5 years ago I married my best friend! I love you Jay! We are heading “home” (yeah we still call the ‘burg home) for a nice dinner and jay’s 10 year reunion tomorrow! What a great weekend! Hopefully we will make it home to see the tigers play!

Click to see what Kennedy thinks of us turning her car seat around…20100619_1

I must admit that this is becoming more of a record keeping blog than deep down thoughts and pictures.  I have looked at several times to find out exactly how many words Kennedy has or on what day she learned what skill.  With that said, I am blogging right now just to keep my scrapbook up to date on all the words she is learning to say.  Pretty soon I’m just going to have to give up counting!

• Cheese – “Teese”
• ouch – “ouch”
• fish – “ish”
• Peek a boo – “Pee boo”
• more – “moe”

Kennedy loved watching Uncle Kai’s fish today.  There was one that kept going under a rock and spitting out sand.  Gross.  Kennedy loved that fish.  Kennedy also thought that Aunt Lauren’s dogs were very funny.  Kennedy’s favorite part of Aunt Lauren and Uncle Kai’s house was not the fish, dogs, or people there.  It was in fact Aunt LaLa’s closet.  Kennedy had love in her eyes when she saw all of her Aunt Lala’s soos.  Tall soos.  Shiny soos.  Beautiful soos.  Sorry K-bug, your mommy does not wear those kind of soos! 

Kennedy’s favorite thing to do now that I am home is go outside and walk around the yard.  It is SO hot I can’t stand to be out there more than 15 minutes at a time.  We go out, walk around, come back in, have a drink, and head back out.  The good news is that by doing this all day I got her to drink 18 ounces of milk today!

Kennedy met with Dr. Joey today for her 12 month check up.  He was very happy about her development.  He said she was in perfect help.  I had a few a bazillion questions for him about shoes, sippy cups, summer, and skin.  He put my mind at rest about most of my concerns.  My first huge concern was how to get her off the boob and on a sippy cup.  He gave me some tips to try.  He also told me it is ok if she never takes a traditional sippy cup.  He agreed that it is better for her langauge if she stuck to the sippy cups with a straw.  She wasn’t going to not learn how to drink from  a real cup if I didn’t teach her to tip a sippy cup.  He also said that it is ok if I have to add a little chocolate or strawberry to her milk to convince her to drink it.  He also told me that I didn’t need to force her to like juice.  Water and milk are completely ok.  He did say that when she is weened he wants her drinking 16-20 ounces of milk per day.

  I also had questions about her scalp, birthmark, and red slotches on her skin.  He told me that I needed to use selson blue on her scalp (she still has cadle cap).  He told me to use it twice a week and just to make sure I avoid getting it in her eyes.

As for her skin, those blotchy spots are eczema.  He told me just to use cream and hydrocortison cream on them.  The birthmark is another story.  He referred us to a dermetologist.  The birthmark is neutral in color, just a little raised spot.  Off we go to yet another specialist.

Shoes.  Shoes shoes shoes.  Oh shoes.  Now that is a whole other problem.  I told Dr. Joey about Kennedy’s love of shoes.  She loves all shoes.  My shoes.  Her daddy’s shoes.  Strangers shoes.  She wants to wear shoes all day every day.   She loves the shoe section of  Target and shoe stores.  She calls them “soos”.  Before she could walk I would let her wear the most impractical shoes.  I didn’t worry if they were uncomfortable or too big.  Now that she can walk it is a whole different story.  I have been going to stores for days trying to find shoes that fit her that she can walk in.  Dr. Joey told me my best bet would be to go to striderite and let them measure her.  I decided I would suck it up and let them measure her and also buy an expensive pair of shoes for her.  The man helping us was SO nice.  He measured Kennedy’s feet then frowned.  He then had me stand her up and re-measure.  No go, they don’t sell shoes in that store that will fit her.  He told me to come back next year.  We then went to the Target and BINGO we found the cutest pair of shoes that she can walk in!  She has her soos!   

I also found a great sippy cup at Target.

She loves it and has already drank a cup of milk!

Here are the inportant stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 10 oz 17th %tile

Length: 29 inches 32%tile

Head circumference: 17 inches 42%tile

She also got her MMR, chicken pox, hepititis A, and one other vaccine.  So far no Tylenol needed!  She’s such a little trooper!

I think we are up to around 30 words that Kennedy uses spontaneously and often.  Her latest words from this weekend are get (gee- ut) (said to Potter when he hopped in her pool) and no ma’am.  The funny thing about a one year old is they learn from imitation and their environment.  Typically when Kennedy touches something or points at something Jay and I tell her what it is.  I typically say the word three times because that is what we do in my classroom.  It is called echoic trials.  This said Kennedy sometimes messes up on words.  For example, any animal that has fur is a dog to Kennedy and any animal without fur is typically a duck to her.  This said some of her mistakes are pretty funny. 

Kennedy’s dictionary:

uh-oh – verb  to throw food onto the floor

no ma’am – verb   to hit an adult

Another funny story:

We went to the zoo on Saturday morning.  It wasa great time to go.  It wasn’t hot yet, the animals were all awake and playing, and they were feeding several animals.  The were letting people at the zoo feed the giraffes so I had to get in on that.  We took Kennedy up to the giraffes and she was able to feed and pet them.  What we didn’t expect was the giraffe to pull her hairbow out of her hair!  Kennedy at first just said “uh oh, but upon seeing her precious red polka dot hair bow hanging out of the giraffes mouth she started yelling “BOW, BOW, BOW!”  I bravely removed the bow from the giraffes and we quickly walked away before the zoo keeper could fuss at us.

New story:

While I’m blogging Kennedy was nicely playing with her bath toys in the kitchen (they were all in the kitchen because we let her play with them in the pool earlier.)  Kennedy was playing so nicely and Jay was laying on the couch watching TV.  We were having a great night.  Kennedy stopped playing and walked over to the table and around the kitchen.  Finally she made her way over to where Jay was watching TV.  I noticed she had a dot on her mouth.  I asked Jay what it was.  His responce… “was she playing in the bath toys?”  “Yeah she had fun.”  Jay then informed me that her bath crayons were in the bucket.  That dot was blue bath crayon.  All over her mouth.  All under her nails.  All over her hands.  But wait there’s more….. she drew the most beautiful blue artwork all over the kitchen floor.  At least I could easily wipe it up with warm water!

Shoes: not new but now said like 15,000 times a day. Shoes (soos) are her FAVORITE things.) We have shopped high and low looking for cute size 2 shoes that are made for walking. Acually it is the equivalent to a 6-9 month shoe. She loves all shoes.. my shoes, her shoes, shoes in stores, Dadd’s shoes. She was even checking out strangers shoes in the library today. We need to save our pennies now to afford this girls shoe habit.

Bow: She now will say bow when she sees one of her bows, sees bows in the store, wants a bow, feels her bow, or sees a strangers bow that she wants. She actually tried to swap with a little girl at a wedding who had a bigger bow. She took her bow out and followed the other little girl around offering her the tiny bow in exchange for her big bow.

Doll: Kennedy has a sweet doll that was given to her by the Kirkleys. They are a sweet family that is so good to Kennedy. They gave her a soft doll when I was pregnant with her. She now says doll every time she sees her sweet doll.

Amen: Ok it only happened once but it was SO cute. We said our blessing and I ended by saying Amen. Kennedy looked at me and said “Amen” in the most southern voice ever.

People’s names: Dori, DeeDee, Mama, Daddy (Dah), and LaLa

Blow (bow): with her birthday cake toy

Toddler – –noun
a person who toddles, esp. a young child learning to walk.

Ladies and gentleman… my daughter has become a toddler!

It officially happened Wednesday, but I was scared that it was a fluke and didn’t wanna jinx myself!

1. She loves being outside and playing in the water. At the lake she will stand at the glass window and bang on it to go outside. She loves being in the lake, on the boat, or in the kiddie pool. At home she will beg for the chalk to draw on the sidewalk. She brings me my shoes when she wants us to go outside. She does not like playing in the spinkler.

2. She poops the same time in the same place every day. I’ve tried to catch her the last two mornings to get her to do it on the potty, but I wasn’t fast enough. I LOVE potty training. It gives children such a since of independence. As soon as she can walk, I plan on starting to work on it.

3. Kennedy is old enough and I think she weighs enough for her car seat to turn around. This said, I had planned on her being rear facing until she could say “Mom please let me turn around.” I’m having second thought now though because the back of my car gets SO hot. I think she would be cooler if she faced forward. I will ask the pediatrician about this on Monday.

4. She can drink out of a sippy cup if it is something really yummy or if she is really hot. She loves to drink sweet tea from her sippy cup. She would still rather nurse. She doesn’t like whole milk. I’m doing good to get her to drink a few ounces of it a day.

5. She has several words now. Hi, bye, mama, daddy (dah), dog, duck, Dori (Dorwee), DeeDee, lauren (lala), see, wassat, stop, mine, no, one (un), two (oo), three (ee), four (or), uh oh, balloon, night night, Potter, boat, shoes,ball, and I’m sure I’m missing some. She doesn’t use them all the time. She definatly doesn’t use them when we ask her to. But they are there. She now will point at stuff she wants.

6. She won her first reading medal from the library. We read 15 books so she won some cool prizes. She loves to read.

7. She can’t walk. She can pull up, cruise, and crawl like a champ.

8. She loves shoes and jewlery. She really likes to wear my shoes (could be bacause she has very few pairs that fit her of her own) and she LOVES jewlery. Typically she can be found sitting around the house the Mardi Gras beads around her neck. My mom thinks this means she will be a party girl. I hope she’s wrong!

9. She loves to hug and kiss. Sometimes the hugs hurt and sometimes the kisses are slobbery, but I wouldn’t trade them for the world. She loves stuffed animals and likes to hug them too.

10. She sleeps on a good night from 8:30-6:30. She naps usually 1 hour per day. That is all she needs. That is all she wants. If she naps in the car she won’t nap again.

11. She loves to give Potter a hard time. She likes to trease him wither his toys, mess with his bed, and threaten his food. She thinks that it is funny when he growls at her. We don’t think it is so funny.

12. She is very social and loves children. She really likes older children.

13. She’s a democrat. We decided perhaps she is liberal. She does like some crazy things! She went with me to vote in the republican primaries. Every time I clicked a name she would yell “No! No No No! Mama No!” Needles to say the people at the polls were cracking up.

The average one year old has 4-6 teeth.

My daughter now has 10.

I think she’s a