Probably a few months before Kayla was 18 months we started requesting crayons when we went out to eat with the kids menu to keep her occupied. At first she was like any other toddler confronted with a new toy. She put them in her mouth a lot. We’d scribble with her and she’d copy us for a little while before trying to take a bite out of the color green. Overall, pretty normal stuff.
Whenever at home, she’d always try and take my pen away from me and take over with whatever I was doing. While I would have no problem passing the bill paying on someone else, I doubt without a basic knowledge of well.. writing, math and reading that she would get the electricity to stay on. Come to think of it, her always wanting to take my pen and draw may have started first, and why the “We need to get her some crayons” was decided. Getting crayons at a restaurant was the dry run before we rushed out to buy some.
Either way it was a gradual progression. Eventually I would give in and give her my pen and some random bits of paper and she’d scribble all over it before running off and making marks on my couches. I really had to watch her for a while. It was easier to give her a pen usually since she couldn’t take a chunk out of a pen so crayons were usually reserved for when we went out to restaurants. I still remember giving her a pen and some paper at home her wanting me to hold the paper in my lap while she drew (like I was her desk) and not always keeping it on the paper. Getting several marks on me and more on the couches. I ended up using a lot of fabric cleaner.
First picture I have of her scribbling, May 11th 2011
Eventually, she stopped trying to put the crayons in her mouth, figured out how you were only supposed to draw on paper, and was much more fascinated with making lines and scribbles on said paper. She was always calmed and distracted with a writing utensil and some paper. It was a tactic we employed often. I mean, what parent doesn’t want the peace and quiet afforded by common household items that don’t cause the child to tear your house apart?
So that’s when about the 18 month mark that people started to be amazed how good her scribbles were for her age. That isn’t it advanced to be scribbling and holding the pen so well? (Her G noticed it first, but we thought she was just biased) So we went on normally, letting her draw when she wanted and drawing with her. Her drawings started to evolve, and Marshall swore she could copy the smiley faces he drew. I didn’t see it. Eventually though.. I did. And every body else did too. She wasn’t just scribbling anymore, she was drawing.
First face that I recognized, July 17th 2011
Stuff you could recognize would come few and far between but now we get pages and pages of circles, spirals, sad faces, smiley faces, even a few bears. She’s even noticed an acute lack of a nose on all the simple faces we drew so has added those in. We’ve looked it up to see if it is advanced, and we found that the five finger grip she uses when holding a pen? Usually they get to that when they start school, so by four years of age. We compared her to other kids her age and ones older and seen a remarkable difference. Yes, she is ahead of the curve with her drawing skill it seems.
Her first copy of a bear I drew August 19th 2011
Not her first one with a nose, but certainly one of her best
We don’t exactly called her “gifted” or anything else, mainly because she sometimes runs around the house saying “I’m a map” while twirling in circles. We do want to foster her talents and in something she obviously seems to love. We’re not going to look for a tutor or special class, but we have gotten her a few more things to let her creativity show. We’ve gotten her some play-dough like clay, watercolors, finger paint (which is actually quite a clean endeavor and she genuinely prefers a brush to her fingers), a huge box of crayons and several notebooks for her to use. Even an eisel and desk set is in her future as an upcoming birthday gift.
First time finger painting
First finger painted face
Either way, we’re excited to see what she’ll create next. She just keeps on surprising us.
I love my husband. He’s a kind, caring, and loving man. In fact, he usually tells me “I love you” so much that I’ll hear him mumble and just automatically respond with an “I love you too” even though I really had no idea of what he said. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I get a “I said I took out the trash, but I do love you” for my trouble.
In the eight years we’ve been married I’ve watched our relationship evolve and change and it’s always positive. We’ve had our problems, but I’d like to think we have a relatively easy marriage. (Mainly because I’m always right) Our interests and hobbies may have changed, but our love for each other has never faulted.
