David, Lisa, Kayla & Isaac

Kayla has turned into a true chatterbox. Her vocabulary continues to amaze us with the things she says. She is talking in complete sentences and combining many sentences together. Sometimes she has so much to say that you can't even edge in a word into the conversation! She is extremely curious and is always asking questions (sometimes asking the same question over and over again, which drives me CRAZY!), but it makes me happy that she is so interested in life.

Her behavior continues to be challenging. We often try to remind ourselves that she is ONLY TWO.... and she doesn't mean to drive us crazy or annoy us, but rather is testing things and pushing buttons and learning how to express frustrations that are normal for a 2 year old... but it is still hard when she hits, bites, pulls hair, etc. It's especially hard for me as I'm with her all day. So often she is such a joy and we really have fun days together. Sometimes we go to play dates and she plays so nicely. But then other times I spend more time telling her not to push, hit, bite, kick, etc the other kids.... or when I pick her up from the Y child care or the church nursery I hear how mean she was towards the other kids or the workers. They always tell it to me (I assume) to protect themselves... they are making me aware that they've put her in time outs or told her not to do those things (so when Kayla inevitably tells me what she did I'm at least aware of the situation). They aren't at all saying it in a way that's like, "get your kid under control", which I appreciate. David and I often talk about nature vs. nurture, and this violent streak she gets is definitely nature. We don't do any of those things to her! But both David and I admit that when pushed to the edge we just want to bite back, hit, scream, etc to her.... but with maturity we have learned how to control those emotions (um, well, we try not to scream!). Both of us have heard many stories of how aggressive we were as young children, so this should come as no surprise. But it is still hard to deal with. I feel like people judge us as parents (whether or not they actually do I have no idea) and it hurts me to think that people would think I don't do the best I can with her. I know that she will eventually grow out of this phase, but I'm hoping it passes sooner rather than later. I'm not sure that I should count on that, though :)

I am starting to have some philosophical conversation with Kayla and I'm really enjoying that aspect of parenting. We've talked about lying, and how it makes mommy and daddy sad, but it also makes Jesus sad. Lying is not typically a problem, she is extremely truthful (when we ask if she was nice to her friends at church or whatever, she tells us that she hit them, or pushed them or whatever - oy!)... but over one of our Christmas drives she told us she had a dirty diaper and so we stopped about 20 mins before we had planned to stop, no big deal. But when we got her out of her car seat it was not at all dirty, she had just said that because she wanted out! Well, we immediately put her back in and drove the 20 mins more, and had this talk about lying. She got very sad, said she was sorry... and asked if Jesus was happy now! Conversations like that are fun.

She is also developing a very creative style of play. She is obsessed with babies - she loves her baby dolls and stuffed animals and is always feeding them, caring for them, putting them down for a nap, changing their diapers, etc. When eating food, sometimes we have mommy bites, daddy bites and baby bites. Did I mention she was obsessed? I suppose this is a good thing, since we have a real baby coming shortly. We'll see!

She is also getting into pretend play more and more. I have her use pretend wipes to change baby’s diapers, she chose a book to be a pretend vacuum, and other things like that. Sometimes we just use the air as our needed object. Today she poured me pretend juice into a pretend cup - very precious! It's exciting to see this side of her imagination come to life!

I've tried to write down some of the cute things she has said recently, and I'll try to give a little context.

Right after Thanksgiving I was in the kitchen and Kayla came RUNNING in saying, "Mama, mama, I see CHRISTMAS!" She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the front window.... where sure enough, our neighbors across the street had just turned on their Christmas lights! She continued to be excited by this every day, and everywhere we drove, but it was so precious the first time!

"The tree is sleeping.... let's wake it up!" (aka, turn the lights on the tree)

The Taylor's brought their dog to Delaware and let's just say that they didn't really get along. Kayla is not the gentlest child and wasn't afraid to get right in Indy's face to say hi and try to pat her, and Indy is not used to kids. We did our best to not let them near each other... we called Indy "grouch" at times, and Kayla would say to her, "Indy, what's your problem?!"

She is really obsessed with rules. Not that she always follows them! But she knows what they are and frequently repeats them back to me. A few examples of this:
David tried to open the window blinds, Kayla scolds him and says, "You have to ask mama first!!"
"Those are daddy's (slippers)!" (when David had given them to my dad at Thanksgiving. Kayla ripped them off his feet and brought them back to David!)
"We don't _____ (fill in the blank; hit people, climb out of the crib, etc). That makes momma sad!"

During the Christmas Eve service Kayla (during a quiet time of the service) ran into the isle and said, "I just want to dance and praise the Lord!" When David tried to grab her and bring her back to us, she loudly exclaimed, "You can't pull people's shirts!" It's really hard to act serious when you are laughing so hard!

