Ducks in a row

Today and tomorrow we will be working to get all things ready for our trip to Cleveland. Kylie's neuro there wanted to see her back in 6 months for a follow-up, and the time has arrived.



We are anxious to meet with him and show off Kylie and how far she has come! We do hope he is as pleased as we are...heck, we hope he is beside himself with how great she is doing!



We will be leaving via airplane on Thursday morning and our apptmt is on the 28th. It was in our original plans to drive, but that all changed last week. You see, Matt was laminating some pics for a social story that we created for Kylie to prepare her for our trip. We had a pic of her in the driver's seat of Matt's truck with Elmo beside her, and we had pics of when we were there for her last time with grandma, grandpa, and Uncle Joey. We wanted her to become familiar with their faces, to help lessen any anxiety she may have with being in a new place.



Anyhow, as Matt was working on those, one of his co-worker's asked if they were recent pics of Kylie. He told her what he was working on, and before he knew it she told him to send her the details of our trip and she used her Southwest Rewards to get us tickets! Wow, that is so awesome!



We have been working since then to modify our schedule of what we will be doing there, and all that we will need for a plane ride. I do hope and pray that it goes well. Honestly, I think no matter what, it will be better than 16 hrs in a car watching Yo Gabba Gabba!



Our neighbors are also giving us their iPod Touch to borrow with games and fun things for kids on it. So we will have that, our portable dvd player, and some new books and plenty of snacks. I think/hope those help get us through. Oh, and perhaps we will get some friendly neighbors that will enjoy playing peek-a-boo with Kylie too :)

Mama Bear

A little part of me was debating on whether or not to post this, and then another part said I absolutely should. So here goes...

The weather has been absolutely gross for so long (hot & humid...like a heat index of 105, or raining). Anyhow, we decided that we all needed to get out of the house and do something low-key, but still enough for Kylie to enjoy. We opted for the mall, since it is so close to us.

Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea...there were tons and tons of kids in the play area, so we went into the Disney store. Kylie really enjoyed hugging some stuffed animals and looking at her reflection in the princess mirror. Once we left there, Kylie had spotted the play area....conveniently located close to the Disney store.

We saw that a few kids had left, so we decided we would let Kylie play and just keep an even closer watch on her and let her enjoy the playtime.

We were both getting a bit stressed and frustrated with the lack of parental supervision and just overall parenting that was going on...or should I say that wasn't going on. Anyhow. We saw kids just jumping all over and running and it was just a bit much. The play area is for littler kids...you must be 42" or less to play in there...and there were lots of kids that were just too big to be in there. I think I may call the mall office and suggest that they have someone monitor the area.

Back to story. There were kids jumping off of all the cute little things that the little ones crawl under and climb up on. I was worried that Kylie would get squashed by another kid, jumping off of what she was crawling through and land on her. So...I told him no jumping and reminded him that the signs says no jumping or running.

I don't want to be the parent that is yelling at someone else's kids or telling them what to do, but when you are putting my kid in danger...I'm going to do something about it.

It was no sooner after that when Kylie was on her way down a little slide and a kid that was about 6 or 7 flew down it and totally took her out. She instantly screamed and was so scared. Then I ran over and put my hand on the kid's shoulder and used my mom voice to say "hey, you just knocked her down, you need to be careful and watch out for other kids." His mom then came at me yelling in another language. I have no idea what she was saying.

Hindsight tells me she was probably upset that I put my hand on her kid, but Hello...what about the fact that your kid just knocked my kid down to where she was screaming and tears running down her face and the kid didn't apologize and the mom didn't seem to care.

I then raised my voice a bit to this lady and told her that he just knocked her down and that he needs to apologize to her and be more careful. I then told him that he needed to apologize to Kylie. He then said he was sorry.

Wow! that was totally not what I was expecting to happen when we went to the mall. It was just a new, and big mommy moment for me.

I'm not sure how well I am going to handle when she is in school and things like this happen more often. Matt said we will need to plug my ears and put blinders on me, so there is less for me to see and hear.

I did learn from this though. When we are somewhere like that and I am getting frustrated and bothered with the environment....know that something is bound to happen and that it is okay to leave before anything does happen. Also, for me to approach the other child or parent in a calmer manner.