Since Kayla came into our lives he’s learned a lot about what it means to have a family, and about how much he truly loves spending time with kids and watching them learn. His thirst for knowledge has been ignited and I watch him constantly go through books, podcasts, and articles with such enthusiasm that I can’t wait until our kids our older and he can pass that wonder of the world onto them.
He is also an extremely hard and dedicated worker. Right now he truly believes in the company he works for and wants to see it succeed. He loves what he does, and since having a family he’s learned to juggle his many responsibilities well. Right now he’s got a lot on his plate, and I watch him stress over getting what he needs done while still being able to help me out and spend time with Kayla. It just makes me love him all the more since I can see how much we mean to him. So, I decided to write this blog post.
You mean the world to Kayla and I, we are so lucky to have such a smart, kind, and dedicated man in our lives. Thanks for just being you.
I decided I better write this now before you leave me pregnant and alone with your crazy daughter for ten days. I may have slightly altered my view of you then.
It’s been awhile since I posted something, and this time it’s not just because I had forgotten or didn’t have the time. This time we were hit with some news that truthfully, for a while I didn’t know how to even begin writing about. Not long after finding out I was pregnant, Kayla devoloped a rash on her arms. I wrote it off for a few days as nothing until it seemed to change and not improve. I eventually called her doctor and found out that Fifth disease was going around and after talking a bit with the nurse, we were reasonably sure that’s what she had. (The next couple days just confirmed it)
By chance, I mentioned I was pregnant while on the phone with Kayla’s doctors office. I was a bit wary when I was asked how far along and to call my doctor right away to let them know I had most likely been exposed to Fifth disease. I knew nothing of this childhood illness so I was a bit concerned it required a call to my midwife’s office. I called them up after I finished discussing what to do for Kayla, and left a message with my doctor. While I was waiting I looked up exactly what this “Fifth disease” was online.
For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a mild rash illness that occurs most commonly in children. It’s real name is Parvovirus B19 but is called Fifth disease as it was the fifth of the classical childhood skin rashes. Overall, it’s not that big of a deal. You are contagious before you get a rash and Kayla didn’t show any of the symptoms they list associated with it like a fever or cold like symptoms until she randomly got the rash. She did seem to scratch a bit when the rash was at it’s worse, but not horribly and we just used a bit of rash cream to calm the itch. At least now that she’s had it, she’s developed immunity and we’ll never have to worry about it again.
You can see why it’s also called “Slapped cheek disease”
If it’s not that big of a deal then why was I told to call my doctor? Well apparently one of the things the parvovirus does is block red blood cell production. In an otherwise healthy child, or adult who isn’t immune, you have enough red blood cells to get you through the admittedly long run the disease takes on your body. In a pregnant woman, the virus can pass to the baby and can infect them as well. This can lead to anemia in the fetus, and in some cases; severe anemia, hydrops fetalis, and miscarriage. The chances are low, mainly because 50% of adults are immune, it still has to pass to the baby and then it would have to be a severe case in the fetus for anything majorly wrong to occur. However, chances of problems are a bit higher while in the first trimester, and I had just found out I was even pregnant.
My doctor scheduled a blood test when I came in at the end of the week for my first sonogram on June 17th. I was fairly confident that I would be immune and didn’t worry overly much about it. It was more than two weeks later that I came in for my regular doctors visit that I was told that I actually tested positive for the virus. I figured they would call me with results, so I had assumed I had tested negative. As she was going over the information, I was trying valiantly not to bust out crying when slammed with the news that I would have to go see a “Maternal Fetal Specialist for high risk pregnancy’s” for about 10-12 weeks. Even knowing the risk is low, having it put that way, and calling out the specialist is such a manner about knocked me off my seat.