When we are playing around and she pushes the limits, for example if we tell her only one more sip and then she'll smile and take 1 extra sip that she wasn't supposed to, she'll get a huge smile and say, "Stinker-pot", imitating the context of when we say that to her! It's very cute!

She is really becoming interested in emotions. After she does something she's not supposed to and is either disciplined or scolded, she often asks me, "Mama, are you happy?" Recently, she's started to express her own emotions as well... "(pouting) No, I'm not happy, I'm angry!" I am trying to encourage this as much as possible and trying to get her to state her emotions (specifically the angry/mad/frustrated ones) while in the midst of them. I’m hoping that helping her use words to explain what she is feeling will eventually replace the tantrums that are also happening.

While in line at a store recently, she points to a young guy (20?) in line and asks, "Can that man pick me up?" After concealing my laughter (and everyone else in line was laughing too), I explained to her that we don't let people we don't know pick us up. Even though that man might be very nice, we don't know him, he is a stranger. She then points to him and loudly asks, "Is that man strange?" Oh my! Thankfully he, and the others in line found this cute! We then also had a short discussion on how it is rude to point to strangers. Since that time she has told me that we don't point to strangers, so I'm hoping that lesson is sinking in. I'm sure there will be more cute yet embarrassing stories ahead!

Well, that's long enough. I just thought I'd put some of my thoughts down so I can remember them in the future!

Posted by Lisa at 01:36 PM | Permalink

Let's pretend that I posted this when I'd originally written it (first week of Dec) instead of when I'm actually posting it (2nd week of Jan). I'd intended to post pictures from the ultrasound, but we have ever converted the pictures to a digital format, and I don't want to wait anymore.... so, here it is :)

We just had our 20 week ultrasound with my Doctor! We found out that the baby is healthy, which is an answer to prayers. The baby still has lots of room to float around in, as its legs were stretched out fully! We chose not to find out the sex so we could be surprised in the delivery room! We both really enjoyed that moment with Kayla and want to have that surprise again.

As for this pregnancy, it has been really tough for me. I am finding this one so very different from my pregnancy with Kayla. I had no complications with Kayla, nothing to complain about and until the last trimester I was feeling great (totally comfortable, etc). With this pregnancy, I continue to feel sick in the evenings (although my throwing up has decreased significantly). I feel like I am more tired in my 2nd trimester than I was last time around too. And I'm already noticing I need to be careful not to eat too much at the same time because I find myself too full and uncomfortable afterwards (and this didn't happen until late in my 3rd trimester the 1st time around). I don't know if it's just a different between a subsequent pregnancy or what. They say that every pregnancy is different, even for the same woman... and I am finding this to be true. I'll be curious to see if this turns out to be a boy, which might explain some of the differences. If it's a girl I'll be confused! We have not decided on how many kids we will have, but I keep joking that this pregnancy is doing me in and I don't want to be pregnant again! We'll see!

 
 

***As an update, since I'm now 27 weeks pregnant (!).. I am feeling much better these days. I've only thrown up a few times since Thanksgiving and no longer am feeling sick during the evenings. I typically don't feel great (stomach) when I'm getting ready for bed, and have not been able to begin to brush my teeth at nights yet. But otherwise I'm doing really well. The baby is kicking quite a bit, and David has been feeling the movement since about week 22, which has been fun for him! Week 22 seemed to be a pivotal week for me, as I started to notice a big change in how I was feeling, and also starting feeling more and more movement (previously it was all feeling the baby from the inside, but that week I started feeling it on the outside too). I do not think that this baby is as active as Kayla was at this stage in pregnancy. This baby is moving plenty, but I don't think it is moving nearly as much as Kayla did. We'll see if that changes during the 3rd trimester.

Posted by Lisa at 03:55 PM | Permalink

This year we decided that rather than paying for 3 plane tickets (since Kayla is over 2) it would be significantly cheaper for us to drive to the east coast for the holiday's this year. As it turns out, it was significantly more expensive! But that's because while we were in Boston, we bought a mini-van! We had seriously talked about this option before, with baby #2 coming. This wasn't a need by any means. Both of our cars were running fine. But it would certainly be easier to travel in a mini-van. Easier for me to travel around town, but also easier when we take longer family trips. Since the price of plane tickets doesn't seem to be going down any time soon, and since both of our families live far away, we are anticipating some longer car rides. And we barely fit the 3 of us with our luggage... to add another kid and extra luggage (and everything that comes along with a baby!) would just be really cramped. We know a friend of my family who is an independent car dealer, and my parents have bought several cars from him. We contacted him and said we'd be in Boston over Christmas and if there were any good deals to be had we'd be interested in buying a mini-van. Well, 2 days later we bought our new Toyota Sienna (2006)! It was not the van we'd thought we'd be buying; it had no extra amenities, which we thought we'd be getting. But it was an incredible deal, one we couldn't pass up! God made that decision easy for us, and also provided a buyer for our Camry in MA- the first person who looked at it. And, I just LOVE having a mini-van.

