Kyndall the Adorable

It's been a while since I've done a post about Kyndall's milestones, so I thought I better write a few things down before she moves on to the next stage.  I gave up doing the monthly posts and photo shoots after her first birthday.  It was fun while it lasted, but it's very hard to make her sit still for pictures these days.  To some, this post will be completely boring, but since this blog serves as Kyndall's baby book which I will someday have printed, I want to document EVERYTHING.  She's now 17 months old and here's what she's been up to lately.........

Tricks: She has quite a few new ones and it amazes me how quickly she picks things up and remembers them.  She's like a little sponge, absorbing everything we teach her.  Some of my favorite Kyndall tricks are.....

*Doing the Seminole chop and humming the war chant
*Holding up one finger when asked "how old are you?"
*She has quite a few new baby signs.  Some of them are: milk, more, bib, eat, drink, all done, moon, light, sleep, book, frog (totally random, but cute) and love. 
*When asked, she can point to her eyes, nose, tummy and head. 
*Makes "whoof" sound when asked what a dog says.

Eating:  She has become quite a picky eater and it's about to drive me completely cray cray!  If someone asked me what the #1 stress in my life was, I would definitely say Kyndall's issues with food.  I want her to eat healthy, nutritious food but it's a daily battle that I'm slowly giving up on. 

Some things that she loves and I can always get her to eat are: fruit of any kind, pop tarts (as of lately), waffles, raisins, yogurt, goldfish, mashed potatoes and anything with cheese---Mac & cheese, grilled cheese, cheese quesadillas, sliced cheese, cheese grits, cheese toast---she eats a LOT of cheese!  That's about the extent of her food pyramid.  Sad, but true. She eats pretty much no meat and absolutely no veggies, unless I am able to disguise them in her food somehow.  She's recently given fish sticks a chance, but she doesn't seem completely sold on them.  NOW do you understand why I'm so stressed about her eating habits??  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  I'm really hoping this is just a phase and eventually she'll learn to like the good stuff.

Recently, she hasn't been drinking her milk very well, so I've started adding Ovaltine to it.  I figure it can't hurt because it gives her extra vitamins, including iron and calcium.  She also LOVES the V8 Fusion peach mango juice, which has a serving of fruits and veggies in every cup.  This makes me feel a little better!

In general, she just isn't a big eater.  It amazes me that she survives on as little food as she consumes.  As Matthew says, "she eats to live, rather than living to eat".  I suspect she'll always be this way and as long as she's healthy, I'm ok with it.


Sleep:  She continues to be a great sleeper, and for that we are thankful!  She usually goes to bed anywhere between 9:00 and 10:00 and sleeps until around 9:00 in the morning, sometimes later.  She takes one long afternoon nap, usually around 1:00.  I always wake her up by 4:00 at the latest.  On average, she sleeps about 10-12 hours straight through each night.

Size:  I won't have a weight check until her 18 month check up, which is later this month.  I'm guessing she's somewhere around 21 or 22 pounds.  She's still very petite and tiny for her age, but again, as long as she's healthy then I'm alright with it.

*She is wearing 18 month clothes, although a lot of her 12 month stuff still fits just fine.
*Size 4 diaper
*Shoe size 4.5 to 5

Speech:  She babbles constantly, most of which sounds like Japanese.  However, she does have a few words that are pretty clear:

*Dog
*Duck
*Mama
*DaDa
*Uh-oh
*Night night
*Water
*Get! (to the dogs)

Things she Loves:
*Her Daddy
*Reading Books
*Being Outside
*Taking a bath
*Being praised and clapped for
*Looking for the moon
*Checking the mail
*Bubbles
*Plundering in Mommy's cabinets and drawers
*Terrorizing playing with the dogs
*Baby Dolls
*Swinging at the park
*Skyping with friends and family
*Playing with the magnets on the fridge while I cook
*Dancing
*Playing rough with Daddy

Things she does NOT Love:

*Cooperating for pictures (so sad!)
*Being messy or dirty (No big shocker since she is my child!)
*The vacuum cleaner
*Having her hair done (Better get used to this one, girlie!!)
*Being told "no"
*Anything green or relatively healthy
*Sleeping without a night light (She gets that from me)
*Peanut butter and other typical go-to "kid" foods
*Having her teeth brushed (I'm determined to change this one!!)
*Beef of any kind (Can't really blame her there)
*Having her nails clipped

Favorite Shows:

*Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
*Little Einsteins
*Sesame Street
*Super Why
*Sid the Science Kid
*Dinosaur Train
*Curious George
*And of course, her beloved Veggie Tales DVDs ("I Love my Lips" still being her favorite)

Random Kyndall-isms:

*She's very organized and very precise.  Everything has a place, and she likes it that way.  She loves to consolidate things.  Often times many of her toys end up stacked neatly on top of one another in the corner or they can be found inside of something else, such as inside the seat of one of her riding toys or inside of her step stool.  When she puts something in a particular place, she expects it to stay that way.  For example, she likes to divide her food into the various compartments on her high chair tray.  If you move them, she'll put them right back.  Also, she does NOT like her cup on her tray.  Rather, she wants it on the kitchen table right next to her tray.  If you put the cup on the tray, she'll put it back on the table and reach for it when she's good and ready.  OCD much???


