Keeping Up with Kaylynn

I feel like KK has done so much lately and every time I try to capture a picture/video of it, it never ends up working out! So I decided to do a post about some of her favorite things and add pictures/videos where I could. Most of which are from my phone so the quality is poor.

KK's favorite color = Orange.

BY FAR. She will always chose to color with orange over any other crayon.

KK's favorite activity = Dancing.

Her teachers call her the "Dancing Queen." We dance in the car on our commute to/from school. We have dance parties in the living room to the Wiggles. We drop it low to some T-Pain. This girl can get her boogie on I tell ya! I might just have to put her in dance classes even though I said I'd never do that.

Her favorite song is the Wiggles "Point Your Fingers." She does the dance quite well, but capturing it on video has been challenging.

Here is a picture of her doing the dance...

She also likes to push the buttons of those stuffed animals that sing/dance and she plays them over and over again while dancing along.

KK's vocabulary = minimal.

The girl tries so hard to talk but her words make absolute no sense (to anyone but me and Ty).

Exhibit 1:

Pinecone. I picked her up from school and she kept on saying "men-noh" and pointing. I thought she was saying minnow, like the fish. Not even close. It took me SO long to figure out what she was saying. I was doing circles around that daycare and finally saw that she was pointing to a wreath with a mini pinecone in it! Ahhhh, pinecone.

Exhibit 2:

Numerous times KK would go to the fridge, open it up, and point and say what sounded like "agua." So I got her a sippy cup full of water. She would throw it. I typically would redirect her because I had no clue what she wanted. One day I was like, "what do you want KK?" She again said "agua." I sat there and stared at the fridge looking for what else could be water or sound like agua. Ahh ha! I thought I figured it out, she's saying "flower." Her agua and flower sound identical. So I look all over that fridge to find a flower on a label but to no avail. Meanwhile KK is screaming "agua" and is collapsed on the floor throwing a tantrum. Awesome. So I pick her up and phsyically hold her up to every shelf in that dang fridge saying "what do you WANT?" What does she pick up? The yogurt. How on earth yogurt sounds like agua or flower I have no clue! It's days like those where I wish her vocabulary was better. I realize that sooner or later, I'm going to be wishing she wasn't talking. Or so I've been told. Then again, I heard the same thing about walking and walking didn't bother me one bit. I was actually glad she was walking because she was much slower at walking than crawling! It totally bought me more time to intervene. :)

She's getting better at adding words to her vocabulary but still cannot for the life of her put two words together! Most times I can figure out what she is saying, so it's not a big deal and I'm not that worried about it. She's always been on the "slow" end of the milestone spectrum anyways.

Point, Point, Point, Point!!!

KK seems to be all about learning these days. It's nice, but she will sit there and point to different things all around the room. As she points, I tell her what she's pointing at. For example, she points to the ground, I say "floor." She points to the TV, I say "TV." She points to daddy, I say "daddy." She points to the ground again, I say "floor." She points to daddy again, I say "daddy." This game goes on and on an ON! I appreciate the fact that she wants to learn; however, it's not cool to point to the same things over an over again. Especially things she already knows!

Just Like Mommy:

KK is really into copying everything I do. First it started with putting on makeup while I got ready in the mornings, then she wanted to sit and brush her teeth while I brushed mine and now she likes to wear my heels. I swear, she's gonna break an ankle one of these days but I can't seem to keep her from wearing them.

Sleeping Beauty = Dunzo

We decided to take away the paci during the night about 2 months ago and it has been H-E-L-L! The sleeping beauty we bragged SO much about now decides that sleeping is for the birds. She used to just lay down in her crib and pass out. Now, she'll lay down (we think it's all good), and the minute we close the door, she stands up and screams. And screams. And SCREAMS. Sometimes for 2 minutes, sometimes for 20 minutes, sometimes longer. WAY longer. If she's not screaming, she's either calling for me, daddy or Pepper and sometimes, she even recites her colors. Her 3-4 hour naps typically max out at 2 hours sans paci. Her night time sleeping went from 12-14 hours to a 4:30 a.m. wake up call. This mommy does not get out of bed before 6 a.m. so KK entertains herself until it's wake up time. I put books in the crib with her and she used to throw them out immediately, but lately she's been reading herself to sleep.

TV obsession

This girl loves her cartoons. I mean LOVES. She could watch them for hours on end, but we limit her TV time. During the week, she really doesn't get any TV time besides during her breathing treatments. On the weekends, she gets to watch lots of cartoons. Hey, I need to do my chores at some point! Don't judge.

