The zoo train

Kaelyn and I have been to the zoo approximately 30 times since the end of March. I've been trying to keep track so I know how much we really used our membership. The answer is...tons! We went today with a friend and her son and we decided towards the end of our visit to ride the train. I had a free pass that I received for visiting the zoo on member's day earlier in August so I was wanting to ride it sometime anyway.

Kaelyn had never been on the train and I was too chicken to try it alone. I figured, at least if she doesn't like it and screams the whole time, if I go with someone I know, ONE person will understand! :) I won't be totally alone in my endeavor! So we gave it a shot! While waiting at the train depot, Kaelyn was a little freaked by the train whistle but as soon as I picked her up she started waving to the train. So that was a good sign.

Once we were on the train we sat for probably a good ten minutes. She was restless for that and kept climbing on and off the bench. At the time it was no big deal but it made me worry about how she'd sit still during the ride! Once the train took off I pulled her up into my lap and there she sat! She wasn't exactly giggling with joy but she didn't scream either, so I was happy! I think she kind of liked the wind in her hair. She just cuddled up on my lap and watched the zoo go by! I deem the first train ride at the zoo a success!

However, I wasn't able to get Kaelyn to eat any lunch and I think she has a tiny fever. I see a few little crevices in her mouth on BOTH sides so I'm thinking...MOLARS! I've heard kids can get little fevers and don't always want to eat when their teeth are coming in. She was really tired on the train. That's probably why she was so cuddly and didn't care if she was on it or not! It was really hard to make it home without her falling asleep but I sang and sang real loud so we made it. I tried to get her to eat again without any luck. She was practically falling asleep in the high chair, even. VERY unlike her. So I gave up and let her go to bed for her nap about 45 minutes earlier than normal. I'm now hoping for a longer nap so we don't throw the rest of our day off! Time will tell!

Kaelyn and the wasp

I've started doing Kaelyn's hair up in a ponytail on a regular basis. It's just getting so long it's in her eyes all the time. So it's good to get it out of her face, that way I can see her pretty eyes! She does NOT appreciate having it done, but I do it while she's in the bath tub playing and holding SEMI still! I work fast so she doesn't yell at me for too long!

We were at my parents over the weekend. Sean's brother closed on a house so we went to help him paint etc. Well, SEAN helped, I should say. Kaelyn and I watched one morning for a few hours! :) We were playing on the slide in my parents backyard Sunday morning, she was sitting at the top, and she turned around and picked something up. I glanced down at her hand and saw that she had picked up a WASP! It must have been crawling around next to her. She probably was going to taste it because she's FINALLY into putting more things into her mouth. I freaked and practically threw Kaelyn down the slide trying to get her away from the wasp. That sudden motion DID make her drop it. She was like, what's the deal mama?! The wasp looked like it was injured or something, probably why it was crawling around next to her slow enough for her to pick it up in the first place! So I rolled over it with her toy truck to put it out of its misery. Thank goodness she didn't get stung! IT all ended well. Except for for the wasp, I guess!

Over the weekend my mom went out to mow and she had her hair back and a hat on and sunglasses on. Three things Kaelyn had NEVER seen before. Kaelyn was running around the house and my mom picked her up and kissed her and she FREAKED out. She must have thought it was a stranger. She came running to me like someone bite her and cried and cried. She was really scared. Poor thing. Poor nana, too, she felt bad for scaring her! The good news is, though, Kaelyn didn't yell at her uncle Paul at all when she saw him, yeah! She was still real shy when he was around and stuck to me like glue, but she didn't scream at all! And she did really well around her other uncles (Sean's brothers) and grandparents too. She played happily with me and let them talk to her on occasion. Gee, that was nice of her! :)

We have a pretty full week. A Mops playdate today and planning meeting tomorrow. Friday we hope to make our weekly zoo visit with a friend and Friday night I might even get to go to a movie with that friend (minus our kids!) First movie I will have seen in over 2 years, probably! Sean and I saw 4 Christmases whatever December it was that that one came out and that's the last one I've seen in theaters. I keep up with my netflix, but never get out to see one on the BIG screen. So it'll be a treat!

Eating and Naps

Kaelyn reached a big milestone the other day...she grabbed the spoon and started spooning! Sometimes she helped me with the spoon but she never showed any interest in doing it herself. She feeds herself finger foods so I wasn't too worried about it. Plus I knew her feeding herself yogurt and baby food with a spoon would be a REAL mess so I didn't push it! But a couple of days ago she wouldn't let me help. So be it! Spoon away, baby, spoon away! She's doing pretty well with it, really, though it takes a LONG time to eat as she doesn't get much on the spoon each time. Oh well, I'm usually in no hurry!

