When I Grow Up...

Preschool is officially over and summer is here! Kaeley was enrolled in preschool at our church, West End Church of Christ. She was in the 3 year old class that met on Tuesdays/Thursdays. Last week, Kaeley had her “End of the Year” program. There were 3 three year old classes and they combined together to sing as a group and also each walked across the stage to receive their certificates for completing a year of preschool. They marched into the auditorium to the music of It’s a Small World, they said the Pledge of Allegiance, and then sang 4 songs: Jesus Loves Me, Bumblebee Song, Twinkle-Twinkle, and God Wants You to Help at Home. As each of them walked across the stage to receive their certificate, the teacher announced what they wanted to be when they grew up. Kaeley’s response – a blankie. I wish her teacher had tried a little harder to get a better answer, but nonetheless here is where that answer came from. Kaeley used to sleep with a blanket and stuffed pony when she was a baby until a few months after Ella Beth was born. She just quit, cold turkey, and didn’t want to sleep with either one of them. Each night I would put her blanket in the bed and she would throw it in the floor. She said Ella could have her pony. So how did the blanket resurface? You’ll recall her buddy, from a previous blog, Hadlee. Well, she has a blankie that goes everywhere with her, so Kaeley wants to be like Hadlee, and thus the blankie! Lovely! Hadlee also sucks her thumb, so I guess I should consider myself lucky that it’s just the blankie. And we have a new rule at our house concerning the blankie – it stays in your room. Needless to say, since that rule, it hasn’t been an issue.

So, I had to let Kaeley know that it didn’t make any sense to be a blankie when she grew up. So she briefly thought she’d be a bride! OK, “when you grow up”… that works! However, if you were to ask her today what she wants to be – she’s decided to be me! That works too! I’m sure when she’s 16 she’ll tell me “I never want to be like you!” So let’s take it one day at a time.

For those of you who really know Kaeley, you know she eats like a bird! I had fed the girls before the program because I didn’t want them to be hungry. After the program, I didn’t expect her to eat anything, but once Red Lobster was mentioned, she was ready to eat again, and she did! Papaw and Mamaw attended the program and treated us to Red Lobster. Daddy was on a trip with work in Rhode Island.

Next year, she will be going to Farragut Church of Christ Preschool. It’s within a couple of miles of our house and she will go Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thursdays.

In the group picture, Kaeley is on the right, back row, all the way at the end.

This Little Piggy...

Once upon a time, this little one fell in love with pink pigs! Ella Beth loves pigs and has been saying “pink pig” for as long as I can remember. In fact, for a long time, she insisted cows and horses were also pink pigs. When we were in Disney (January 2007) she was captivated by none other than Piglet, why of course, he’s a PINK PIG!

Well, you’ll be glad to know, she’s moo’ved on to other animals. Her latest fascination is cows. She says “cooowwww” very clearly! The Fisher Price Little People Barn has become one of her favorite toys. It was one of Kaeley’s too. In fact, they’ve both been playing with it lately. Kaeley tends to the horses and Ella takes care of the cows, pigs, and ducks. Just the other day, Ella had one of the little cows pushing it around in her doll stroller. So sweet!

Now speaking of horses, we were at Papaw’s last night and Kaeley and Ella Beth went to the barn with him to let the horses out. This was a first experience for Ella, one’ that scared Kaeley so bad when she was Ella’s age, that she wouldn’t go back to the barn for a long time. There are just 2 horses, but they take off running and kicking once they get out of those stalls! Ella loved it! After they ran around for a bit, they found a tasty treat of watermelon rinds that had been left for them and Ella stood right at the fence and watched them eat every bite! Then she was ready to go back to the barn. Dad sat her up on Shadow, and let her pet him. She loved every second! No fear! She doesn’t take this after her mom – that’s for sure!

This picture was taken of Ella at the Knoxville Zoo. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had our first family zoo outing. Greg had never been to the Knoxville Zoo, and Ella had not been since she was an infant. Of course, I thought she would sit in the stroller a majority of the time, but it was just the opposite. She insisted on walking nearly the entire zoo! She had a blast. Not sure what she was saying, but she had quite the conversation with the merekats and chimpanzees!

Her favorite books of the moment are the Fisher Price My Little People Farm and another book called Hide& Seek Farm. Animals she recognizes: pink pig, cow, duck, bird, cat cat, and baa baa.