This happened yesterday and my heart is still pounding as I think about it. I just know there is so much more to come in this whole parenting experience, and I hope that I will always learn from these experiences and act appropriately.

And if necessary...mama bear will come out :)

...all the little things

So here are some random little things that Kylie has done recently...you know, all the things that make her so Amazing and sweet!


Words

We are always labeling things and trying to expand Kylie's vocabulary, but she responds so much better to our neighbor. Of course everyone is more fun and exciting than mom and dad, right :) At any rate, it is so cute to see how excited Kylie gets when we are over there to visit and J is communicating with Kylie. Kylie thinks J is being silly, so she laughs and gets all excited and squealy when she tries to imitate the words or sounds that J is doing. With J's help, she has learned to say happy (more like "hap-eye...and she almost always whispers it), and cat (she just does the "ttt" sound).

Kylie has also learned a few more words in the past couple of weeks:

help (hap)
play (bay or way)
towel (dowel)
please (we try to get her to do the "puh" sound, but she does "buh" and laughs each time she does it)
water (wah)
hat (huh--at)
home (haw-mm or ome)
waffle (wah)
headband (ha-ba)


Social


Also the recent times we have been over visiting the neighbors, Kylie let J pick her up and hold her while they were playing together! She is so big, and just doing so well...makes me teary. The cutest part was when J tried to put her down, and Kylie kept her legs up and wrapped around her like a little monkey...she liked J holding her :) Oh and she gave J and her fiance Z high fives, and hugs, and even tried to give them kisses. A-mazing!

Yesterday I took Kylie to story time at Barnes and Noble and we met some friends there. Kylie was so cute, she let Monica help her up on the bench where she sat next to another little girl. Oh, it was such a mommy moment for me to see her sitting there! Of course no camera with me, but I did get a new phone yesterday afternoon, and it takes much better pics than my old one..so I will be ready to snap some pics!

We have been to story time a couple times there before, and also to visit their children's book section. We have seriously only been in that area like 3 times, and Kylie remembered that there were Elmo and other Sesame Street books on the other side of the little stage where they read stories. She navigated around the kids and chairs to go get some Elmo books. Of course she was proud when she brought them back and signed more and said "mo" and went and got more and more. She even let Monica pick her up a couple times too!

After story time we went down to the play area in the mall, and Kylie ran around there a bit. It was so nice because there were more kids there her age, and not too many kids...it seems to overwhelm her at times when there are lots. Heck, it overwhelms me too, because I don't want her getting run over or too stressed. Anyway, the story of it all is that there was a little girl there that was probably a year old or just over that. The little girl was fascinated watching Kylie run around and play. Kylie picked up on that and walked over to the little girl and they stared at each other for a bit. Kylie would then run to do something and then go back to the little girl...I think she was trying to show the girl how to play and she just didn't have the words to say "come play with me."

The cutest part is that Kylie put her arms out and walked toward the girl and when she got close enough to touching her she looked at me as if to say "okay, how do I do this...how do I give her a hug." So sweet that she was trying to hug a little person. I told her all done and did the sign for it, because I didn't want her to upset the little girl, but I so wanted to let her just do it and see how she responded to giving another person, a new person a hug on her own. Next time.



More communication

Yesterday Kylie and I were watching one of her Signing Time dvds and she did a two-step sign! A lot of signs are just using 1 or both hands and doing the appropriate gesture with them, but this one was two separate signs that you do in order for "clear the table." You sign "table" and then "clean-up." This is the first time she has ever done this, so it was a BIG little moment for Kylie!

We have cut back on how often she watches the Signing Time dvds, and try to redirect her when she continually communicates to us that she wants to watch them. I think she has a crush on the little guy Alex that is on the shows. It also seems like so many of her words come from watching them. She sees the object in the house and signs it and is now trying to put the word to it. It is just great to see that one mom's creation is helping so many kids communicate!

Ooey-Gooey, Icky-Sticky

Our local libraries do a great job of having activities and events for kids throughout the summer, which is wonderful for those hot days and a chance to get out...best part, it's free!

