David, Lisa, Kayla & Isaac

Here's Kayla sporting her Halloween costume and her Halloween day outfit!

She absolutely loves pumpkins! Every time she sees one (at the store, on a neighbor's front porch or the ones in our house) she points and says "ba-ba". Apparently B's and P's are the same to her! I am beginning to understand why parents are always good decoders of what their children say. I can clearly tell when she is saying pumpkin vs. other uses of the sound ba... but to an outsider, well, I can understand why they can't understand what she is trying to communicate!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Posted by Lisa at 09:36 AM | Permalink

Kayla was a very efficient and early teether. I thought I'd make a "public service announcement" :) When she got her first teeth (at 3.5 months) I had people ask if I was going to continue nursing her, or people making jokes about how that must be a lot of fun with nursing. Now, I am sure that my experience is different that everyone else's but in the 10 plus months she has had teeth, she has bit me less than 10 times. I say 10, because I'm sure it isn't any more. I only actually vividly remember being bit 2 times that hurt, and it was during the same nursing session (once on each side - nice). It was when she was teething teeth #3-6 (in like a week span), and I think she was dying to chew something. When she bit me, I immediately took her off, flicked her cheek (recommendation from LLL), and said "no" VERY firmly.... At that point, she was done with that side (my choice, not hers), and I offered her the other. When she bit me on that side, I did the same thing, except she was all done nursing! She caught on quickly, apparently, because she wanted to eat! I have been a lot more careful about nursing, though, since that point. I always pull her off when she seems to be done actually eating and is more playing around. I don't take any chances because, man - those teeth are sharp. But as long as she is actually nursing, she is fine.

However, biting seems to be an issue we are going to have to deal with. When she doesn't get what she wants or when she is frustrated, she turns and opens her mouth and bites. She's only bitten David and me (so thankfully not other children or adults.... yet), but this is clearly not acceptable behavior. We are trying to work on it with her, but it's not an easy task. She doesn't give much warning that she's going to bite and she doesn't seem all that remorseful when we tell her no. We've been either gently flicking her cheek when she bites or pressing our finger on her cheek (and into her teeth so she won't bite because then she'd be biting her own cheek) and firmly saying "No, we don't bite". She cries, but mostly I think because she doesn't like being scolded. She'll snuggle up and hug like her life depended on it. But in 30 seconds if she doesn't get her way again, she'll bite again. Not sure what to do with that! I think we are kinda hoping this is a phase! :)

Posted by Lisa at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Kayla is improving on her verbal communicate skills! She signs "more" all the time and the other day when signing it I asked what she wanted more of (because we were changing her diaper!) and she said "ju" (juice)!! I was thrilled and of course got her her juice as soon as she was in her clean diaper and praised her so much! She also says "dow" (down) when she is ready to get out of your arms or out of her feeding chair. She also says "ch" (cheese) when we ask her to, and at dinner the other night she pointed to it and said it when she had finished her last bite of it and wanted more! She says "hhh" (hot) when I tell her things I'm giving her to eat are hot, or when I'm cooking on the stove top, or when I'm opening the oven door. She mostly repeats the words when we ask her to say them, but she's starting to say them on her own (in the last few days). She continues to say "ba" (ball) whenever she sees them (in person, in a book, on tv, on our shirts!), and points out dogs and says "da" for them. I'm still really unclear as to whether or not she is saying words or just sounds still, but she is communicating to us and it is a lot of fun!

She says something that sounds like "tickle-tickle-tickle" (which we say all the time when we tickle her) and makes the tickle motion to us and giggles with us!

She can point out her own belly button, which is super cute! She can point to mine too (much to my dismay, as I really dislike belly buttons in general!)! She also knows where her toes and nose are and will point to them occasionally when prompted. Speaking of toes, she bit her big toe a long time ago (6 months ago maybe)... and just last week I told David that it looked like she might lose her toe nail because it was starting to turn a different color and looked almost like there was another nail growing behind it. Well, sure enough, it fell off last week! I looked down at her and she was playing with the nail which was almost completely detached - yuck! But at least it didn't hurt her! Hopefully she learned her lesson and won't bite her toes again! :)

She has lately been obsessed with putting things in and out of other things. For example, we play with her farm and I'm sitting Indian style on the ground.... she puts all her farm animals between my legs and then takes them out, and then puts them in. Or, we have these boxes from Ikea that my mom got for her and she loves putting things in them (including things like our slippers) and then taking everything out, then putting it all back in and so on. She also likes to put herself in these boxes and play! She is starting to show interest in the shape sorter and putting objects into the correct holes! That is fun to see.

She continues to find new ways to climb. She can now climb up the dining room chairs. That means that I need to have them pushed in at all times or she is able to access anything she wants on the table top (which is the only place left in the main area that I had previously considered child proof). She also climbs on top of the couches and and transfers from couch to couch via the arms. Sometimes she moves from the arms of the couches and onto the end table inbetween them. Not good.