So on top of some pretty horrible morning sickness and food aversions, I had a worry about what exactly was going to come of this seemingly mild illness I had caught. Kayla was already over the rash, it was like it barely even phased her, but it was just the beginning for me and the baby. Going to the specialist gave me some more information, but left me feeling a bit helpless. Because I was only 10 weeks pregnant on my first visit, there really wasn’t much they could see in regards to if the baby was infected. The could check for a build up of fluids, or if the baby seemed to be in distress, but they wouldn’t be able to check for anemia until I was at least 16 weeks. If the baby did end up showing anemia severe enough to warrant a problem, they could do a blood transfusion through the umbilical cord but not until I was about 20 weeks pregnant. (They would do it a few weeks earlier if it was absolutely needed though)
Some days I didn’t even see the point in going because even if they could tell anything, nothing would really be able to be done about it until I was almost out of the danger zone. I was worried and frustrated for the longest time. This baby didn’t give me much time to worry about it though as I seemed to be constantly sick and now as I’m 18 weeks, have had a total of 5 sonograms, and have only 2 more visits to the specialists before I can stop being monitored with no problems having been seen in all this time, the tension is slowly leaving. I’m still sick, thinking or looking at certain foods makes me frown in disgust, and the baby didn’t cooperate when we tried to find out the gender, but at least this is soon to be off my plate.
Since nothing has shown to be wrong, I’m going to take the two sonograms over the next couple weeks as just excuses to see my baby (without wanting to give the stinker beatings for making me miserable) and hopefully find out the gender.
I have been feeling sick off and on the last week or so but I easily wrote it off as problems with my thyroid meds. The lingering thought in my mind was “Could I be pregnant?” Marshall and I talked and joked about the possibility on the ride home. (Marshall and I were even saying how difficult it must be with two kids) I didn’t think I was, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. So on Memorial Day, as we drove home from a BBQ lunch with Ryan and Mollie, I started to feel sick again and I finally decided to just bite the bullet and take a test.
I snuck out and bought a test, which was an adventure in of itself because the $5.99 box for two tests were locked up and I had to ask someone to open the case. Which lead them asking someone else, and so on until the 4th person opened it for me. When I finally took the test, and saw the plus staring back up at me I couldn’t stop grinning. I dropped off the test to Marshall who just looked at it confused before asking “Are you torturing me?” because I know he can’t read pregnancy tests.
After I explained that a “plus” means we’ll be “plus one”, we were both ecstatic but it was hard to wrap our minds around. Still, Marshall was already trying to think up baby names. It’s something we’ve wanted for a while, but unfortunately with my hypothyroidism, not only would it be bad for the baby but extremely hard to get pregnant in the first place, so it was a welcome surprise. A couple of days later I got blood test results back from a check on my thyroid (which I had been worrying like crazy over for the new baby’s development) and it came back NORMAL. Certainly explains how I got pregnant in the first place! I still need to take medication and check it but it’s a huge weight off my shoulders.
Marshall and I also decided on how we wanted to tell everyone that we were pregnant again. We knew we’d be seeing everyone soon (Happy Birthday Shannon.. hope you like your present!?) and so I made a shirt for Kayla that says “Baby Pepper 1.0″ with “Big Sister” in binary underneath. Then we made one for me with “Baby Pepper 2.0 building…” and a status bar on the belly. We even put “Release date: January 2012″ on the back. Totally geeky, I know, but it is so us.
I even had my first pregnancy exam today and my due date should be around January 23rd of 2012. Finally going to the doctor made everything really sink in and we can’t wait to show off our new shirts tomorrow to the family. Pictures and reactions will be posted soon.
Like his father, Truett, Chick-fil-A’s founder, chairman, and CEO, Cathy, 51, believes that attentive, sincere, memorable service is a key ingredient to building a successful company. He talks about service plenty. How it’s tied to the corporate mission. How it affects the bottom line. With people everyone crying out for Sunday service, Truett has finally conceded to our demands.
If you’ve been lead here because of my post on Facebook or Twitter.. well, Sorry to say that Chick-Fil-A will not be opening on Sunday’s. APRIL FOOLS!
