"I chshoo"

If you ask Katherine how old she is she’ll tell you, “I chshoo” and try desperately to hold up two fingers. She just can’t seem to master that part yet.

A few weeks ago we took Katherine for her 2 year check up. If you haven’t noticed by now, they are consistently about a month behind. Apparently my mess up in scheduling her check up back when she was oh, about 6 months old will follow me through her childhood. Or so it seems. It’s part of my parent “permanent record”. There’s all these rules about how you can’t have the next shot in a series until a full 6 months after the previous shot. Since I messed up early in her little life I’ve condemned her to one month late check-ups. I’m hoping this is the worst thing I do as her parent… but I’m doubting that to be the case. I mean who of us doesn’t have some food scaring? Those little old Italian Grandma’s who are amazing at everything are few and far between… and certainly aren’t in my house. *sigh*

During our two year and one month old appointment Katherine had all of her “stats” taken. A growth update for our girl:
* Height: 34” (for those of you doing the math, YES, that’s 25” shorter than I am) This is up 2” from her last appointment at 18 months.
* Weight: 23lb 9.5oz This is up about 2lbs since her last appointment.
* Head: We don’t measure that anymore. Apparently noggin growth following the 2nd birthday becomes inconsequential.

Katherine had a couple of shots during her appointment. She took them like a trooper. I’m pretty sure she consistently takes a shot better than I do.
Dr H allowed us to ask our questions. Of which we always think we have none and then somehow ask him stuff for 10 minutes. This time we learned that she no longer needs her full fat milk. “fat intake is important for the first two years of life and then we spend the next 80 minimizing our fat content” Says Dr H. Girlfriend is slurping on skim milk now. Woot woot!!! Only one kind of milk in the house again!

Katherine’s adjustment to the new school is… going. While Stephen and I were away on vacation she did great. Tootsie reported no drama at drop off and pick up was fine.

I get back and take her to school and I get leg clutches and full on crocodile tears. What the crap, I say?! My girl knows drama. “And the Emmy goes to….. Katherine Aleksza for Best Daycare Drama Scene” I get comfort from the other Mom’s in the hallway saying, “don’t worry, it’ll get better. My son/daughter did the same thing.” Hm. I wonder to myself if they won an Emmy.

The new school has brought on other challenges for our family that I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting. There’s a lot of very cool, very fun stuff that they do with the kids. I’m waiting to see if this is a year-round kind of thing or whether this is for “summer camp” as they refer to the summer months of school. The first time I realized I was out of my league was at the Fairy Ball. Mmmhhhmmm. The boys were to dress in their best prince attire and the girls as princesses. I thought I was doing a pretty rock star thing by dressing Katherine up in a pretty little dress with a crown that lit up. (A gift from my 2006 Conference & Expo team… Thanks team!!!) Well, when I arrived at school to see Arials, Cinderellas, Sleeping Beauty and heaven knows all of the other princesses I felt as if I’d dressed her as Fiona from Shrek (AKA Mrs. Shrek). Lesson learned… I gave Tootsie the next challenge for Cowboy/girl day. Tootsie ROCKED it out. Katherine LOVED her hat and cowgirl boots.

Next challenge: 50’s sockhop is next week. I feel a need to be Suzie Homemaker and MAKE Katherine’s outfit. We’ll see how it goes. So far I’ve looked at the sewing machine sitting in our spare/empty room. I glared it down (given that the last time I used it – taking it out of the box – it hurt me). I’m considering hot glue and iron on tape for her outfit. I suppose the real first step would be identifying either a pattern or some fabric. I keep thinking – how hard can it be? She’s two… it’s a little skirt with a poodle on it. I have about two weeks. Amazon ships in two days. Pray for me… Better yet, pray for poor Katherine. Her Mommy’s gonna dress her up funnyyyyy! ;P

Instead of an album of her birthday, an album of the 4th of July, etc. I decided I would just put together one album of some of my favorite pictures from the last two months. Hopefully you’ll enjoy like these pictures as much as I do!