She is really running around these days. In the last several days I've noticed that she's suddenly much less stable than she has been! I don't know if she's just wired or what, but it's like she is bouncing off the walls (literally) and tripping over imaginary toys all the time! Hopefully this phase passes soon!

She just got her top 2 canine teeth this week, making 14 total!

We've dropped the afternoon nursing, so she is nursing just 3 times a day. She eats a pretty large breakfast, a massive lunch, but her dinner has slowed down. She still eats a good amount, but not as much as she used to. David has been working with her on this trick (see below!!).

She's sleeping about 11 hours at night these days (9-8) and is taking about a 45 min morning nap (late, though, like around noon) and then a longer nap in the afternoon (often an hour plus, but again late, like at 5). She's possibly going to transition to just 1 nap soon, and ideally right after lunch. We'll see how the next month plays out. (She takes her naps in her crib, but the picture below of David is right after she woke up and still was sleepy. The picture of me and her is one afternoon when she wouldn't go down for a nap so I nursed her to sleep on the couch and we napped together!)

1. Her eyes are still a pretty blue color.
2. We gave Kayla eye drops for the 2 weeks the Dr suggested (which was mildly traumatic... she did get used to them so it got a little better with time). We are now in a holding period where we are just looking for signs that it is either plugged or not plugged. Time will tell I guess.

Posted by Lisa at 11:48 PM | Permalink

This was one of David's 3-day weekends and it was a beauty! The weather was so beautiful and warm and we took advantage of it! On Friday afternoon we went to Meijer Garden's for a few hours. There were pumpkins everywhere and Kayla enjoyed playing on them. They also have a coy fish pond and she LOVED that. We were feeding them Goldfish (is it acceptable to feed fish goldfish?) crackers and they were coming right up to the surface and Kayla wanted to touch them SO very badly!

Then on Saturday we went apple picking! We pulled her along in her new wagon and she enjoyed being at the apple orchard. They also had a corn box (a sand box with dried corn kernels instead of sand) and we played in there for awhile. We topped it off with fresh doughnuts and apple cider - yum!

These are some of my favorite pictures but there are tons more here! Enjoy :)

Posted by Lisa at 10:04 PM | Permalink

The night we got back from our trip to MA we got a call from David's mom wondering what we were doing that weekend and if she could come!!! She was able to extend a trip visiting friends in Indy and come visit us for a short weekend. It was a nice surprise!

She was here just a short time (Saturday afternoon til Monday morning), but we had a lot of fun with her. After she got here on Saturday we went to a local apple orchard. We had hot apple cider and warm doughnuts! Kayla really enjoyed having some bites of the doughnuts, but didn't like the texture of the sugar on her hands! There is a winery there as well and we did some wine tasting too!

Then on Sunday David and I went out to dinner at Rose's (a little more upscale and non-child friendly restaurant that hosts my favorite dessert - crème brulee), while grandma babysat Kayla. Even though she was here such a short time, we really enjoyed her visit! Kayla loved playing with her, and grandma really enjoyed interacting with Kayla too!

Posted by Lisa at 12:02 AM | Permalink

We made a trip out to MA the last weekend in September. I was planning on making a trip there sometime this fall to catch one of my dad's soccer games and it worked out for David to come along too, and we chose to come out the weekend of LCA's Homecoming! Sadly, a huge rain storm ended up canceling the games, so not only were we not able to see his game it also made for a poor turnout to Homecoming in general. But we still enjoyed the cookout and some games in the gym (she loved the moonwalk obstacle course, despite the somber face she made when we tried to take a picture!) and see a few old friends. We were also able to get together with our good friends Katie and Pat for dinner. We enjoy their friendship so much and are sad that we don't get to see them very often.

David made it his goal to have clam chowder every day we were in town and he was able to accomplish it! We didn't even make it out of the airport the first day without it! There is a Legal Seafood kitchen that was right outside our terminal, so he grabbed a big bowl for us! And Sunday after church we headed to Wells, Maine to eat at Maine Diner. We had SUCH a fabulous meal! They had the best Seafood Chowder, Clam Chowder, Lobster Stew and cornbread to start. Then I got a lobster roll and David got a fried seafood platter and we all left very full, fat and sassy! :) It was quite a treat to have such fresh and tasty seafood.

While there we were able to pay my dad back for some of the work that he is always doing when he comes out to our house! Seriously, it seems every time he comes out to visit us he's either working on our house or helping friends work on theirs! It felt good to be able to help him out this time! My parents are redoing their deck and David and I spent the better part of 2 days putting up the surface boards. Now you can now walk all over the deck (and put the hot-tub back on it!). There is still a lot of work left to do, but we got a nice chunk of it done, so at least now it is a functional space!