A few weeks ago I saw that they had an event for toddlers called Ooey-Gooey, Icky-Sticky, and I just knew this would be a perfect chance for some extra sensory therapy for Kylie.

So that is exactly what we did this morning. We got there with plenty of time to spare, since so many of their events tend to draw lots of little ones. A friendly librarian greeted us and asked if there was anything we needed. We had not been to this branch before, so she showed us around and told us about all the things available for kiddos Kylie's age.

Here is quick rundown of what we did. While we waited for the room to be all set up, we played in an area that is perfect for toddlers where Kylie had an opportunity to go fishing for some letters, with a magnetic fishing pole. She also got to take some static fish off of a white board and stick them into the fishing bowl that was on the white board. She did such a great job at smacking them to make sure they stuck just right. They also had a fish that kids could visit and even had paper for kids to name the fish and post it up. Kylie just waved to the fish and did the sign for fish when she saw him.

There was more, but that was about all the Kylie did before it was time to dive into some sensory fun!

We were the first ones there, so we had the whole place to ourselves. I was kinda hoping we weren't the only early birds, because I figured there would be a few things Kylie would be hesitant to do, and was secretly hoping that she would be more inclined to try a few things if she saw other little people doing them. Perhaps next time.

Anyway, there was a little walkway set up where kiddos could walk on different textured surfaces. We slipped off our shoes and on a walk we went. Kylie is just too smart, she could see which surfaces were not so smooth and she walked around them :) We tried to get her to walk on some, and she quickly stepped away from them. She was a little apprehensive at first, but after a bit she kept going back to it. Super cute watching those little feet tiptoe across all the different surfaces....I tried to get a pic, but she is just too quick for me.

Next was some ducks in a big clear tub/pond. There were 3 different ducks in the pond, and the idea was to sort them out and put them in smaller buckets/ponds with the matching picture. Kylie wasn't interested in sorting through the ducks, she preferred to just pick them up and throw them back in the pond...a lot like what she does during bath time. It was cute, because she started signing "bath" when she first saw the little duckies. We did eventually get her to just toss a couple in the smaller tubs, but then she decided they needed to go back in the pond with all their friends :)

The next station was a long bench that had a super long and wide strip of tape on it and then there were buckets of string, ribbon, paper shapes, and tissue paper for kids to stick to the tape and decorate it. Kylie was not too excited with its stickyness and the fact that she couldn't really undo her decorating.

I think the next thing we did was go over to the finger paint and stamps. This was kind of neat, and something I read about in one of my sensory books. You fill a ziplock with fingerpaints, and then seal it really well and put it in another bag or two, to protect from any leaks. The next thing you do is get some shapes or stamps and when you push them on the bags of fingerpaint, they leave an impression. Kylie really enjoyed this one too!

We moved onto the gooey stuff. It was kind of like slime and silly puddy combined into one...I'm sure there is a name for it, but I apparently don't know what it is. Goo just isn't my thing either. Anyhow, just the sight of stressed Kylie out and she ran away back to the duck pond.

The last station was shaving cream. At one point Kylie ran from the duck pond and then looped around the table with the shaving cream, and she was eyeing it, but wasn't wanting to get too closed to it. Just before we left Matt assisted her and stuck her hand in it...totally not a fan.

Below is a mix of video and some pics of our trip to the library this morning. All in all it was a good time and something Kylie enjoyed and we were so happy that the library put on this event for all little ones to enjoy. I sure hope they had a flood of people after we left, the woman in charge was super nice and was really excited about the event.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

All the little things

I just can't get enough of all the little moments we share with Kylie. So, I thought I would post some of those here for you all to enjoy. This is kind of long, but there are lots of sweet Kylie moments to share.



The other night Matt was working at job #2, so I got to put Kylie down for bedtime. As I was carrying her up to her room, with paci in mouth and snuggie held tight, she said "mama" and I said "yes, Kylie" and she said "ni-ni." I was like in tears, and did not want to put her down. It was like a mini little conversation and she just wanted to tell me good night before she went down.