Gosh, I love this holiday. I think it’s because I’m mischievous by nature and this gives me an excuse. Most of you know that I told everyone (barring immediate family and close friends) that I was pregnant on April Fools in 2009. I was pregnant and people believed me, then didn’t believe me once they remembered the day. I had a fun time. On April 2nd I remember my Facebook status being “Still pregnant” just to let everyone know, that my announcement the day before was the truth, disguised as a joke. I still had people that didn’t believe me, which I just thought was funny.
Anyway, it’s a great day to be wacky and have some fun so I decided to post a few April Fool’s pranks. Some I have used, some that Marshall will probably be experiencing today. You will notice that half are computer based ones… what can I say, I’m a geek.
Confuse your victim by changing all the icons on the computer desktop. Just rename all the icons to whatever you want. Then change the icon pictures: right click on each icon, choose “Properties” then the Shortcut tab, then “change icon.”
Change the settings on your victim’s computer so when they Google something their search page is in a different language. Just sneak onto their computer, go to Google.com, choose “Settings” in the upper right, then “Search settings.” Now change the Interface language to whatever language you prefer. You can even choose Klingon, Pirate, Elmer Fudd, Hacker or Bork, bork, bork! (To fix after the prank just click on the “Google.com in English” link below the search box on the main Google page.)
On most computer monitors, if you turn the brightness control all the way up and the contrast all the way down, the screen will appear to be blank. Do this to your victim and they will drive themselves crazy trying to “fix” their “broken” monitor.
Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel and find the option for your Mouse. On the Buttons tab, change the buttons configuration to switch the primary and secondary buttons of the mouse. Now when the victim clicks with the mouse, nothing will work as expected.
Take a Post-It note or dark tape and place it over the eye of the victim’s optical mouse. When the victim tries to use his or her computer, the cursor won’t move. Be sure to write “April Fools!” on the note! (Note if they have a standard mouse, you can perform the same trick by taping a piece of paper over the ball underneath the mouse.)
Do an image search online for “blue screen of death” and set that image as the screen saver on the victim’s computer. That’ll give them a real scare!
Carefully pop off a few of the keys from the victim’s keyboard. Switch them around and replace them. If the victim is a “hunt and peck” typist, this will cause great confusion! (I typically do this to M and N.)
Take all the cereal in the house, remove the plastic bags from the boxes, and switch them around. When the victim tries to eat breakfast they will do a double-take when the wrong cereal pours out.
Put a note on your victim’s car that says “Sorry about the dent. Call me so we can swap insurance information.” Include a fake name and phone number. Be sure to hide nearby so you can watch them search in vain for the “dent.”
Block the signal on the TV remote with a tiny piece of black paper
Put a small amount of paint or ink on your finger. Go up to your victim and pretend to notice a “mark” on their face. Tell them you’ll rub it off, but instead, actually place a mark ON their face. Act like you got the mark off and walk away.
Make some copies of a paperclip. Then put them into the paper tray of the copier. People will go nuts trying to find the paperclip stuck in the printer.
Tape magnets to the bottom of an empty coffee cup, and attach it to the top of your car. Laugh at all the people who frantically try to get your attention as you drive by.
Put a piece of bubblewrap under the toilet seat so when your victim sits, they are surprised by a loud POP!
Take your victim’s shampoo bottle, and remove the cap. Place a small piece of plastic wrap over the opening, making sure it goes down a bit on the sides, but not so far that it will be visible. Screw the lid back on and put the bottle back in the normal spot. Results: Victim will squeeze as hard as they can and no shampoo will come out due to plastic wrap blockage.
Hey everyone! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and has a yummy green beer today just because they can. Mostly because I bet some of you don’t know what this holiday means anyway. I’m not catholic so I never knew when I was younger that I was celebrating the patron saint of Ireland or it being the end of lent. All I knew was that I got shamrock cookies and had to wear green or I’d get pinched. Did St. Patrick pinch people who didn’t show Irish pride? Either way, in celebration of the holiday I made Green velvet whoopie pies and thought I’d share the recipe I found online (At the blog, Erin’s foods files, which has some GREAT recipes btw) and made.
