MOM!!!!

I have to admit that a lot of days I wish that wasn't my name. That when my kids yelled it, cried it, whined it...that they were not referring to me. Keeley has solved the problem. If I do not respond quickly enough, she starts yelling "Kerri Lynn!!!!" I guess she knows that I have to answer to that!

TWO!

I can hardly believe that we have had this smiling face for two years now.


She has certainly brightened our life and kept us on our toes. From the beginning, she was not content to sit idly by. Here she is hours after she was born trying to make a get away.


As soon as she could move, she took to exploring life in the fullest ways possible. This means reckless abandon and lots of messes. But always with a smile!



Some updates on Kayden:
* She was in her bed for all of two days. After a 2am wake up call from a stroller pushing little sister declaring, "want to sleep with you guys" and a napless (and grumpy) day, Mom made the executive decision that Kayden was not ready for a bed and put the railing back on her crib.

* She continues to explore life completely. I told my mom early on that I think Keeley is a very old soul and that there is a quiet presence about her. Kayden has none of that. She is new to the world. There is such joy in watching her figure out how much water she can pour in a cup (always less than she thinks), how sand might taste (yes, still does that), how it feels to pull the flowers off our freshly planted garden (they did look like balls), how high she can jump, how loud she can sing, and how much she can make us laugh every day.

* We carry on entire conversations with her - much advanced for her age. Yesterday we drove past some horses and she said "why are they swishing their tails. they shouldn't do that." I explained they were trying to keep bugs away and she said "but they're not supposed to do that".  Another time she looked at me with all seriousness and said "donkeys don't have arms or hands"  When I confirmed that, she said "so they can't do this?" and proceeded to run her eyes like she was tired!

* She is obsessed with everything Keeley does and convinced she can do it. For the most part, she is right.

* She continues to believe that she is the same age as big sister. In fact, today when I dropped her off at school I said "tell Mrs. Sutton how old you are." In all seriousness she looked at her and said, "I'm almost 3". Yesterday she told us she was almost one. I suppose turning two made her think she could start looking forward to the next milestone instead of enjoying right now.

* Eating is something she is quite good at. She will tell you exactly what she wants "just chickens" or "salad, right here, on my plate" or "I want french fries." I'm amazed at how well she eats and continue to be surprised at how little she likes sweets.

Stats:

* Weight: 28.13 pounds (69.8%)
* Height: 34.5 inches (70.23%)
* Head circumference: 19.5 inches (93.28%) - all brains right?

We sure love you, little sister. Without you in our lives we might sleep more, be drier, and a bit calmer. But we would certainly be poorer in our appreciation for life, miss the laughter you bring, and the songs you sing.

No more cribs

For about two weeks now Kayden has been able to get out of her crib. She really only would try to do it if she didn't want to take a nap. In the morning, she still called for us. A week ago, she started asking for a "bed just like Keeley do". She kept asking so I relented yesterday and took off the drop side portion of her crib after she refused to nap. My thought was that she'd be tired and go right to sleep. She did not. It took about an hour until she finally gave in. At 5 am Kelly and I were awakened to a screaming, wandering little sister. Apparently she is afraid of the dark and it was too dark in her room. She ended up in our bed and insisted we turn a lamp on.

During nap/picnic time today she somehow got her door locked. After a few moments trying to figure out how to get out, she finally gave up, turned her light on, and has been singing and playing for about 45 minutes now.

At some point she has to sleep right?

Singing

Before naps today Kayden and I were rocking. Keeley no longer allows me to put her down for naps - she simply goes in her room and plays until she wants to sleep at which point she turns off her light. Anyway, Kayden likes to rock and read or sing. When you read with her, it is really you looking at a book she has chosen for you and her reading a book by herself. It is very important that you are looking at your book but not reading it out loud. She also likes you to sing to her and she will sometimes join in. Her favorite lately has been "Jesus Loves Me" she requests it as "Jesus loves me bible so". She also likes "He's got the whole world in his hands" She requests this usually by saying, "and Grandma and Oma" Once you start singing, she'll tell you the specific people that God needs to have in his hands, what order you should list them, and who is not to be included. Today she didn't want "Jesus Loves Me" and got frustrated with me singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" because I tried to add Stevie and Simeon when we were listing the Martinez family. That was not okay. Instead of arguing the point, I just decided to rock with her. She started singing a song they learned at school to teach them some basic Spanish. I started to sing it with her and she said, "No, Mommy. Don't sing it. Just my friends at school do. Not you." My oh my does she know her mind!