*She continues to be one of the most social children I have ever met.  Everywhere she goes, she grabs the attention of others around her.  She "flirts" with complete strangers until she has them ooing and gooing over her.  Recently, we were at a restaurant and a lady stopped to tell her how cute she was.  As the she walked away, Kyndall reached her hands up for the lady to take her!!  She never meets a stranger!

*She'll do ANYTHING for attention!  If she does something and you laugh at her, she'll do it over and over and over again to get a laugh out of you. 

*She still takes a paci, but only for naps and bedtime.  However, Kyndall does not want just ONE paci, she wants five.  She puts one in her mouth, holds one in each of her hands, and just likes to have the extra two there for comfort I guess.....?!?!  Craziest thing I've ever seen. 

*She's still scooting on her bottom, rather than crawling or walking.  We've nick-named her "Scooter Hughes" and she's certainly living up to it.  Don't think it holds her back though!  She is FAST!  She could probably out scoot a crawling baby with no problem!  This past week we met with a physical therapist who will be working with her to encourage her to walk.  As it turns out, the PT realized that Kyndall has mild hypotonia in her legs and bottom.  This is basically just a weakness of the muscles, and it explains why she isn't able to walk yet.  She's not lazy after all!  The hypotonia can be genetic, which makes sense because my sister had it when she was a toddler and she didn't walk until 17 months.  We just have to work with Kyndall and get her legs and her core stronger so that she can catch up and start walking soon. 

Schedule:
A lot of people ask me what we do all day.  So, here's a glimpse of our daily routine......

*9:00 -- 9:30 am:  Kyndall wakes up in a VERY happy mood (love that!) and I get her up and change her diaper.  I fix her breakfast and she eats while I sit at the kitchen table and catch up on e-mail, FB, etc.

*9:30--12:00:  Depending on the day, we either join our Moms group for a play date, run errands, go to doctor's appointments, etc.  If we don't have anywhere to go, I use this time to catch up on housework while Kyndall plays.  If it's not raining or too hot/cold, I try to let her play outside during this time for at least 30 minutes.  On Tuesdays we keep Kinsley from about 8:45 until 11:15 while Heidi is at school.  Kyndall loves having a playmate!

*12:00--12:30:  Kyndall eats lunch and sometimes I do too (Ha!)

*12:30--1:30:  The time varies depending on how tired she is, but somewhere around this time is when Kyndall goes down for her nap.  On a good day, she'll sleep for about 2.5 to 3 hours!

*1:30--3:30:  I use try to use this as ME time, but a lot of times I have phone calls to make, laundry to do, dinner to prepare for, etc.  If I'm all caught up on those things, I either catch up on my DVR'd shows, get a shower (haha!), sit outside in the sun, waste time on Facebook, catch up on my blog, play around with my camera, or depending on the kind of morning we've had, I sometimes take a nap as well! 

*3:30--4:00:  Kyndall usually wakes up on her own, but if not, I always make sure she's up by 4:00 at the very latest.  She eats an afternoon snack on the couch while we watch the Ellen show at 4:00 everyday.  I think this is my favorite part of the day.  Not only because I love watching Ellen, but I feel like the rest of the day is downhill at this point.

*5:00--5:45:  Kyndall and I play together until Matthew comes home.  My Mom usually calls me on her way home from work everyday, so I also look forward to talking to her around 5:00 everyday.

*5:45--6:00:  Matthew comes home and takes over playing with Kyndall while I start dinner.  She LOVES it when her Daddy walks through the door!  She immediately puts her hands up for him to pick her up and of course he does.  The dogs are also glad to see him, so he's pretty much bombarded the second he walks in the door! 

*6:15--6:30:  Dinner time!  We all sit down together and eat and Matthew and I catch each other up on how both of our days have gone.

*6:45--7:00:  I take Kyndall and put her in the bath while Matthew cleans up from dinner.  This part of our day is absolutely seamless and works out great!  By the time I'm done giving Kyndall her bath, Matthew is usually finished cleaning up the kitchen and has had his shower as well.  Whew!  Now we can all relax!

*7:30--9:30:  This is the best part of the night because we enjoy several hours of good quality family time.  Everything is done and we can just sit in the floor and play with Kyndall and give her both of our undivided attention.  We usually have one of our TV shows that we're watching as well, but we do it while playing and entertaining Kyndall.  We also use this time to Skype with the Grandparents, which Kyndall absolutely loves!

*9:30--10:00:  Kyndall usually gets tired around 9:30, but sometimes it's later than that.  I know most babies her age have been asleep several hours by this time, but this schedule works great for us and I love it because I'm much more of a night owl than a morning person myself.  I'd rather have her up late with me at night and sleeping in, than going to bed early and waking before daylight!  I hope it always stays this way because I just really like it.

*10:00---midnight:  Matthew always goes to bed right at 10:00, but occasionally I'll stay up later if I want to work on my blog or load pictures or just have a few more minutes of ME time before calling it a night.

So, there you have it!  Some days are definitely harder than others but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!!!  I am so so so blessed to be living my dream of staying home and raising our daughter and there is not a single day that I take that for granted!!!  We have definitely made sacrifices to allow me to do so, and I will continue to sacrifice however necessary in order to be with her everyday.  At some point, when all of our kids are in school, I would love to go back to working in my career field of dental hygiene.  I do miss it and there are some days when I feel like I've thrown my career away, since I only worked in it for 3 years.  But I do believe that for this season in my life, I am doing what I enjoy most and what's best for our family.  I love being a stay-at-home wife and mother and taking care of my family!  I feel like it's what I was born to do!  =)