Perhaps her new adventures in spooning are the reason her naps are not going well. At least the last two days. Everything was normal on Sunday but then Monday I put her in her bed for her nap and she screamed bloody murder. Usually she'll yell for like 10 seconds and go to sleep. This time she yelled and yelled and yelled. Not her normal, I'm tired, I need to go to sleep yell, but a full force scream. I let her go at it for awhile but she wasn't wearing out so I went back in. I'm pretty sure she was having some juicy toots (due to what I found in the diaper) and perhaps that was painful or something, I don't know. She was VERY upset. But the second I picked her up she calmed down. She sobbed for awhile but fell RIGHT asleep. Back to our old ways of sleeping in the chair! I figured it was a one time deal. However, today, the same thing happened...only this time no gas. I'm hoping she isn't thinking, well, I got away with it one day, I may as well do it EVERY day! When she's crying THAT hard I can't just leave her. It's not a simmer down into nap cry. It's a SCREAM. It's so loud I heard it in the basement...with her door shut...and the basement door shut...NO monitor. When she's sitting up in bed I can pretty much say that she isn't going to sleep. If she's laying down and crying she'll go to sleep at some point but she hasn't been doing that. Just sitting in there screaming her head off. She gets all hot and sweaty and it's just pitiful. I'm hoping it's a phase...a short phase, and will wear off soon. She HAS been extra clingy lately around strangers. Not that she's ever been friendly with people she doesn't know! But the last week and a half or so whenever someone she doesn't know approaches or talks to her or looks at her she not only clings to me but also buries her face in my shoulder or turns her head away from them. So hopefully this nap thing goes along with that. Though the napping thing has only been 2 days (so far) and the clingy-ness has been longer. Who knows. I'm just trying to figure out the unfigure-able! I should have learned that by now!

I have a great video of Kaelyn playing on our bed. Sometimes she free falls backwards onto it so one day I did the free fall backwards and she laughed so hard I thought she was going to break a rib. So I did it again. And again. And again. For like 20 minutes. She was giggling full force. A big ole belly laugh! Other funny things lately (to her!)...it was raining today...ALL day. When we got home from our errands we stood in the garage and I stuck her hand out into the rain and pulled it back in. Big laughs. Yesterday she was pointing to a banana in a book and I was saying banana in kind of a silly way. Huge giggles. Sometimes it's the simple things that set her off. But I tell you, when those giggles come, I would do whatever it is that's making her laugh ALL day because it's the best sound in the world. WAY better than the screaming at naptime lately, that's for sure!!

First Night Away

Well we managed to survive! By we I mean me. Kaelyn was fine and I knew she would be! Saturday, due to MY suggestion, Sean took Kaelyn to my parents house. I was going to follow them Sunday, I had a concert to attend Saturday night for work. They left at 1:15 Saturday afternoon so Kaelyn could nap in the car. I proceeded to go back to bed! :) It WAS naptime, afterall! Then I finished a book I was reading. Finished as in read the last 200 pages of it! Then I finished watching the movie 2012 Sean and I had started the night before. He had finished watching it already but I was busy entertaining Kaelyn and hadn't seen much of the last hour or so. After that I did some laundry, re-arranged KAelyn's toys a bit (she wasn't here to play with them so someone had to!) and other various things around the house. I went to Wendy's for supper and then was GOING to get a haircut but the place I go closes at 5, who knew! I arrived at 5:04. Oh well. It's been 10 months already, I Can wait longer!

I went to the Robin Mark concert and sat at the KGBI table and talked to listeners, introduced the group, and watched some of the concert. I actually stayed up till 10:30 that night, can you believe it?! And sleeping in the house alone was totally awesome. No noise, no cries in the middle of the night, no reason to get up and get going before someone else wakes up (like a baby needing breakfast!) It had to be the best night of sleep in 15+ months. I laid around sleeping on and off until 7am! Then I finally got up, ran, got a massage on my massage bed and slowly got packed up and ready for the day. I can't believe how much I got done in such a short amount of time alone! I left home at 9 so I could be at my parents by lunchtime. I don't know what I expected but I hoped Kaelyn missed me at least a little. When Sean came in with her she reached for me but she wasn't desperate to get to me. IT was like, oh, hi mama, whatever!