Kayla did amazing in the car, on all of our drives. She enjoyed playing with toys, reading books, and opening new fun things (from the dollar store) every so often. The best dollar store purchase was these glow sticks - we laughed and had SO MUCH FUN with those for a very long time. I'll have to remember that for future night time car rides! We traveled out to MA in 2 days (about 7-8 hours each day), making a stop at my grandparents house for lunch on the 2nd day. They were long days, but when we got to MA we were able to totally relax.

The time went by very quickly in MA because we were busy. But we also got a lot of time away from Kayla and time to relax. We celebrated David's birthday and that was really special too.

This Christmas season Kayla really enjoyed things. She absolutely loved the lights and decorations. Every time we were in the car she would point out with delight every light, every blow-up, every Christmas tree in the window - everything! She learned a whole bunch of Christmas carols (Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, We Wish you a Merry Christmas, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, Jingle Bells, and bits and pieces of a few others). She was obsessed with stars (every star on top of every tree, every star in every decoration, every star everywhere, was the Star of Bethlehem). She loved seeing manger scenes with the star of Bethlehem, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the Angel, Sheppard, and the "men" who bring gold, cents and myrrh!:)

We have not decided exactly how we want to handle Santa with her. One thing we do know is that we want to downplay his role significantly. There are things that are fun about the tradition, but we want Christmas to be about Jesus, and so we don't want to emphasize Santa by any means. We would always look at Santa at the mall; she liked to watch him and watch the kids and look at all the fun decorations. We did get a chance to sit in Santa's sleigh (at Meijer Gardens). She was really excited to see him, until it was our turn. Then she clung to David like her life depended on it! I ended up sitting in the sleigh too and she was quite shy but quite interested in him. We also decided that we would set out a plate of cookies and milk for him on Christmas Eve, and we added a few nuts for his reindeer. Well, she was hilarious with this. Each night when she goes to bed, David will brush her teeth and then before they go into her room she'll yell down, "night-night mama". Well, this night she brushed her teeth with my mom, and then yelled (totally unprompted), "night-night cookies, night-night nuts, night-night milk!" instead of to David and I! So funny! The next morning when I brought her downstairs she was so surprised that the cookies and nuts were gone (and was not happy that he'd left crumbs - she was hurt that he hadn't eaten every last morsel!). It was very precious.

We opened stockings and then went and ate breakfast. Then we opened our gifts from under the tree. It was just so fun watching her delight when she'd open things! It was a nice and relaxing day.

The following day we loaded up our new van with everything (and had so! much! room!) and headed to Delaware to visit with David's family. It was another 7-8 hour ride, which is long, but manageable. We were all pretty tired when we arrived. We stayed at grandma's house again this year, which was quite full. Although, usually another family of 8 or so comes and did not come this year, so it wasn't quite as packed as it has been in the past.

While in DE we were busy! There are so many people to see and this is really our one chance each year to see them. So we are always on the go, always in a new (non Kayla-proofed) house for each meal, always visiting people and catching up as much as possible. Even at grandma's house, which is pretty well baby proofed, we can't leave Kayla alone for a moment! There are still Christmas decorations and the tree and things she can get into and stairs to climb and bathrooms to lock herself in, etc. So David and I seemed to constantly be chasing after her, and it was exhausting! It took its toll on me, being pregnant. At home I'm able to sit and see most of where she is and what she's doing.... and if she chooses to go into the kitchen, I can listen and figure out what she's into, and if it's just her toys or if I need to get up and intervene. When I'm not at home, I don't want her to destroy anything or hurt herself, and feel like she needs to have an eye kept on her at all times. That's just exhausting. As she gets older it will probably be a little easier for us, but then of course there will be this baby #2, so we have several more years before it is really going to be easier! Oh well.

We enjoyed the traditional large family dinner at Grandma’s:

A large family dinner at Linda’s:

Time spent with Pop-pop and Lilly:

Time spent with Grandpa and Cathy:

Time spent at Aunt Henny’s:

And time spent with the Taylor's:

Overall we had a wonderful trip visiting all of our families. This east coast tour is a tradition that we will not always be able to do. At some point we'll want to be home with our kids and we won't always have as much vacation time to use over those holiday's. But it has been really fun the last 3 years we've done it and we hope we are able to continue it for years to come.

Posted by Lisa at 03:26 PM | Permalink