Kylie is really great at doing things we ask her to do, and getting things that are in another room. When I am cleaning up her dishes from breakfast or lunch, I will ask her to bring me her bubba (yep, we still call her sippy cup of milk her bubba), and she will go get it and bring it to me. She will do the same if we ask her to go get a specific toy. She has done these things for a while now, but for some reason I didn't post it...oops.



We used to put her snacks on a burp cloth downstairs when it was snack time (since she used to accidentally dump her bowl out), so now when I tell her that I am getting her a snack she pulls a burp cloth out of the drawer and lays it down. It is so sweet! I have been putting her snacks in a little bowl for quite some time now, but she likes to help out, so I just let her do it.



I'm sure I have mentioned before at how much she loves to dance. Well, lately she will do the sign for dance and just dance away as she is signing. She will also sign dance as her way of telling me to turn on the radio in the kitchen. That way she has some music to dance to and she knows that when I turn it on that it is our time to dance together...something we do every day :)




It seems like it has been a little while now, but Kylie is doing so much better with being close and more accepting of hugs and affection from Matt and I. She is more content with sitting on our laps to watch one of her shows. She doesn't try to pull away so much with hugs and kisses.....she will now give us kisses and hugs a lot more. Yay! Often I will see her inching closer to me when we are sitting downstairs playing or having a snack. She even hits her hand on the floor as her own little way of telling me that she wants me to sit right by her.




Whenever we go from playing in one room to the next, I always have to clean up...drives me nuts to have stuff out everywhere. Anyhow, I have tried to instill this in Kylie and she loves to help clean up. When she wants to go upstairs or outside or whatever, I tell her we need to clean up first. She doesn't just pick up one thing and then stop, she helps with everything and she knows right where everything goes and she puts them all back in the right spots. It's like she is a big little person taking care of her things...love it!




I had fixed Kylie her lunch the other day and she said apple, so I went into the kitchen to cut her up an apple, and I put some in a bowl for her and then continued to cut the rest of it up. Just 2 minutes or so goes by and Kylie returns with an empty bowl. I was like wow, she must really be hungry, so I gave her more. I kinda figured maybe she was up something so I peeked to see what she was doing. So how about I had left the large pack of paper towels out, and I had just taken a roll out of it so it was open. Kylie drug it into the living room and she was putting her pieces of apples down the tube to a new roll of paper towels. I had to tip the large pack of paper towels on its side to get all the apples to come out. It was kinda funny, because she has never done anything like this before. I guess she was saving them for later :)




We took Kylie for a walk in her wagon the other night and out of no where she says "hi dada." For those of you who are counting, that is a two word sentence. Her first one ever!




Kylie has just started to be a bit sneaky. Kinda cute, but so mischievous too. She will try to get ahold of something she knows she isn't supposed to have...like our phones, the camera, just about anything really. Anyhow, she will say "bye, bye" and just flash her cute smile. At first, I was like ok, and then I saw she was trying to sneak away with the goods. Terrible...or maybe just terribly cute, and pretty crafty too.




By now you would think we would no longer be surprised by how much Kylie knows and how she understands what we are saying. We know she is smart, but it just never ceases to amaze us. She pays attention to everything we are saying and even our conversations with other people and will sign or say something that relates to what we are talking about. We are finding ourselves spelling out more and more words all the time. We constantly look at one another and say how smart is. She is simply amazing!




I think I may have mentioned before that we have a little chipmunk that is out on our front porch from time to time, and we have named him Alvin. Kylie will look out the window for him and when she sees him she will say hi and even send him kisses by kissing the window. Here are a couple pics I got of her looking watching Alvin.









Whenever Kylie watches Sesame Street she gets so excited for Elmo to come on. She will say Elmo over and over again, and put her hands up and shrug her shoulders, as if to say where is he. So whenever she does watch it, I make sure to not turn it on until there are about 20 minutes left, because that is usually the time Elmo is on. And she loves how he always kisses a baby, and then she goes up to the TV and kisses the baby too! I seriously think Elmo has helped her be more comfortable with giving us kisses, because she loves Elmo and thinks it is fun when he gives kisses.