I had a GREAT time with time to myself. I was a little nervous to let her go. Not that I had any concerns that she wouldn't do fine, but just because she's my baby and that's what mamas do! On her side, Sean drove her over and they stopped at a park to run around for a bit. I think they just played at my parents house all evening. I hear there was an incident at bedtime...she didn't have her rubber duck...but it was quickly rectified once the duck was found and delivered to her! Other than that, she slept till 7 the next morning and was a perfect guest, from what I hear! So...now that we know this works okay...I may just have to send her and Sean away more often, ha! There was another quirk in her schedule...we'll call it the veggie puff incident! It's actually funny and no big deal. I told my mom and Sean to take her container of veggie puffs from the food bag with them to church because we would be having a late lunch and she'd be hungry before that and that would hold her off. Well, they took a container of veggie puffs and it WAS in A food bag, but I sent two food bags and I guess I meant the OTHER food bag! The food bag that had the SMALL bowl of veggie puffs. They took the LARGE bowl of veggie puffs that had enough to last for DAYS. I had one bowl ready for her and a bigger container with what she would need for the rest of the trip. And can you believe she ate almost ALL of the puffs from that big container? DAYS worth of veggie puffs? I guess she was hungry! :)

I'm pretty sure Kaelyn is officially done with taking two naps in a day. It's been more of an adjustment for me than for her! She hasn't taken two naps in over a week. She only did ONCE all last week. So I've kind of given up on trying. Unless she were to get up REALLY early, then I might. But she's been sleeping till 7 at the earliest. Sometimes 7:30 or even later (on the REALLY good days!) So that makes a morning nap hard anyways. The only problem with the afternoon nap is that if we go somewhere in the morning and then have to drive home she gets REALLY sleepy in the car. It's really hard to keep her awake and the last thing I want is for her to fall asleep because then the minute we get home she'd be up and that would be IT for naps for the day. That's certainly not okay! With me, at least! :) So far I've managed to keep her awake but it's a challenge.

I discovered this weekend that not only can Kaelyn identify things in books like cat, ball, shoes, etc, but she also knows the numbers 1-10! I had no idea! She has a book that you push each number and it says it out loud. She plays with that book in the car a lot. When I rode in the back with her once I said, Kaelyn, which one is the number 7? And she poked the 7. I did this for the remaining 9 numbers and she got them ALL Right with no hesitation. I was impressed. I guess all the book reading and playing is paying off. She may not talk, but she sure understands and is learning plenty!

Since she knows numbers and some other objects I taught her the face over the weekend. She already knew where her nose was so I did chin, cheeks, hair, ears, things like that. She won't do them on herself (except the nose) but she likes pointing MINE out. And that works too. She can see mine easier. Hmm, what can I teach her next...calculus? haha, that'll be the day!!

Since I had such a good time being alone I'm anxious to do it again. That may be weeks or months away, but I look forward to it! We both survived and maybe even enjoyed it! I know I did! And she seemed like she couldn't care less about being away from me...thank you very much!!

Crazy Head Girl

Kaelyn does this thing where she shakes her head from side to side or throws it around in circles. I call it her "crazy head girl" move. Whenever she does it I'll say, there's my crazy head girl! She's done it so much that all I have to say now is, where is crazy head girl? And she'll start doing it. It's just one of her many silly moves!

This picture shows her greatest fascination, her rubber ducky. We have many of them but this is the one that gets chewed on the most. It just happens to be the one we accidentally stole from the children's museum. I don't think we'll be returning it now. The eyes have been chewed off!

We had a success last night at dinner! I gave Kaelyn a bite of hamburger and she ATE it!! She didn't push it away or spit it out, like normal, she ATE it! And then she reached for another bite! So I gave her a second bite and she ate that too! I was in awe. The third bite got pushed away, but two bites is awesome, way more than she's ever been willing to try before!

Another fun incident from last night, and, I might mention, Sean won't appreciate me sharing this story, but oh well! :) Kaelyn has gotten more and more into petting the cat (who Sean doesn't appreciate either!) and she was petting him last night. Sean got home and she grabbed his finger and started dragging. When she wants you to go somewhere or do something she'll grab your finger and take you wherever. When you arrive at the destination she intended and she wants you to do something (like sit down) she'll drag your hand to the place she wants you to sit and let go. She may not talk yet, but she communicates! So anyways, she grabs Sean's finger, drags him across the room and pulls his hand down onto...the cat! She SO wanted him to pet Ollie! :) He didn't. She tried! :)

This weekend is a big test for me, mostly. We're headed back to my parents for Sean to have a couple of golf outings. I, however, have to introduce the group at a concert Saturday night. Rather than all of us wait to go over on Sunday Sean and Kaelyn are going Saturday afternoon and I'll go over on Sunday morning. It was my idea, but now that I think about it more, I don't like it anymore! :) That means I'll be without her all Saturday afternoon and night and Sunday morning. Sounds like a nice break, you think. Well, yes, it probably will be. I may even get to sleep ALL night! And get up WHENEVER I want Sunday morning! But still...my BABY!!! She'll be gone!!! Can I handle it?! I know she'll be in good hands being with Sean and my parents and all, but still!! :) MY crazy head girl!!

Steamy hot

Why is it that kids don't seem to feel the heat? Or at least don't care! It's FELT like over 100 degrees the past few days but I can only keep Kaelyn inside for so long. Usually after her second nap (on the days that there IS a second nap) I take her out to the driveway because by the late afternoon the house shades part of it so we can at LEAST play in partial shade. Yesterday, of course, she wasn't happy with that so she ran all the way around the house and wanted to play on the slide, in the FULL sun. No shade, no breeze, sticky hot. But she (as you can see from the picture) was having a GREAT time!

