Friday, July 08, 2005

Sweet Nothings

A few McKenna tidbits:

McKenna's music class is going great. She really loves the different musical instruments and copying the older girls in her class. Since she pronounces music as "zigit" she is always telling people all about her "zigit class". Last week, Erick went with us and she was SO excited to have him there and kept saying "Daddy zigit class?"

She's really becoming quite attached to her Daddy lately. When she plays the "I love you" game at night, she really just wants Daddy to play. If Daddy isn't here when she goes to bed, she has to kiss AND hug his picture. And she asks for him to come in and kiss her and I have to promise her that he'll come in when he gets home. And when she wakes in the morning, she asks me "Daddy kiss?" And I tell her "Yes, Daddy came in and gave you your kiss last night." If Daddy is working in the morning she will ask me "Daddy soon?" and I tell her "Yes, we'll see Daddy soon." This morning, I got her up and we went to wake Erick. She just laid on his chest, hugging him tight and smiling the biggest smile for a full 5 minutes. I've never seen this kid EVER sit still for that long. It was the sweetest moment.

Erick's birthday was on Tuesday. All week long she's been telling him "Happy Birtday Daddy!" When we ask her how old SHE is gonna be on her birthday, she says "two" and if we ask her how old Daddy is gonna be she says "tenty two" (twenty two). I think Erick is perfectly happy with that. LOL!

We had a really nice 4th of July. Erick had to work a double (shocking, I know) so McKenna and I went to my in-laws house. For those who don't know, Erick's parents and his Grandma live next door to each other. There is no fence separating the back yards and each has a pool. And they are just a block or two away from Tustin High which hosts a big fireworks show that can be seen from the Bieger's backyard. So its perfect for a big 4th of July BBQ. They've done it just about every year since I've known Erick and his entire family comes - aunts, uncles, cousins, dogs, etc. Its always a lot of fun so I was glad that McKenna got to go this year. She and I went swimming and she followed Jackie (one of the dogs) all around saying "Hi Doggie, I Denna" (Hi Doggie, I'm Kenna). She ate a hot dog and a TON of cantaloupe and watermelon. And she had no problem staying up for the fireworks. They started at 9pm and lasted about a half hour. She kept yelling out "BOOM" and announcing each color that she saw. Then she'd turn to Bob (Erick's cousin's husband) and telling him what color it was....just in case he missed it. LOL! Ever since then she's been talking all about the "fi-wooks" and all the colors she saw.

Like I mentioned in the last paragraph, she likes to introduce herself. And I mean to EVERYTHING. "Hi Mommy's Drink. I'm Denna." "Hi bug. I'm Denna." Its so funny to hear her introducing herself to everything and everyone. A few nights ago, while I was trying to dress her after her bath, she jumped up and looked out our back window. She saw our neighbor, Max and yelled out "Hi MAX!" So Max and her granddaughter Molly and Molly's friend Kendra came to the window and talked to her. When I told Kenna it was time for bed she threw a FIT and wanted kisses and hugs from all 3 of them.

Whenever anyone leaves, she has to give them hugs and kisses. At first if we tell her "Ok, Gramps is leaving. Give kisses goodbye." She will say "No! No!" and act very anxious and whiny. But once she sees that they really ARE going to leave, she frantically starts saying "Kiss! Kiss!" and we have to make sure she gets to give them a kiss. And immediately after she asks for "Ug" (hug).

I had an owie on the top of my foot. Yesterday she saw it and said "Mommy owie. I kiss." And crawled onto the floor and kissed my feet several times. She is giving us so many hugs and kisses at the most random times. Today she had to kiss both my hands and both my knees. I don't know what made her decide to do it. She just came over and kissed them.

She loves to have me play with her hair. She says "Mommy hair?" and she leans her head back so I can run my fingers through the ends of it. Which is funny because I love that too. I guess its the equivalant of a backscratch to us.

People seem to be really impressed by her counting abilities lately. She is counting everything so a lot of random strangers have been hearing her count and seem so impressed that she can count to 18. I'm not exactly sure that she's doing anything out of the ordinary for her age but I do think its good for her to hear so much encouragement from so many various people. So its fun to watch her show off.

What surprised me was that she can count to 5 in Spanish. Neither Erick or I have worked with her on this so she must've picked it up entirely from Dora the Explorer.

I think she's about ready for a toddler bed. Every time we go somewhere that has kid's beds set up, she loves to lie down in them, cover up, say "night night" and start to snore. When we took her to Babies-A-Lot, they had an entire Disney Princess bedroom set up and she squealed "PINK BED" and went running towards it and jumped in. So Erick and I are thinking that when we move this month, we'll set her new room up with her toddler bed.

Her sleep schedule this week has been pretty consistent:
Bedtime: 8:30pm-9pm
Wakeup: 8:30am-9am (although today she got up at 10am!)
Naptime: Starts between 2pm and 3pm and lasts for 2 hours

So those are the sweet nothings from our week. However, there have been a few lil devil moments too!

She has started to get REALLY worked up like she has aggression that she needs to get out. If I upset her, its very common for her to start scratching my arms or face and saying "I SCRATCH!"

She had to go in timeout 3 times today. Once for dumping her drink on the kitchen floor (on purpose), once for throwing her french fries across the living room, and once for pouring her juice in her dinner bowl.

She has become a terror in restaurants. She keeps throwing her food and usually wants down from her chair within a half hour.

We're consistently correcting and staying firm and calm. But man, it is exhausting! Sometimes it feels like she just completely has us dominated and I wonder if our techniques are even effective. Should we be seeing results right away? Or is this just behavior we have to continuously counteract for another year? At this point, we are not willing to spank so we'll see.

Here are some pics of our little charming devil:

McKenna and her cousin Lukey - always so happy to see each other:


Seeing her first fireworks show ever:


She's saying "Greeeeeeen!":


Enjoying the show:


McKenna was having play-doh fun. That pile of play-doh is her "creation". She tore up each separate blob of dough and this is what she created. She's quite proud of her artistic design and came running to me saying "Mommy! Look!":


Her very first nightgown:


And here is a picture of my sister and I with our pregnant bellies. My sister is 35 weeks and I am 27 weeks:

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