Customize a photo album

Katherine’s vacation with Tootsie and Pop

This week we have a guest blog writer: Our very own TOOTSIE! Last week while Stephen and I were away on vacation my parents came up to play with K for the week. I offered the blog up to Tootsie for the week to tell her story... =)

Thank you Tootsie & Pop for giving Katherine such an awesome vacation! And now... onto the story:

It was more like Tootsie and Pop’s vacation with Katherine but since this is Katherine’s blog it’s only appropriate to give her top billing. hehe We were given the honor of staying with K while Mommy and Daddy went on their cruise to Alaska.

Since Pop had the pleasure of airport shuttle duty at 4 a.m. on the first morning, I went upstairs to get Katherine up for school. She was standing up in her crib expecting I’m sure her Mommy to come into the room and the minute she saw me she laid down and hid her face! I asked her if she was ready to get up and without showing her face she shook her head no. So I said, “ok, I’ll come back later”, and I left the room. I went back in about three minutes later and zoom, down she went hiding her face. Again I said, “ok, I’ll come back later”, and I left the room. This time I waited about five minutes and I went back in and while she didn’t jump up she didn’t hide again. Progress! I sat down on the floor beside her crib and talked to her and played with her until she warmed up and was ready to get up. Whew!

Arriving during country week at school, we got to dress Katherine up as a cowgirl, complete with pink boots and hat! K can totally rock this look!!! And Pop made an awesome horsey all week for her too!! 

Since Katherine loves her new beach condo, she wanted us to take her there for the weekend so of course we agreed! We had a blast on the beach playing in the ocean with the water baby. Katherine thoroughly enjoys water! The only time she was out of the ocean was when she ate her pb&j sandwich! Seriously, she loved the waves splashing her, filling her bucket with water, feeling the sand move under her little feet when the water whooshed out, sitting down in the water… water, water, water!!!

Most of our days through the week started with dropping K off at daycare, finding a new park for a run, heading back to the house where Pop was usually just waking up and relaxing with our morning coffee and tea. A couple of days we picked K up early and a couple of days she stayed to have ice cream fun and water fun days.

Aunt Nikki requested an audience with the Princess K and of course was granted access! That was an early pick up day so we could all go to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. After K ate a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese, Aunt Nikki made her an ice cream sundae that was also huge, complete with jimmies. Katherine was about to burst… as was Sofi since Nicole made her a sundae too! After lunch it was raining and while we were waiting outside for Pop to get the car, the rest of us had to sing the raindrops are gumdrops song… ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!!!! Katherine loved it!!!

Pop worked diligently one morning while Katherine was in school, setting up her swimming pool and putting together her new water and sand play station (birthday present from Mommy and Daddy). So after school we put on our bathing suits and went outside for an afternoon of super duper fun!! I think that was the day Pop won K’s heart! That was the day she started calling him Poppy. Aawww...  We spent a few hours at the big pool one day which K also loved. Have I mentioned how much K loves water?!?! At water fun day at school Katherine and one other little guy were the only ones to put their faces in the sprinklers!! hehe

Katherine became a pro at Skype during vacation. We Skyped Aunt Jacki a couple of times and Mommy and Daddy almost every day. She loved it! The first couple of days, we heard “mommy daddy bye bye mommy mommy daddy bye bye daddy mommy daddy bye bye”, many times! Seeing mommy and daddy and talking to them helped both K and Mommy I think! Gotta love technology.

Bed time is surely one of my favorite times of the day. Little K relaxed, sitting on my lap during story time and snuggled up with her arms around me during music time melts my heart.

Oh and there was one little incident with the drivers side mirror hanging off the truck when we got back from the beach, but Poppy swears he had nothing to do with it. And the ride to Myrtle Beach using Stephens GPS was another adventure. The dirt road through Deliverance was as fast as we could make it and didn’t mean to leave a dirt plume behind us. Honest, we did not take K baha-ing!

We enjoyed every minute of our vacation with Katherine. She is the sweetest granddaughter any Tootsie and Poppy could ask for.