She also got up earlier yesterday so she had two naps. That was nice because we had a lunch date with some friends and I didn't want her to fall asleep in the car on the way home. It's 7:20 now and she seems to be waking. I guess I'll end by saying I'm glad cooler weather is on the way and hope that it stays, though the forecast says that it will not!

Learning Fast

What a whirlwind weekend we had! A month ago my mother in law asked if I'd help arrange a baby shower for Sean's sister in law. Her baby is due in November and she's no longer traveling so the idea was to word the invitation so that people could just bring gifts to my mother in law and she would deliver them if they wanted, rather than drive 3 hours for the shower. Well, when she shot that idea by her family they didn't like the idea, they WANTED to make a road trip! AND they decided that the very next weekend was the time to do it. Incidentally, that was this past weekend. On such short notice there wasn't really anywhere to have the party but my parents house. My mom had already said if we needed to have it there that would be fine. The shower was a surprise to the mother to be and she WAS surprised! Everything went really well. Sean's family arrived and set up in quite a whirlwind fashion. My only regret is that I did barely ANYTHING! I had a list of things to get like ice and strawberries. But I didn't help set up and I didn't help clean up and I didn't do much between! I guess I provided a house...and the plates! :) It went well and she was surprised and got lots of nice baby things so all goals were met!

We were hoping to go to the balloon festival in Indianola, IA over the weekend too but due to rain one evening we didn't make it. I haven't been for several years so I was disappointed. I think Kaelyn might enjoy it too.

Even though Kaelyn doesn't talk yet, she really seems to understand a lot. When you say, hey, you want to go outside? Go get your shoes! She goes and gets her shoes! In the evening I say, Kaelyn do you want your milk? And you've never SEEN that kid move so fast! She gets up and high tails it into the fridge to get her milk! Over the weekend when we were driving to church my mom was showing her a book with lots of items in it. Shoes, ball, cat, dog, train. She'd say, Kaelyn, where's the ball? And she'd point to the ball. She knew ALL of them (except the apple, she had trouble with that one). I was amazed. I didn't know she could do that! We've looked at that book dozens of times and she often points to things and I tell her what they are but I had no idea she knew what they were if I just said the name! Wow, she's getting smart! I think once she starts talking, she won't stop!! She can take her time!

I think she's getting tired of baby food too. She's getting a little more brave about real food. She ate a few bites of baked potato this weekend and now LOVES wheat bread. Or anything bread-like. I still can't get her to even try fruits or vegetables so I try to get a little baby food in her each meal just so she gets a little of that stuff. She seems to be eating more table food, though. Even if it is just cracker and bread-like things!

This weekend also brought about a rather large change. Kaelyn slept Saturday morning until 8:45!!!! A new record. BLEW AWAY her old one of 7:30! I checked on her once and she was just laying there, happily resting, so I left her until she wanted to get up. That meant no morning nap. She usually goes back to bed 2 1/2 or 3 hours after getting up but that would have been almost noon and that's not a great time for a nap. And that, then, would have meant no afternoon nap most likely. So I let her skip her morning nap and she did pretty well with that. That was amidst the shower and she got real tired at 1:30 when everyone was eating. She had a little snack and got screamy so I put her to bed and she konked right out. I heard her at 2:30 but rather than rush right in I let her be for awhile and she went back to sleep. I was glad. It would have been hard to entertain her AND participate in the shower. She was in bed for 2 hours, that was nice. The next day she slept till 8:20! Another no-two-nap day. We went to church and lunch and then headed home from my parents at 1. She fell asleep pretty much right away and slept the whole 2 1/2 hour drive home. But was TOTALLY ready for bed that night at 8 too. It's Monday now and 7:40. She's still not up but I hear her cry a little every now and then. She does that in her sleep ALL the time. It's majorly annoying when I'M trying to sleep!! But since I'm up it's a little better. It still makes me think she's getting up. I prefer her to wake up happy! Then I know she's really ready to get up. So far this morning, I DID go up to get her once at 7 because she was crying more consistently, but JUST as I got to the door she stopped so I went away. Since then nothing has been consistent so I'm pretty sure she's still sleeping.

We're heading to the zoo today, yeah! We haven't been in a couple of weeks, can you believe it?! My mother in law and my niece (from Sean's side) are coming to go with us. It's supposed to be hot and humid so it may be rather sticky, but what do you do. I'm guessing Kaelyn will have only one nap today too so I hope she does well at the zoo and doesn't fall asleep on the drive home so she can nap for as long as she wants in her own bed! I wonder how many of the zoo animals she knows that I don't realize she recognizes!