The Mind of a 4 Year Old

Kaeley is finishing up her first full year of preschool! Only one more year till Kindergarten. And as Kaeley says about most things, “let’s not talk about it!” At least that is what she would say should you ask her about the cross she swallowed! Kaeley is mommy’s buddy! If I’m going out shopping, she loves to go! She’s crazy about shoes, dresses, and pajamas! She gets that from her Mimi! She also loves girls night – which we have when daddy’s out of town or working late. Just the other night, we watched Charlotte’s Web. Of course, Girl’s Night is not complete without pizza, and if you ask Kaeley what she wants on her pizza – black olives! That’s a little different for a 4 year old! Kaeley likes pizza, but her true love is popcorn shrimp from Red Lobster. Just today when I picked her up from school, she said she was hungry and wanted to go eat at Red Lobster (her most favorite place to eat). We ended up at the McDonald’s drive thru instead. She did have a special treat though – we stopped by Dunkin Donuts on the way home – she absolutely LOVES chocolate munchinks! She does have a sweet tooth, but all in all, “when” you can get her to stop and eat, she typically eats well. When she orders popcorn shrimp, I ask if she wants fries or broccoli and she chooses the broccoli! She doesn’t take that after her mom! And when she’s full, she’s full. If she fills up on good/nutritional food, she will often pass on dessert! There’s always room for dessert!
Kaeley’s latest fascination has been with getting married. One slight problem – she doesn’t like boys! Remember, she is 4 and boys have cooties! Papaw wants a recording of her saying she doesn’t like boys! This all started with her wanting to marry me, at first I was flattered and thought it was cute, but she was SERIOUS! She was going to wear her bride dress and I was going to wear mine (which she pointed out was way too long, I have a cathedral train!) and we were going to plan a wedding!!!! Yikes! So we had a talk. I explained she couldn’t marry me because I was family and you don’t marry family. Ok… she bought that. So she changed her tune, and every since (and this has been going on for months) she wants to marry Hadlee, my step mother’s 3 year old great grand daughter. They are big buddies! They both spend a lot of time at my dad’s house and they love each other… so in Kaeley’s mind, that means they should get married! I explained that when you get married, you move out of your house away from your mommy & daddy and was hoping that would end her marriage talks, but she came up with a plan! Her plan was to move Hadlee and her mom & dad, and baby sister into our house! She said she would share all of her toys and her room and that Hadlee’s baby sister could share Ella’s bed room. Here again, I’ve been waiting for this phase to pass, and it hasn’t. This week I had to burst her bubble and break it to her that she couldn’t get married to Hadlee. I started the discussion by saying you had to be all grown up before you can get married, and she said, “You mean when I’m 5.” So now back to using 4 year old logic, I told her she had to marry a boy. Now she doesn’t want to talk about it! Whew!

Second Child Syndrome

Every since Little Miss Ella Beth mastered walking (it took almost 17 months!), she decided she would keep us on our toes! She's a handful to say the least! Shortly after learning to walk, she wanted to try the stairs out, and yes, she tumbled from the top all the way to the bottom! She loves to climb...she tries to hike her little leg up and then she just pulls herself right on up. After all, if Kaeley can do it, why can't Ella Beth? At her 18 month checkup, they asked me if she was climbing, I thought about it and said, yes, because I had noticed her wanting to climb into little kid sized chairs. The very next day, she was sitting on top of my kitchen table!!!! Lovely!

She has an adorable personality that is ever evolving! For as long as I can remember, Dora the Explorer has rocked her world! She absolutely LOVES the music from the Dora shows! It's hilarious to watch her in the car when the "I'm the Map" song comes on - she sways side to side in her car seat with the biggest grin on her face! Dora also gets her clapping! "Map" and "Backpack" were literally two of her very first words. She does have a pretty big vocabulary for an 18 month old. She had to focus on something since she held off on walking!

Ella also loves babies. Baby dolls, and real babies. Another one of her first words! She loves to look at books with pictures of babies and also likes for you to show her pictures around the house of either herself or Kaeley as babies. Just the other night we were reading bed time stories and she has a handful that she wants to read EVERY night. One of these, Welcome Home Baby Ashley, is one of the Fisher Price Little People books. It is a lift the flap book, with a baby in it - life doesn't get much better! The last page of the book, they are putting the baby to bed, and around the crib stand a mommy, daddy, little brother with frog, and sister with teddy bear. Ella points out the baby, "ribbit" the frog, and the teddy bear. I ask her where's the mommy and she turns and points to me! Yes, I am the mommy! How sweet! We were totally engrossed in the book and I was expecting her to point to the mommy in the book and she pointed to me! I just want to eat her up!

This is such a fun (and challenging!) age! She's changing so much every day! I can't believe I don't have a little baby any more! Where does the time go?

Never a Dull Moment

We've all heard of the song "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross", well, this incident brings new meaning to that song! It's amazing how fast accidents happen! Literally, it takes seconds! One second, all was calm and we were getting Kaeley ready to go to Papaw's house for her first sleepover, and then suddenly, we're rushing her to the ER! It just so happened to be my dad's 20th anniversary (April 19th), Dad was here to pick her up when we heard a little frustrated "whaa"... we thought it was Ella Beth, but it was Kaeley, she said "I can't get it out". Dad and I panicked and knew immediately she was referring to the .25 cent, bubble gum machine, blue & metal cross necklace charm she had been playing with. (We don't think she intentionally tried to swall it, she was looking for something in the pantry and must have just stuck it in her mouth to free up her hands, then accidentially swallowed.) We headed to the ER at Baptist West for an x-ray. Sure enough, it was stuck plain as day in her esophagus. They gave her a Sprite to see if it would go on down. We were told that if it had made it to her stomach, she would have passed it. After another x-ray to confirm it was indeed stuck, we headed to Children's hospital. After yet, another x-ray to confirm, yes, it's still there, and hours of waiting for a doctor to decide what to do, Kaeley was admitted to the hospital to start IV fluids, headed for surgery the next day. Still, a little optimistic that it would go on down to her stomach, they waited till morning and did another x-ray. It was still in the same place! She had surgery about 10am and by 10:30 it was over. We were told it could have been a difficult/tricky surery, but they were able to easily run a scope down her throat and pull it out. She woke up pretty groggy, but was soon able to drink fluids and she ate a big lunch - chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. She topped it off with her favorite Dunkin Doughnuts chocolate munchinks. She was discharged around 2p.m. and has been completely fine ever since. It is amazing how quickly kids bounce back. She was home playing the same afternoon as the surgery. It was quite the experience, luckily she was not ever in great pain. She had minor discomfort when it happened and then at Baptist hospital. I think the Sprite helped it into a better position so while we were at Children's hospital, she was pretty much pain free. Thanks be to God for answered prayers! At first, Kaeley wanted to throw the charm away, but after all the x-rays, surgery, and hospital stay, needless to say, it's appraised value is well over .25 cents!