She can even figure out how to restart the Dora DVD using the PS3 controller.

Mommy's Little Helper

KK has very odd quirks about her. If something in the house is out of place, she'll point to it and say "uh-ohhhhh." She did that for the first few weeks the Christmas decos were up. Usually she does it when I leave my shoes by the front door, or if my purse isn't in the right spot, or if there is something (crumb) on the ground. She will literally hover over the crumb and say "uh-ohhhh" over and over again. One day I was tired of the "repeat" game so I told her to pick it up and put it in the trash. Much to my surprise, she did! I decided to test this out again and gave her a paper towel and told her to throw it away. She walked over to the trash can and threw it away! I was totally shocked. Now if I can only get her to fetch me a brewski. ;)

Along the same lines, when I'm vacuuming the house, she'll pull out her toy vacuum and vacuum with me. She also helps me with the dishes by closing the dishwasher...usually while I'm trying to LOAD the dishwasher which really isn't much help at all. I appreciate the effort though.

Make Believe

KK's imagination has been running wild. One day, she walked over to the fridge, grabbed a soda can, brought it to the coffee table, acted like she was opening it and pretended to drink it. I have NO idea where she learned that because we rarely drink soda around these parts. I know what you're thinking. But don't worry, I drink my beer out of a bottle or I pour it in a glass. Never out of the can.

Book Worm

This girl loves to read. She will sit with a book and read out loud to herself. It's the cutest thing ever. She also says "shhhhhh" when she's reading. Guess she likes it quiet!

Jump Around

When KK was younger, I posted a video of her jumping around in her jumper. Now she can jump all by herself. And boy does she ever. She will give ALL her might and jump about 1 inch off the ground.

Snacker

KK likes to go to the snack pantry, pick out her own snack and bring it to us for us to open, or sometimes, she'll open it herself! She helps herself quite often and can even get the lid off and on the raisins and when she's all done, she puts them back in the pantry.

Friends

She knows who her friends are by name and gets oh so excited when she gets to see them.

Don't

We've avoided the "no" word in our household so far. Instead, KK uses the word "don't." Since she insists on touching EVERYTHING, we've got her "trained" to point to the object she wants to touch and instead say "don't." i.e. the Christmas Tree. I'm proud to say that our tree, ornaments and presents are all intact. No kid proofing in our casa!

Tantrums

KK is getting WAY too good at throwing tantrums. They are SO fake and it frustrates me to no end! We've gotten to the point that we now say "if you're going to throw a fit, please go in your room." KK will stop crying, get up, walk to her room, shut her door and proceed to scream. When she's ready to be a good girl again, she comes out and signs "sorry."

Football

KK gets really excited when football is on. She will bounce up and down and say "football." Her favorite ornament is my Raiders ornament and she even has a Raiders dance. She will hunch over and sway her arms back and forth like a monkey as I chant "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!" Too bad football is pretty much over. Now I gotta work on baseball!

Colors

KK loves to recite her colors. She has down blue (vooo), green (neen), brown (noun), black (ack), yellow (llllellllooooh), purple (puh-poh) and white (whhhh-ittte). She says it with such force. Orange and red give her troubles, but we are practicing.

White is my favorite.

Speaking of colors, KK also likes to find crayons or pens that she somehow hoards and color on our coffee table, fridge, clothes, couch, etc. It's awesome. Not. I have yet to catch her in the act. We also started giving her crayons in the bath tub hoping this would fill her need to color on things besides paper. I hope it helps.

Simon Says

Even though KK's vocabulary isn't up to par, she most definitely understands what we are saying and to me, that is all the really counts.

Doggie Lover

KK has now learned how to give Pepper dog appropriate treats (doggie biscuits instead of Cheerios or goldfish). She loves to feed Pepper snacks and tends to ask us to give Pepper a cookie. Adorable.

Puppet Master

KK has a fascination with puppets lately. I have a duck puppet washcloth and one night KK decided to play with it. She even likes finger puppets and books with puppets. All sorts of puppets.

All Girl

KK is 100% girl and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I fought pink. I fought Dora. I fought princesses. I failed. Miserably.

iBaby

Not only are we iPeople, KK has become an iBaby. She knows how to use iPods, iPhones and the iPad. It's a bit ridiculous. One day she got a hold of my phone, made a call and then minimized the phone call and was watching a Dora episode on iTunes. Here she is playing a Santa game on the iPad.

That, my friends, is what has been going on with KK.