed her and said "I love you" and for the first time ever, she repeated "I love you." I was overjoyed. Of course I tried to get her to repeat it to Eric but it was a no go, but whoa what great words to hear!

Kaylee wakes up in the morning very talkative and said a lot of things this morning. She said "Dogs" "Puppies" "Jackson" "Go" "no doggies" "arf-arf" and her new word "Rico" pronounced in Kaylee-speak as "Ryco."

"Rrrryyyco, Rrrryyco, Rrrryco!" dog walks away "No puppy!"

Kaylee has started experimenting with spoons and forks. It started when she seemed to want her face wiped between each bite of spaghetti so I handed her a spoon. She's seen them before but is wildly distracted by them as playthings and so I keep them away to keep her eating. She scooped it onto her spoon, and then picked it up with her finger and then into her mouth. hopefully it'll connect soon.

I got Kaylee some crayons to play with this weekend, she spent over an hour with her floor pad of paper trying to color on the paper with some success. She doesn't quite have the coordination to make a mark everytime but from time to time she did. I colored with her. She smudged her hands over my marks, trying to spread out the color and share. She must have some experience with fingerpainting at daycare, they do art projects almost everyday. Her teacher said she is the most attentive student during that time, always excited and with a lot of patience for it.

Then we went outside to try chalk and blow bubbles outside. Out came the neighbor girls and they tried to blow bubbles. At first, we all shared then Kaylee threw a big tantrum because she wanted her turn and wouldn't let go of the wand (no bubbles were blown successfully). The bubbles had to go away so that the playing could continue and now we have a very decorated driveway. It's good that the neighbor girls like Kaylee so much. They invited us over to watch a dance video they made. They laughed as Kaylee danced to their music video.

p.s. You can really see in the above photo her cute gap between her two front teeth!