The babies are sleeping

Tonight as Kelly and I finished eating, the girls ran off to play in Keeley's room. After a couple of minutes, Kayden came running in with a very stern look on her face and said "sshhh! You have to be very quiet. The babies are trying to sleeping." and then she scampered off.

Kelly and I laughed and continued talking. A few moments later, she came in, repeated what she had said earlier with a bit of a frustrated tone and then added "no more talking, okay?" before she ran off again.

I'd say my almost two year has a mind of her own and is definitely not afraid to share it!

Sisters

The girls running together on a walk with Daddy. So sweet.

Some Lots

Kayden is really quite articulate for her age. She is also not at all shy about sharing her feelings with you. She will tell you "no, don't sing" if she wants you to stop. Every night when we put her down she tells you "my baby. cover her up. on her pillow. cover me. NOT my books. ya ya. like that"

My favorite current saying, however, is "some lots." She says this if she doesn't think she has gotten enough of something or if, heaven forbid, you have not moved fast enough to give her how much she wants. Today as I was pushing my salad onto her plate at her request she looked at me and said "nOOoooo. some lots. want some lots." Never mind the fact that I was sharing my food!

Possessive

Keeley and Kayden both do a lot of talk revolving around possession. There is a lot of "yours" and "mines". Yesterday we were driving in the car and had a funny conversation about it:

Keeley: Daddy is a boy.
Me: Yes. Daddy is a boy.
Keeley: He is our boy.
Me: (laughter) Yep, I suppose Daddy is our boy.
Keeley: We are his girls.

How cute is that?! We sure love our boy!

Kayden's Conference

I had my end of the year conference with Kayden's lead teacher. Overall she said Kayden was doing wonderfully. She is well-liked, holds her own, is not intimidated by the older children (She is the youngest. Some kiddos are 3.5), and is missed when she is not in class.

The big concerns she had were that Kayden likes to pretend like she can't hear you when you talk to her (She'll look at you and just look away.) A few trips to the listening chair seemed to fix that issue. The other issue is that she often takes work that isn't hers. Her teacher told me that both of these are age appropriate issues so I shouldn't be terribly worried. I expressed concern that she would become somewhat of a bully next year as one of the older kids and she reassured me that she would most likely not. She said that Kayden is very caring and will likely be nurturing to the younger children - which will complete the learning cycle for the toddler community.

Her teacher noted several times that she has exceptional fine motor skills. This is funny to me because she has always been such a gross motor kiddo. Her favorite works right now are the markers, sifting flour, mopping, folding laundry, and beading necklaces.



The beading amazes me the most. The teachers thread the needle and tie one bead on the end of the yarn so the rest of the beads don't fall off. After that, Kayden picked out the items to add and threads them herself. For a kiddo not quite two yet, I think that shows an amazing amount of discipline!

Jesus Loves Me

Keeley refers to this as "the Jesus song". She is really coming into her own lately. I tried to get sister to sing it but she refused. Keeley gladly volunteered!

Lady bugs

The girls really love the garden at school so we decided to actually plant some flowers this year.  They loved it.  Then I decided we needed to have some pest control.  After the kids were born, I got a little psycho with chemicals so I wanted to do organic.  There is a nursery near us that lets you buy "helpful" bugs so we purchased some lady bugs.  Apparently they are in a dormant state if they stay cold so we kept them in the fridge until it was time to release them (dusk).  The girls helped us prep the flower bed with sugar water spray (I never knew how exciting spray bottles were to little kids)

and then helped us release the lady bugs. 

 It was so, so cute.