Ingredients:
CAKE:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1-oz. bottle red food coloring (2 Tbsp.) **Erin Tip: If you choose to make these green, 1 to 1 1/2 Tbsp will be plenty, no need for 2 Tbsp.**
FILLING:
3 cups powdered sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
CAKE:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment; set aside. In medium bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
In large mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high 30 seconds. Beat in brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, beating after each addition just until combined. Stir in food coloring.
Spoon batter in 1- or 2-inch diameter rounds, about 1/2-inch high on prepared baking sheets, allowing 1 inch between each round.
Bake 7 to 9 minutes for 1-inch cookies or 9 to 11 minutes for 2-inch cookies, or until tops are set. Cool completely on baking sheets on rack. Remove cooled cookies from baking sheets and frost with favorite filling.
FILLING:
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth with no visible lumps. Add the cream cheese and beat until combined. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Be careful no to overbeat the filling, or it will lose structure.
Pipe filling in between onto bottom of one whoopie pie and sandwich between another whoopie pie. Store whoopie pies in fridge until ready to serve, then allow whoopie pies to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.
I placed them in individual white cupcake wrappers to make them easier to handle. I remembered when I made pumpkin whoopie pies that they stuck to whatever thing I placed them in, so I did it to avoid that. It’s a bit hard to tell when they are done because of the green coloring so keep an eye on them while baking. I also placed both the cake mixture and the icing in a ziplock bag and cut off a tip to use it as a pastry bag. It made getting the right size cakes much easier and looks a lot better for the icing. (I did double icing, both sides had frosting then I squished them together, trust me you have enough) They were very dry after I baked them but the day after being in a sealed container in the fridge they got some moisture back. So if you bake them today I’d suggest wrapping them up and letting them rest in the fridge for a few hours before you have them with a green beer tonight.
Everyone knows that the standards out there for women’s beauty are hard to live up to. So raising a daughter in this world full of media conveying the “ideal” beauty standard in so many upfront and subtle ways is bound to be difficult. I know how I feel now, how I felt growing up, always wishing you could change something about yourself, be it weight or physical features. I’m sure most women out there at one time or another has asked the question, “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?”. Most of us probably start thinking about our physical aspects before anything else. (Unless maybe in a job interview..) Why wish to be smarter, kinder, or more adventurous when we could be thinner or have a smaller nose?
That’s why when the subject of a new book came up titled “Cinderella ate my Daughter” at a meetup with some fellow mom’s, it caught my interest. When I next stopped into the book store, I ended up looking it up and reading into it a little before deciding to take my own copy of this eye popping pink book home for myself. The author, Peggy Orenstein, has written books about girls before, their self-esteem and the confidence gap. (“Schoolgirls” being very popular) This book though came into being when she had her own daughter and noticing a vast invasion of all things pink and pretty, and it all begins with a princess.
To me, Peggy is a wonderful, funny and insightful author. She starts off by real life experiences that have set her down the path of learning all there is to know about the princesses and all things pink, usually with a funny undertone. She points out things I never would have known and even opened my eyes to things I just didn’t see anything wrong with before. I’ve learned a lot of surprising things about how the story book princesses (Disney or Brother Grimm version), Seasame Street, American girl dolls, superheros, and technology can call shape how our daughters look and feel about themselves.
Not to say that all she does is spout negatives about everything out there in any shade of pink, but she did make me realize I was a bit desensitized to it. There is a difference between nature and nurture, and she ends the book talking about compromise, discussions with our daughters about the things they are bombarded with everyday and most of all, awareness.
I wanted to give my take on the book because I know it’s created a bit of a debate between the mom’s I know and I really do think it’s worth a read if you have a kid, boy or girl. While it may be awhile until I’m faced with the issues this book raises awareness of, (self-esteem, materialism, premature sexualization) it will be sooner then I ever thought, and I’m glad I’m now just a bit better prepared.
Last time I posted I asked everyone’s opinion on if I should keep using playcare or not. I was done with being as sick as often as we’ve been in this house, which all started when we started putting Kayla in playcare for the occasion night out.