We had bought Kylie a little basket of play food and she absolutely loves pretending to eat it and feeding it to us and her friends. I think just after a day or two of us telling her what all the foods were, she learned them. We can ask her for some soup and she will get us the cans of soup. I have asked her for each different food item and she knows them all. I love how she scans them and then grabs the right one!



Just the other day Kylie was eating some goldfish and she reached her hand out and was trying to feed one to me. When I leaned over to get it, she pulled it away and laughed. She did the same to Matt. I love that she has this little sense of humor and is being so silly!



This is probably one of the best Oh my gosh I can't believe she just did that moments. All of you moms out there know what I am talking about when you give your child that look, you know...the what are doing look. Anyhow, Kylie not only knows what that look is, but she gives it right back. It is pretty funny, but Oh my goodness, we are going to be in trouble..lol It is my goal to get a picture of this infamous look and share it with you all.




I'm sure there are lots more, but that is all I can think of for now. I will do the best I can to write more posts like this. I'm going to keep a tablet near the computer so I can make little notes of "all the little things."

Our little firecracker

We took Kylie to the annual Lenexa 4th of July Parade yesterday. We thought she would enjoy it, but then again you never know how things are going to turn out. Below is a few short video clips mushed into one.


Kylie was very interested in what was going on, but did get a bit worried by some of the sirens and such, which made her reach out for her dada. She did great at waving to everyone going by, and so many people commented on how cute she was...ehhemm...is! I had little flags for her and she waved them proudly too!


There is a Louie Louie band that is always in the parade, and Kylie loved the music. You will see just a little bit of her dancing after they went by. The last little part of the video is when the clowns were coming by. Kids usually like clowns or they don't and well, you will see if Kylie is a fan.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So Kylie looked absolutely A-dorable in her patriotic little dress, so here are a few pics of that. And yes, I made this one too :)

Kissing her reflection

Shhh...time for ni-night

When I was in the shower yesterday, Kylie came up and was jabbering to me. I asked if she could go get her friends from her room and put them on the bed to go ni-night. Once I was out of the shower, I saw that she had begun to get some of her stuffed animal friends and she laid them down to go ni-night.

The other day she was doing that downstairs and laying her toys on the couch and I put my finger to my mouth and said Shhhh, they are going ni-night.

So each time she would lay down a new friend, she would go Ssssss and put her finger to her mouth, and then say ni-ni. Oh my goodness, I was teary eyed!

She hopped up onto the glider in her room and motioned for me to hand her some more of her friends, and she proceeded to lay them down around her and once again, she went Sssss, and said ni-ni.

I ran down to grab the camera. And got this shot of her as she was saying Ssssssss.

Then this morning, to my surprise Matt had the day off of work! Yay! The cute part was Kylie said ni-ni to Matt as they were downstairs eating some breakfast. She then laid down on the floor and put her head on the pillow next to Matt. So sweet!

As always, we love being parents to such a sweet little lady :)

Dressing up

So yesterday, I had a bit of a photo shoot with Kylie. You see, I made her a cute little sundress while she was napping, and I was so excited for her to wake up so I could try it on her and take tons of pics!

I bought the fabric a couple or few months ago...so long that I can't remember. Anyhow, I decided that I need to make her a dress. Matt's Grandma, who we now call Franma, sent me a link to a blog with some how-to instructions on making a pretty little sundress. I'm so glad she did, because without it, the dress would not have been possible.

Below you will see about a dozen pics or so. She was just so adorable, that I could not stop taking pics! Matt checked and I apparently took like 100 pics, but kept about 50 or so.

This is one of my favorites!

She was trying to be sneaky and taking stuff out of my purse. I caught her red-handed and with a sweet smile!

Thinking about touching the water running down the fountain.

There she goes. She usually likes to lick her finger after touching the water...kinda gross, I know.

I love this one too! It's almost like she was posing and looking off in the distance or something.

Thinking about who she should call first after getting ahold of my phone.

I think she is going to call her daddy and tell him how much she loves him.

I got her mid-laugh here. She was being silly and hiding my phone.

Okay, I love this one too! This is when we came back inside and Kylie just had to play dressup. Funny thing is that she took off all of the necklaces and headbands except for what she has on in this pic. I think we have a little fashionista on our hands...she left on the items that matched her dress!