Some randomness...

Just a random list of randomness to document things for my own benefit. And because no post is very interesting without a photo, here is one I took with my cell phone yesterday. It wasn't too cold out yesterday, so we went outside and played for a bit. Kaydence was thrilled I brought her little car out.



And now on to my list of randomness...

- Kaydence is 2 (sniff, sniff)!!! We had a small party with just family the weekend before her birthday. Will post photos soon.

- Kaydence had her 2 year appointment on Monday. She is now a whopping 21 lbs/2 oz (below 5%), height: 32 3/4 inches (50%), and head: 47cm (25%).

- If you ask her what her favorite color is, she will inevitably say gray. It completely threw me for a loop the first time she said this because what child says their favorite color is gray??? lol Then I realized that that is pretty much all my wardrobe consists of and wondered if that had anything to do with it...she wants to be just like mommy??? ;-) She continues to say her favorite color is gray -- every now and then she'll say a random other color, but it's usually gray.

- My baby is not a baby anymore. It's an odd mix of emotions because I'm proud and sad all at the same time. Teirney and I realized this is the reason a lot of people have a second baby by the time their first reaches the age of 2. Let me tell you, we officially have a 2 year old going on 17 and it's a little hard to swallow most days. ;-)

- Kaydence just learned how to say her full name altogether and it's absolutely adorable! We have been working on this while I was away for awhile. Speaking of which, I should explain (see next point).

- Kaydence and I were visiting family a few hours away for 3 weeks while I waited for a friend of mine to have a baby. They had asked me to take their birth photos and newborn photos and we weren't sure when she would go into labor, so I just hung out with Teirney's and my family for a few weeks to await the big day. We had first celebrated KK's 2nd birthday party there and I just decided to stay after that. Teirney came up for one of the weekends, but we did miss him lots, but with all the family around, it kept us pretty occupied! Our friends had a beautiful baby boy and it was the most incredible experience. There will be photos to follow as soon as I can catch up with everything...I do have a couple of them that I could post, so maybe I will do that later.

- Kaydence is so full of life! She is so vibrant and fun and her little KK-isms are priceless and infectious! Along with those come some not so cute KK-isms. We are really struggling with her hitting and pushing us and other kids right now. We have tried timeouts, but they haven't really proven effective, so we are trying another approach...ignoring her. Everything we've read/researched (and confirmed by her pedi) says that that is the best way to handle it at this age. We'll see. I have to say I'm not completely convinced, BUT I have noticed that it has diminished a little in the last couple days since we started doing it...I suppose that could also be coincidental...who knows.

- A few KK-isms:
*When she is happy and you ask her to do something (e.g., "KK when you put your books away, you can watch Sesame Street")...her response: "Oh yeah, Ok!" And then she'll continue to say "ok, yeah" as she is putting her books away. The problem is, telling it hear, is so not the same as seeing it and hearing it. Maybe we will need to try and record it one of these days. Her "oh yeah, ok" is very happy and high pitched...sooooo cute!

*Some nights after we put her to bed, we will hear her talking and singing to her baby "la lalala lala."

*When I call her name, she will usually respond by saying "Yes?"

*She HAS TO do everything by herself...she always says "no, KK do it."

-She LOVES to dance! Her favorite songs are (in her words) "the bumblee bee song" by Laurie Berkner, "via vio" (victor vito) by Laurie Berkner, and "shine, shine, shine" (this little light of mine) by Elizabeth Mitchell. She also adores the ABCs and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Our favorite place to dance is in the kitchen, believe it or not. She will stand at one end of the kitchen and have me stand at the other and dance together. She even tries a few ballet moves I've tried to teach her (hehe).

-I just started telling her the Goldilocks and Three Bears story (my favorite as a child) and I couldn't believe how enamored she has been with it. She just quietly sits and listens...no pictures or anything, just me telling her the story. Now that she has heard it several times, she actually finishes my sentences, it's the cutest thing ever and gives me warm memories of my own childhood.

-She loves puzzles! We gave her a couple of "real" puzzles (the ones that you actually have to piece together) for her birthday and she does them so well...I was surprised how quickly she picked it up.

-She can say all of her ABCs (and sing the song) along with most of their sounds. She can count past 10, but she gets the numbers mixed up...we are working on that. She also knows a wide variety of colors.

-She still isn't much of a monkey...meaning she doesn't climb things the greatest yet. She still wants help getting up onto our couch, which believe me, is not very high. So we're trying to teach her how to do it herself.

-She usually insists on putting her coat on all by herself and does pretty well, but we always have to hold the second arm up for her.

-She loves to play with playdough and color, but they don't keep her attention for very long. I think she would dance and listen to her music all day if I let her though.

I feel like I'm missing so much...I may need to add to this list as I think of them. It seems like she has grown/learned leaps and bounds in the last few weeks even.

So if you've made it this far, bless your heart. Like I said, this list is mainly for my benefit because (sadly) I don't keep a baby book. So I need someplace to record all this stuff.

So now I've come to the BIG NEWS in our house! No, I'm not pregnant. lol But Kaydence will be gaining two extra eyes. A couple months ago after her nap she watched a show on tv and after it was over, I noticed that her left eye was turning inward (towards her nose). Of course I was worried, so I called her pedi. The pedi referred us to an Ophthalmologist at the Children's Hospital. We couldn't get an appointment until yesterday. So off we went. It turns out KK is farsighted in both eyes, but her left is much worse than the right. So she will need glasses! He said it is a good thing we noticed it because if it had gone untreated, she could start to get a lazy eye. So I'm very grateful we caught it when we did. I asked if this is something that can be corrected over time, but he didn't give me much hope of that. He said he doesn't like "putting a life sentence on it, but probably not." Now we are on the hunt for the perfect glasses for our little peanut. :-) It's a good thing she loves to wear them...now lets just hope she keeps them on!

Ok, wow, I had no idea this post would get this long...so sorry. Now that I've blabbed your ears (eyes) off...I think I'm caught up for a bit.

xoxo