After lots of good advise by people on facebook or here on my blog, people who messaged me, and by reading up on the issue, (even found a study on the subject here) I’ve reached a decision. While the idea of forgoing playcare and cutting down on the sickness it would bring now would be nice, I would just be delaying it. I think during the winter months I’ll cut back while the majority of horrible bugs are out, but I’ll keep going.
My reasons are that I’d rather her be sick now periodically when I can control it to an extent instead of when she starts school, when she may just bring home illness after illness. Yes, she may deal with it better when older, but we do want to have a second child eventually, and I’d rather her build up some immunity now instead of having sick child and a baby to look after, or even two sick children at the same time.
Either way, it sucks now, but hopefully when school starts or when we have a new baby we won’t have this issue. Thanks to my Aunt Wendye, Bobbi, Melissa, Leslie, Sheila, Karin for giving their advise. It was appreciated.
Marshall and I use a playcare at a small outdoor mall in an overall nice area, with a great movie theater nearby, and lots of good restaurants. It’s great because we’re still close by while we go out for the night, all the “baby huggers” as they’re called are certified in CPR, Kayla gets some socialization, and we can go last minute. Only problem, as with an other daycare or school I’m sure, is the fact that just days after being in playcare for only a few hours, Kayla typically gets sick. Then I get sick. Every time we’ve gotten sick I can point to a day not long before that she was in playcare.
Usually it’s nothing terribly serious (at least for Kayla, I’ve been knocked flat by some of the things she’s brought home), a small cold, or if it’s a bit more serious, maybe a cold leading to an ear infection. (Which has happened only once by the way) Unfortunately last time we were not so lucky. On Wednesday, only two days after being in playcare, Kayla got the stomach flu. I had gotten it back in December, as well as a lot of people I knew, or their children, but luckily Kayla didn’t seem to catch it. By late February, I thought I was off the hook. Guess I was wrong.
When your baby is sick, they want comfort, which means when they have something like the stomach flu, they are typically going to get sick all over you. Which is exactly what happened to me, over and over again. I was worried constantly over the last few days because with this kind of thing, especially on the first day, going to the ER was a real possibility if she got dehydrated enough. We followed the doctors advise (whom I called everyday) and toughed it out for 3 days before she finally started to seem better. Those days scared the crap out of me though.
On Sunday, I woke up from a wonderful dream of being in a Paula Dean owned ice cream shop, with Paula Dean herself behind the counter (She’ll even top the ice cream with a cheeseburger with doughnuts serving as the bun!) to Marshall being sick. Wonderful. He had to cancel his flight out to California and I have another baby to take care of.
Everyone is doing better now. Not to say fully recovered, but better. After being scared, tired, mentally drained and sore for almost a week I’m reconsidering ever putting Kayla back in that playcare. It doesn’t matter that they sanitize things nightly and do a thorough cleaning weekly, babies and kids are going to pass germs and end up sick until they have built up their immune system. I know that when Kayla eventually starts school this will happen again and so I wonder if not taking her to playcare will just prolong the inevitable. Then I’ll just end up losing my “date night” until I can find some babysitters. At least she’d be older and things may not hit her as hard though right?
Maybe I’m only thinking this way because I haven’t gotten a good night sleep since this started (Crying and sick baby waking up in the middle of the night does that to a person) and every thing is still fresh. Either way, this is why I told Marshall I wanted to move closer to Kayla’s Gmama and Papa Joe’s! (Grandparents ALWAYS want to take care of their grandbabies right?!)
So, I know a lot of the people reading have kids, what do you think? Playcare, or not to playcare?
Ever since Kayla started to show any sort of personality, we realized it was going to be interesting. She was, and is, no quiet baby when she decided on something that she wants. She is smart, lovable, sweet, shy, stubborn, fun, and something I’ve come to notice, strange.