Reflux and Murmurs

We've had an interesting last month to say the least...

Kayden -
A few weeks ago, we took Kayden to the doctor because she was really fussy and hadn't been sleeping.  She had also developed this weird gulping thing.  I thought perhaps she had a sinus infection that was just draining down her throat.  The doctor said it sounded like reflux and prescribed zantac.  She said if Kayden wasn't better by Monday to call and they would call in prevacid. 

Kayden got a little better but then Keeley got bronchitis and Kayden did get a sinus infection.  After we cleared the sinus infection, she still wasn't better and I scheduled an appointment with the ENT.  With a very fast, in office procedure, he confirmed that she had severe reflux and significant damage.  He put us on prevacid and told us to come back in 6 weeks.  I wanted to talk to a GI doctor so we went the next day to see the doctor Kayden had seen as a baby.  He said that she should be significantly better in a week and that, if she wasn't, we would need to do an endoscopy to see what was causing the reflux and how significant the damage.

At one week she was worse.  The gulping started again and she was not sleeping.  We scheduled an endoscopy for two days laster.  There was a good chance that she has had "silent" reflux for quite some time.  Recurrent sinus infections (which she has had since she was a baby) can be a problem associated with reflux.  She had never exhibited any of the other reflux symptoms so we never had it tested.

All went well with the procedure.  Kayden didn't cry as she fell asleep or when she woke up.  The nurses said she just reached for her paci and started looking around.  She didn't cry in recovery at all.  The recovery nurse said she needs to come back and give lessons! Later that day she decided not to nap and learned how to climb out of her crib.  I'd say she was pretty unconcerned with the entire thing!


Everything looked fine except that Kayden has a few ulcers in her stomach that they biopsied. The esophagus damage that the ENT had seen was resolved which was good.  The biopsy results indicated that the ulcers were not a bacterial infection or caused by a disease - just the reflux.  We've had to switch medicines a few times due to them not working or Kayden just flat out refusing to take them.  Last night we had our first full night of sleep and today we had a good nap.  I'm hopeful she is starting to feel better.

Keeley-

In the midst of all this, I thought Keeley was getting sick.  Tired of waiting so long to be seen at our pediatrician's office, I decided to switch doctors.  We went to the doctor and she basically said that Keeley had a really bad cold, but was concerned about her heart murmur.  At 2 years old her old pediatrician had heard the murmur but she told me that it was gone when we had her 3 year old check up.  The new pediatrician said she definitely still had a murmur and would feel better if we saw a cardiologist.  I, too, would feel better knowing everything was okay.  However, the last thing I wanted to do was add another pediatric specialist to our list!  We went the following week and Keeley had an EKG and an echocardiogram done.  The pediatric cardiologist said that it was an "innocent heart murmur" and that we had nothing to worry about.  Relief!


Hopefully the summer will be much calmer and less drama filled!

Different as can be

Last week as Kayden and I waited in carpool for the primary kids to get dismissed I suddenly heard "uh oh".  I turned around to see her with one shoe upside down and a mound of sand on her chair, down her leg, and all over the floor.  I was amazed that it was possible to get that much sand and her foot in that tiny shoe. 

Moments later Keeley came to the car.  As she was climbing in I said that I saw her playing on the playground.  Her teachers said "Yes.  She was playing with her friends in the sand box.  Well, not in the sand box so much as right next to the sand box.  She didn't actually want to get in."

Conversations with a two year old

Kayden makes me laugh every day.  Even though she is not quite two, she is very capable of expressing her thoughts.  Here are a few conversations that have made me laugh lately:

On the slide in the backyard after I crossed my legs that were previously straddling the slide, she climbed up and said "open up your girl parts".  She then proceeded to, very angrily, pull my legs back to where they were. I could not stop laughing which only made her more frustrated.

In her rocking chair one morning as I hoped for some more cuddles before beginning the day, she pushed the blanket off of us and said "I all done. Let's go living room now."

When I squeezed her this morning and asked how she got so cute she replied, "I don't know how I so cute."

Cracks me up!!  And then, of course, there is this face: