Tuesday, August 23, 2005

What's new with the Bieger family...

It seems to get harder and harder to update this the bigger my belly gets. : ) I usually only get to update after McKenna goes to bed at night. And by that time, I'm too tired and my back hurts too much to sit at the computer. So tonight I'm forcing myself!

So let's see, what's new.

Well for one...McKenna had her 2 year checkup. I was pretty nervous about it because she screamed her head off during her 18 month appointment. It didn't matter what they were doing to her - weighing her, looking in her ears, or giving her a shot. She screamed at them. She hated it. I figured with her being older and more aware, it would only be worse this time around. So the night before, I pulled out her doctor kit and told her that we were going to see "Kenna's doctor" tomorrow. She's been to a lot of my OB appointments and knows that is "Mommy's doctor" so we talked about how the next day we'd go see "Kenna's doctor." I told her that her doctor would look in her ears, eyes and nose, how he would listen to her heart and her belly, etc. I showed her all the tools he would use with her doctor kit and how he would use them. And then I told her that they would give her a poke that would hurt a little bit like a pinch. I gave her the tiniest pinch on her arm to show her. Then I told her the hurt would be all gone and we'd give her a Strawberry Shortcake bandaid. She seemed to understand and would repeat everything back to me.

The next morning, on the drive to the doctor she talked all about how we were going to see "Kenna's doctor" and we talked over and over about the different things he would do. When I asked her if she was excited to see her doctor, her eyes lit up and she said "It FUN!" In my head I thought "Yeah, we'll see." LOL!

We got there and she was in a great mood. Walked right back to the room on her own. Didn't need me to carry her or anything. She was very receptive to the nurse's attention, answered her questions, showed her the waffle she'd been snacking on, and didn't even give any problems about standing on the scale to be weighed and have her height measured.

I figured "Well, wait until the MALE doctor comes in and starts poking around. It will be all over then." So we talked about how her doctor would come in next and how he looked just like "Pop-Pop" and how he was just as nice as Pop-Pop (really, the only similarity is they both have gray hair but we figured she might take a little more kindly to him if she associated him with someone she was familiar with). When he came in, Kenna laid right on the table and pointed to her belly and told him "Kyla in there." LOL She does seem to think that Kyla lives in her belly, my belly AND Daddy's belly! But whatever, if it made it easier for her doctor to get to listen to her belly and heart then by all means...

We explained to her everything he was doing as he was doing it and she cooperated and didn't fuss a bit. Wow. I asked her "Was he as nice as Pop-Pop?" and she said "Nice as Pop-Pop!"

So I thought "Ok, when the nurse comes in for the shot, then its over." While we waited, I reminded Kenna that we had to wait for the nurse to come in to give her a poke. We talked again about how it would feel like a pinch, how she'd get a special bandaid, etc.

The nurse walked in and Kenna laid back on the table and said "Poke please." LOL No WAY would she have asked nicely for a poke had she realized what was coming! But she was a brave little trooper. First they gave her a finger prick to test for anemia. She watched the whole time and didn't even flinch. Then they gave her the Hep A shot in the arm. This time she flinched but she did NOT cry! We put the bandaid on but she said "No, no, no!" and ripped it off. I think because the area was sensitive she didn't want anything on it. But that was it. She did fantastic! I was so proud of her! The nurse came back with a pink bracelet to reward her for being so good and Kenna was SO proud of it. She walked down the hall telling every nurse she saw "Tay too for bacelet" (thank you for bracelet). And that was that!

By the way, she weighs 21.5 pounds (5th percentile) and is 30.75 inches (4th percentile). Our pediatrician said she is just what we call petite. Since her anemia test came back negative, she eats a healthy diet and is very active and intelligent, he is not at all concerned. He does, however, want her to stay on whole milk for another 6 months. Generally, at 2 years kids can move to low-fat but since she's such a peanut he said it won't hurt to keep her on whole for a little longer.

One of the difficult things right now is that its very hard to come up with stories to tell in my blog. Before, it was all about her milestones (trying new foods, saying new words). Then it was about her piecing things together, saying sentences, understanding and communicating. But now, everything about her is ALL personality and is harder to explain without you just being around her. She repeats EVERYTHING. She totally understands what we ask of her. If we talk about something being dangerous, she understands it, repeats it to us, talks to us about it. She clearly tells us what she wants, where she wants to go, what she likes, what she thinks is funny, if she's tired or hungry or what she wants to eat. And while Erick and I are fascinated by her every word, you the reader would get pretty tired of reading "It was so cute that McKenna understood to be careful around the pink flowers because there are bees in them." While I am still over-the-top proud of her every single time she uses the potty, you the reader would not want to read that I was so proud of McKenna for (again) remembering to get out of the bathtub so she can poop. So you can see my blogging dilemma at this point!

I'm sure that once Kyla is born, it will be a whole new world of stories though. McKenna is so ready to be a big sister. I see her patting her dolly on the back and whispering "Shh baby. Don't cry." Or today (and again, I refer back to the pink flowers with the bees) she told her dolly "Baby, careful pink flowers. Bees in there. No touch. Careful cars. Cars owie. Trucks owie." And I remembered that a few days ago I had told her that Kyla would need her to teach her things like being careful of the bees or not to play in the street because cars and trucks can give you owies. I could've sworn it was just last week that I was worrying that I'd never be able to teach McKenna enough to keep her safe. And now I hear her not only remembering what I've taught her but trying to teach her "baby" the same thing.

In other news - we're moving soon! Our 3-bedroom apartment is finally ready. Our landlord is giving us a little extra time to start moving stuff in so we can start tomorrow! What a relief! Erick is off of work from August 16-September 1 so we really wanted to use this time to get settled in before Kyla comes! We have a ton of work to do but I'm so glad we can finally get going on that process!

Also, be sure to keep updated on the pregnancy by going to our family website. We update that every week and this week added pics from our baby shower that my family threw for us!

I'm still really enjoying digital scrapbooking. I haven't worked on it as much as I'd like because 1) my kid does NOT let me sit on the computer while she is awake and 2) its so hard to sit at the computer for any length of time. But when I do get the time and creative and physical energy, I totally love it! Its been so fun learning all of these things about Photoshop CS and design skills. Here are two pages I recently created:


Dreams
These Are Days

And some pics for your enjoyment:

"Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm gonna have to call you back. I'm in the middle of preparing for a very fancy tea party."


Her fancy tea party with guests-of-honor DADDY and the DISNEY PRINCESSES:


Peeking through the donut hole. Even at the fanciest tea parties, its ok to play with your food:


"Daddy, you are SUCH a funny guest!!"


Mommy & Kenna in front of the fire truck at Brea-Fest:


This pic is being included because I know that McKenna will want to look at these pictures over and over again and she will be glad to see this pic that has the fire truck in the background:


Shampoo Horn:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a BIG girl!!

Shannon - For what it's worth, I just love reading silly toddler stories ; )

Jen said...

I think that she needs to talk with Micah a bit- my experience at the doctor's office two weeks ago was not your cute little story ;)
(BTW- I am Bones wife from C6M in case you wondered)
-Jen