We both got a good break from watching Kayla. Obviously we weren't watching her when we were working on the deck (although she and Grandma had chairs by the glass doors and often sat and watched our progress! It was really cute!). And we also went to Panera for awhile and read our books by the fire, which was fun too. Both Grandma and Grandpa had a lot of fun playing with her and watching how she interacts now. She changes so much so quickly that even though they saw her about a month previously, she was a lot different this trip! She was quiet a handful to watch too, since not everything is baby-proofed... and she knew exactly what she wasn't allowed to touch (plants, cords, the fireplace, etc) and if you turned your attention away from her for 5 seconds she was getting into trouble! Little stinker!! My parents have a "Circle of Trust" as my dad calls it... which is the large area in their living room where most of her toys were, and there's only 1 way to enter/exit it. It you sit at that 1 entry point and she's inside, there isn't much she can't touch. At one point they were playing a game where he'd pretend to not be watching her and she'd try to be sly and escape and then he'd grab and tickle her and she'd giggle! He had a lot of fun with that game! And check out the sweet picture of "Up-Down Neigh neigh" with my mom!!

We had a great trip and as always it was tough to leave.

On our plane ride home we ended up getting delayed (gee, there's a surprise) in Clevland. Thank goodness for kid's play area's!!

Posted by Lisa at 11:53 PM | Permalink

I have been thinking a lot about life lately. A little over a month ago David found out that one of his friends from his high school youth group was in a terrible accident with a commercial lawn mower. He has 3rd degree burns on over 30% of his body and the mower crushed his vertebrae and has left him paralyzed from the waist down. I have been following his recovery on a Caring Bridge blog his wife keeps and I am truly in awe of their faith in God. This is obviously not what they had hoped for. When he left for work that day, they didn't realize that life would change so dramatically. I don't really know this friend. I've met him only a handful of times, mostly at weddings. But his faith in God through the struggles, his wife's faith through the circumstances is unbelievable. It's awe inspiring. If they can have such faith in such a rough situation, surely I can have faith too. I am sure they EXPECTED him to come home from work that day and life to carry on like normal. But from reading the blog, I think they have changed their expectations of life to expect God will provide for them, whatever the circumstance.

Then we just found out some terrible news about a couple that we met a few times, several years ago. He was just a little older than we are and he unexpectedly died of a heart attack last weekend. Although we haven't kept in contact at all, the news hit me hard. I just can't imagine what it would be like to wake up one day in her shoes. That is not what you hope and dream of, it's your worst nightmare.

For me, I think life is hardest when I'm expecting one thing and something else happens. I'm a planner, and so I kinda like to think things will go as I plan! I'm trying to change my attitude so that instead of expecting to get my every wish or desire I'm instead expecting that God is faithful and will be with me no matter what happens.

After thinking about my life and some of my expectations with Kayla, I'm trying to change my attitude. She is not a good napper, never has been. She just doesn't require sleep that the books say she will or that my friends’ kids do. I kept a notebook of her sleeping habits for 1 year and as a result I lowered my expectations (a little) of her... I didn't expect her to take multiple 2+ hour naps like many kids take, I just expected her to just show some signs of consistency. Since she typically takes two 45 minute naps a day (currently that is), I expect that of her. So when days where she takes only 1 nap and it's only for 30 minutes I get.... angry. I can't explain why something so petty makes me so very angry, but it does. Naps are important to me. I need that time away from her, time to do things that I need to do or want to do. I feel ENTITLED to this time by myself. It's my right! I'm a really good mom and I pour my heart and soul into her when she's awake.... I deserve this time to myself! But I'm also not happy when I stick her up there thinking she's tired and she cries or screams.... my blood pressure rises and my patience with her dwindles. I don't even get to enjoy that time to myself because I'm angry at her for not sleeping! So... I did a little research (at ask Moxie) and found some other moms who have kids that just don't require sleep (fyi - my mom says I never napped!).... and they said that for them it was important to just give up that expectation. If their kid is happy and enjoying life and not crabby like they need to sleep (which describes Kayla), then why torture themselves by expecting their kid to fit into a box of a typical napper? After a little soul searching I've decided that I really need to change my attitude about her sleep in general. I would let one blown nap ruin my day. I would let one scream-fest from her make me an unhappy person. If she is happy all day, even when I go up to get her from her non-nap, why am I making such a big deal about it? I guess because I expect her to do things.... expect her to nap like she did the day before, etc. I've been trying this whole attitude change for, um, about 2 weeks now... clearly I don't have a lot of time under my belt, but I will tell you that I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I am clinging to the good in the situation. For example, it doesn't matter if she naps good or bad during the day because either way she consistently sleeps about 10.5 hours uninterrupted at night. That is something to be thankful for! And also, she really is a happy little girl. Even when she sleeps so little during the day, she is still really good at self-entertaining and it isn't like she is melting down with exhaustion.

So... my whole point is this: I can't let my attitude be wrapped up in something I have no control over. Things will never go as planned, so roll with the punches. I will say that I am a much happier person these past few weeks, and that has occurred on days when she has napped both uncharacteristically long and uncharacteristically short! It's all a matter of me CHOOSING to be happy, despite my circumstance. I'm trying this on a very petty topic (Kayla's napping schedule) and hoping that finding the good in every situation will find its way into the rest of my life.

Posted by Lisa at 10:06 PM | Permalink