As you might have noticed, she’s a got a lot of personality. She’s shy around strangers (unless it’s kids) but as soon as they turn their backs she waving at them. She refused bottles, pacifiers, mushy food, and stuck to it enough that her grown up parents couldn’t take it anymore and just gave in. She shows how smart she is daily by learning and figuring out new things (pointing to things and asking “wasdat?”) but a lot of time she’s acting like a space cadet.
Case in point.
She loves to explore, and in pursuit of that goal she’s gone walking around the house opening whatever drawer or cabinet she can. She likes to take things out and put things away sometimes too. Since she started this behavior, she has found the drawer in her room that is at eye level that she rummages around in, takes out clothing from it, then puts them randomly around the house. Sometimes she just likes to walk around the house with articles of clothing slung over her shoulders like a cape or a bib.
I think she may get that last habit from my tendency to holding clothing up to her in an effort to see if it would fit. Once, I held a onesie up to her chest that she had gotten out but when it fell off she kept placing it back. I ended up tying the long sleeves around her neck, sort of like a bib, because she started to cry when it kept falling off her. She walked around for hours like that. So if you come to my house and my daughter has a article of clothing tied in place it’s because she WANTED it that way alright?
Kayla also is a bit of a dare devil is seems. She likes to walk around without being able to see. If she sees a blanket she likes to place it over her eyes and walk away. Usually is scares me so I grab her before she runs into something which makes her laugh all the harder. It quickly became a game to her, which ends with giving me a heart attack and me taking away the blanket (or whatever she’s using to cover her eyes) leaving a crying baby. Needless to say it’s not my favorite game. Although it did give us quite a bit of laughs when we first figured it out.
She’s constantly finding ways to test things, like her little lion scooter. Once she learned how to get on the thing she was always getting on and off, and even watching TV while sitting on it. It’s funny because we have this mini plush rocking horse but she’s TERRIFIED of the thing, but the lion? That one’s fine. (Probably because it makes music and Gmama and Papa Joe gave it to her) She doesn’t know how to move around in it just yet, but she’s working on it. She tips the thing over and plays with the wheels, she tries sitting on it from different angles and because of all this, I’ve started to sound like a tried and true mom… “You know it’s only fun until somebody gets hurt!”
Because of my darling daughter I find diapers stashed in with her clothing, half of a children’s door lock in the dryer, a pen in with Marshall’s socks, random baby clothes in the bottom of the trash can (underneath the bag), and my eyelash curler in the dirty clothes. She knows how to use a Iphone or Ipad better than some people out there and will even grab your fingers to make you press the buttons on the screen. Needless to say.. she makes our lives just full of surprises and fun moments.
First picture I have of her scribbling, May 11th 2011
First face that I recognized, July 17th 2011
Her first copy of a bear I drew August 19th 2011
Not her first one with a nose, but certainly one of her best
We do want to foster her talents and in something she obviously seems to love. We’re not going to look for a tutor or special class, but we have gotten her a few more things to let her creativity show. We’ve gotten her some play-dough like clay, watercolors, finger paint (which is actually quite a clean endeavor and she genuinely prefers a brush to her fingers), a huge box of crayons and several notebooks for her to use. Even an eisel and desk set is in her future as an upcoming birthday gift.
First time finger painting
First finger painted face
Everyone knows that the standards out there for women’s beauty are hard to live up to. So raising a daughter in this world full of media conveying the “ideal” beauty standard in so many upfront and subtle ways is bound to be difficult. I know how I feel now, how I felt growing up, always wishing you could change something about yourself, be it weight or physical features. I’m sure most women out there at one time or another has asked the question, “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?”. Most of us probably start thinking about our physical aspects before anything else. (Unless maybe in a job interview..) Why wish to be smarter, kinder, or more adventurous when we could be thinner or have a smaller nose? 
I was worried constantly over the last few days because with this kind of thing, especially on the first day, going to the ER was a real possibility if she got dehydrated enough. We followed the doctors advise (whom I called everyday) and toughed it out for 3 days before she finally started to seem better. Those days scared the crap out of me though.
