Other goings on!

Our poor cute toot just had to have her first needed dose of antibiotics. She had a runny nose for a few days and then she got a pretty good case of croup. I almost had to run her to the ER at one point because she was gasping for air. It was pretty scary, but thank God for helping me to think half way straight and get me to put her in the shower and she was much better in a couple of minutes. So, we went to the dr.'s office a little while after this and got some steroids and found out that she had a double ear infection as well hence the antibiotics. Being a PICU and hearing your daughter with significant stridor is double scary. We got through it though and she is sooo much better now. A little bit of a cough and runny nose. Antibiotics seem to be really rough on her belly though. She doesn't want to eat much, so please pray that her body will tolerate the meds better each day and that we can figure out what would be appetizing to her upset belly.




On a brighter note, Kaelyn has been doing awesome with the potty training. Today we only had 2 accidents and one of those was while we were swimming. We have our good days and bad days, but she is making great progress and is a good sport about it. I am learning her cues better too, so we are having fun. I certainly am enjoying not having to do much laundry. At night time though, Kaelyn is leaking out of almost everything. She leaks out of pampers and her fuzzibunz and is soaked. The only thing that we have found to keep her from waking up in a swimming pool is to cover whatever diaper we put in with a wool cover. I have come to really appreciate wool. For those of you who may not know, wool is waterproof, antimicrobial, does not hold odors, breaths well, and has many very soft kinds. I always thought of wool as scratchy, but now that I have been introduced to different kinds, I have fallen in love with it. So, we use wool now as diaper covers. The covers can either be like what you would think of as a cover, as shorts or as pants. Here are a couple of pics that I like of them. It took a little getting used too, in our age of disposable diapers, but now I love wool and wanted to share it with others.

Kaelyn in her wool soaker we got from our great cloth diapering friend Amy. They were a little big here, but still did their job.
another comfy wool soaker


cute wool shorties. They come in so many different cute styles.
Wool Longies.
another cute pair of wool shorties.

Words Galore!!

Kaelyn is learning new words every day and bringing us to tears with her ability to communicate. Today she learned Micah, yogurt, and rock (rocka). In the last couple of days she has started saying milka (milk), snacka (snack), Ringo, Anna, Melmo (Elmo), banana, and a few others. It is so amazing to watch, and you can tell that it brings her joy to tell us exactly what she wants or needs. With the specifics though, she gets mad if you give her something else. Milk and snacks are what she asks for all day now. Too cute.

Goofy Faces

Wanted to show off a few pics of some of Kaelyn's fabulous expressions. We are working right now at capturing a lot of her fun antics that make her who she is and keep us rolling on the floor laughing. We fall in love with our precious girl more and more everyday and are amazed at how creative God is. We could not ask for more.

I am doing good fun stuff
Take note of the tongue sticking out. She gets this from daddy. This is her thinking face.
Goofy smile face
Are you talking to me, cause I am not listening.

What?
There is a problem, fix it now. I want to get in the pool ASAP and you are taking pictures mom.
Super excited face with a cute throaty giggle to go along with the face.
Pure excitement!! Don't get me daddy.
Oh, check out these buckles mom.

New Things Everyday

I must do a bit of writing about what Kaelyn has been learning everyday. It just amazes us. I certainly see what people mean when they say they don't remember what kept them entertained before they had kids. Kaelyn learns new words everyday. She now says "nigh nigh" when we put her to bed. Whenever we get ready for a bath, she rubs up and down on her belly and says "bah bah". She says "more" and "yum yum". When she is hungry she walks around saying "nah nah nah" and rubbing her belly. They other day during her bath, she picked up a measuring cup, filled it up, looked at me and said "water" and then pointed to her bath toy and then poured the water right where she was pointing. Then she put her cup down and clapped. Then of course, she repeated this over and over and over again. She also says Anna. When we saw her the other day, Kaelyn followed her around saying "anna anna anna anna". Too cute.
She loves now to walk around and rub her belly because of how far it sticks out. It reminds me of rubbing my belly when I was pregnant. To her, her cute chunky belly is about the same size.
She is now a water baby through and through. The pool has become our best friend.
This part may sound absolutely crazy to many of you, but hear us out first. I had been doing some reading on the website where I get cloth diapers from and had heard of mom's potty training their kiddos at very young ages. At first, I looked at this and went how ridiculous!! I thought why would you do that to your child and yourself. It seemed like so much work and unnecessary at that point. Then, because we had been putting Kaelyn on the potty to poop for as long as I can remember (she would strain for 10 minutes or more before and we discovered that if we put her on the potty it would only take her 5 seconds), I got intrigued one day to see how these moms actually went about this process. I was quickly amazed and had to give it a try. I have been won over I must say. This is a process of learning to communicate potty needs with your child differently then when they understand it at an older age. It is called Elimination Communication. I was always taught in school that a child did not have the ability to control their sphincters until they were at least 18 months. Well, I have discovered not only from reading, but now through experience, that this is an ability they have from a very early age. Kaelyn is already very able to do it. She is most often ddry now in the mornings and pottys first thing when she gets up. We only have a few accidents a day now and she is learning to tell us when she needs to potty. It is so cute and she is so proud of herself. We are so proud of her too. I certainly will have to say that I am enjoying training pants as opposed to diapers cause Kaelyn is too much of a busybody to hold still to have any kind of diaper put on. She like to try and put the training pants on herself. One last note here. I thought my mom was going to think I was crazy when I told her that I was potty training Kaelyn already, but then she told me that her and her siblings were all potty trained shortly after a year. I guess it used to be the norm, and it certainly is around the world.

Please and Thank you

We were all out and about and Kaelyn saw some pepermint candies. She has never had them, but they looked good to her, so she started doing her "more" sign and then pointing to herself and saying me, then pointing at the pepermints. We certainly weren't going to give them to her, so daddy said, "I will only give them to you if you say please", not thinking that this would even be possible and not really looking for any other response than her saying "more". Well, what do you know, the next thing she did was say "ease". Well, since he said he would if she said it, we had to give her the mint. He broke it in pieces and she sucked away at it. Then he asked her to say thank you, and she did. We will have to see if she keeps this up. I kind of like that. We will have to be more careful though about our offers these days.