Pictures of the week with Tootsie & Pop:
http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d5467794e5463314d6a593d0d0a&blogview=true

She's 2

To "borrow" from a friend & fellow mommy blogger... For as quiet as this blog has been, our house, not so much so - for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, Katherine turned two. I don't know what switch was engaged at the ripe age of two but surely there was one. For starters the girl chats. Non-stop. 20% of the time I have no idea what she's saying. 50% of the time she's yelling MOMMMMMMYYYYYY, DADDDDDDYYYYYYY combined with some other directive. And I do mean directive. The other 30% of the time we're singing. The same songs. Over. And over again. What's in our playlist?

1. "whoa whoa" = Row Row Row your Boat (both versus please... If you fall short of verse two she'll let you know.)
2. "pepot" = I'm a little teapot (We have two handles... no spout. We're working on this.)
3. ABCeees = Need you ask? She's very proud of herself at the end.
4. dumdops = If all the Raindrops (We have some preemptive AHHH AHHH AHHH AHHH.)
5. issybissy = Itsy Bitsy Spider (Girl ROCKS some Itsy Bitsy - I say she might be up for an award for her choreography.)

I'm sure there are others I'm missing but these are the constants. Over. And Over. And over again. Daddy instituted one rule about singing: no singing at the dinner table. Alas, that's our only reprieve time. Of course it doesn't stop her from trying - but the answer is a consistent no.

The phone is a source of fascination for our little Muppet (thanks Aunt RoRo for the nickname... It stuck!) On her second birthday she made her first series of calls. She was on the phone for *easily* 35 minutes. We called a lot of people. Most went to voice mail and she learned to "wait for the beep". One person that actually answered the phone was to her Pop. The conversation went on for about 20 minutes. I don't think Pop understood but 3 words she said, but she talked. A lot. (I attempted to translate but she kept waving me off. Seriously?! Already?!) Since then I think we've called everyone. At least twice. We rotate through. One night she called Aunt RoRo and had the phone wedged between her head and shoulder and had her cup of milk, with straw in her hand taking a drink. This is a moment that Stephen & I were in tears laughing. And during which we ask... Where did she learn that?!?! We are rarely on the phone! I guess some things are just girl-natural?

Katherine's 2nd birthday was quite fun. We had a little family celebration on her actual birthday with an Elmo theme. (I use the word "theme" loosely... that entails elmo plates and napkins) For her 2nd birthday party complete with two friends and many adoring adults, the theme was Backyardigans. Did you know they make 3.5' balloons of Ty and Uniqua? I do. =P She loved them. Balloons are amazing things in her eyes. And we don't need any fancy balloons. Dollar store balloons we've found stay for days and days and the best part - They're a dollar! Woowoo!!! Needless to say another year where the girl cleaned up in the present department. I have no idea where so many presents came from. And she didn't even get any from us!! She still hasn't gotten a birthday present from us. (Settle down people, we have one - she just hasn't received it yet with all of the other stuff she got. I'm holding out for when she is "looking" for something new to play with!)

Throw a Mother's Day & Father's Day in the last two months and it's been a busy time. =)

Katherine also started at a new school this week. We finally made it into the Primrose family. One year on the waiting list and we've arrived. Whew!!! Her teachers are all very sweet (Ms. Pitts, Ms Brittany and Ms Robbin). She had fun during our pre-enrollment visits but apparently it's a lil bit different when I'm not there playing with her. Drop off on day 1 was a little rocky. Pick up was rockier. Day 2 drop off was pretty easy and pick up was ugly. We had a complete melt down when I arrived. Oh the drama this lil one can whip out. OOHHHHH MOMMMMMMYYYY complete with facial expressions, tears and throwing herself on me clutching my neck. Really?! Another - where does she learn that?! Generally it takes her two weeks of adjustment time before she starts to settle into the new class/routine. At least that's what we've seen with her last 3 moves to new classrooms at the old school. This time that will be just enough time to settle in before she's out for 9 days on vacation. I foresee another adjustment period in early August. =)

I decided to write this update sans pictures. I'll be honest it's the pictures that have kept me from posting for the last couple of months. First I lost the camera, then I found it and took pictures, lost the blessed thing again and now I've had it consistently but it's never where I am when I *think* I'm ready to write a blog posting. The pictures take a while to post too. So, instead of making you wait for a Katherine story update - I decided to post and tell you - You'll get the pictures later. When later? dunno. I have a two year old tearin up the place. =P

xoxo