Ice Cream

Kaitlyn had her first taste of ice cream last week. I told Neal because we made her wait this long I thought we should make it special. A simple ice cream bar or even a bowl of ice cream at home wouldn't do. On a couple occasions I tried to get him to buy her some ice cream from Baskin Robbins. He always found an excuse to put it off.

Monday while waiting for Kodak to reopen I bought Kaitlyn her first ice cream. At first she would just lick the spoon, the bottom or top it didn't matter. It didn't take long before she was scooping out strawberry ice cream. I was surprised she was actually clean about it. She didn't want to waste one drop. A couple times melted ice cream would run down the side of the cup and Kaitlyn would say, "mess" while catching it with her finger. Hehehe...

When she was done with her ice cream we printed the picture and added it to her birthday card.

This is the last shot I took of it before sliding it into the envelope. I know the characters on here mean nothing to most of you, but they all mean something to Kaitlyn. Actually The Shiny Show just went off (center characters with star) and the Doodle Do's are currently on (hand puppets on the left).
Here's Kaitlyn mailing her card. Because we have close to a month left in this house I took our address (and last name) off the picture.

Kaitlyn is 23 months old today. Can you believe she is almost two?!!! Well maybe you can, but it shocks me. She has reached the point in age we no longer say how many months she is. When someone asks I just say she will be two on Christmas Eve.

Little Toenails

I have a hang up about little girls and toenail polish. Personally I don't like seeing little girls in red polish. A while back I bought Kaitlyn a pale pink polish. Once on it blends so well with her nails that it's hard to really tell there is anything there. When I pulled the polish out last week I had only done it one other time. She was patient as I painted her nails, blew on them, then put her to bed. While she was sleeping I painted my toenails a dark almost red color. The next morning as soon as she saw my toenails she started chattering and had to touch my nails. I kept showing her the polish on her toes, but she acted like it wasn't there and went back to touching my nails. I broke down and went to base for new polish. Her nails are now Barbie pink. =) She was excited as she watched me paint all the nails on her left foot. I had to fight her to stay with me, not to touch them, and to let me move on to the next foot. Her toes have now been Barbie pink for two days. I still see her off and on touching her own nails. Speaking of the Barbie pink... Why is it so hard to find a pink between pale pink and Barbie pink? I guess it's just our small selection on base. I was only going to buy her the cheap stuff and most of them were gone.

I was going to take a picture of those Barbie pink toes so you could see them, but I had to put them to bed before I could find the camera. Hmmm... I think I may have left it in the car.

Coke

Last night I gave up fighting Kaitlyn over my soda. She literally had both hands on my can pulling. Besides the less then one cookie she has had in her lifetime and that was over the last couple weeks, we don't give her sugar. Or at least we didn't used to give her sugar. What's amazing to me is the caffeine effected her the same as it does me; little to nothing at all. She drank the last little bit of this can about an hour before bedtime. Other then fighting me with bulging eyes to keep the can at her lips, her temperament didn't change. She was just watching as I scrolled through pictures and laughed when she saw these while saying "juice". Last night I kept telling her, "it's not juice it's coke!" By the way, there was only about 3/4" of coke in the bottom of the can.

Neal loves this picture. He said it looks like she's really chugging it. It you look close (or click the image to make it bigger) you can see she is looking over the can and to the right. My little tube boob. Oh... she wasn't taking in much at a time, but treated it like a bottle or sippy cup. You know how babies will drink a bottle until it's completely done without stopping to take a breath? Well that is what she was doing. Near the end (it took her a while to drink it) she would take a drink for a couple moments then open her mouth and go "ahhh" with a grin on her face; she did this a couple times.

In other news, we put our Christmas tree up yesterday. I bought a small one (4.5') last month so we could have something leading up to us having to pack it away before Christmas. It's still bare and could use some more fluffing. I'm guessing continual fluffing will be in order. Who knows, Kaitlyn hasn't touched it today. Yesterday she kept putting a big pink ball into the tree. I can see a hole from her antics right now. I figure once she gets used to it we will add some ornaments. Although it killed me to buy what I deem as junk, I got some plastic ornaments for the tree. I don't want to risk her braking our normal ornaments.

More Bathroom Drama

Seeing how I have memories as far back as when I was in the church nursery, we are careful with changing in front of Kaitlyn. We figure any random thing that happens in her day she may very well remember. I usually shower after she goes to bed, but a couple nights ago I showered before her bath. I had barely gotten wet when the bathroom door flew open. Kaitlyn had found me. Within a moment the shower curtain (not the clear liner) was pulled back. I kept telling her to shut the door hoping to distract her. Nope! Our shower has the nozzle on a hose so I pulled it off the wall. As soon as she pulled back the liner I shot her in the face. LOL... She was shocked and giggling. Normally she doesn't like getting her head wet. She thought it was a fun game. I shot her 5-6 times until Neal finally picked her up so I could finish my shower. He wanted to just strip her diaper off and throw her in there too. *sigh* Men... They don't get it.

You know it's going to be one of those days when it starts with your child waking you up before 7am. Also, when you find yourself trapped in the bathroom with two dogs and a child with a stinky diaper all before you could read a word of your book/magazine. I had to run for cover or risky dying from the gases coming out of Kaitlyn's diaper.

What Happened?!

The Bob Hope Community Center (on base) did some renovations to their playroom within the last couple weeks. It just opened back up on Saturday. At first glance it looks the same, but a closer inspection reveals a lot has changed. They put in new slides which start off lower to the ground and eject you closer to the ground. They now have netting on each side of the double slides to keep kids from toppling over. Instead of two places to climb higher they have about three. The toddler area now has it's own safe climbing area too. Basically they used the same amount of space to add more tunnels, netting, and climbing areas. I like it. It seems much safer and definitely easier for Kaitlyn to tackle. The biggest surprise for me, oh goodness make it three surprises, was Kaitlyn on the slide. She ALWAYS backs up to the slide, lays down, and slowly slides down on her belly. To my surprise today she ran up to the new slide and went down on her rear. I'm really not sure what makes this slide so different from all the others she has used. She doesn't even correctly slide down the short slide we have in our house. I saw her several times slide down on her rear though!!! This is big! Come on get excited, it's okay! Then to my shock when she got to the bottom of the slide she turned around and climbed back up it. She has never been successful at that maneuver. The other slide they had she couldn't walk/climb up it. To top the night off, with Neal watching, she decided to slide head first down the slide. Again I was shocked. She loves to slide, but has always proceeded with extreme caution. Well that's gone with the wind.

The Bathroom

In our house the bathroom isn't a private place you go to use the toilet, shower, and so forth; it's a battle zone! I've always used the bathroom as a place to get away. If I want to read I go to the bathroom. It has always seemed like a good place. I mean come on, where is the one place you can go that people leave you alone? Up until Kaitlyn was born it was the bathroom. Don't misinterpret this Kaitlyn isn't always the one bothering me. And just to make sure she has the art of knocking on the door down Neal is right there with her. They are upset if the door is locked. If I happen to unlock it (or Neal does) they stick their heads in and say, "what are you doing?" *Insert eye rolling* Ummm, what am I doing? Oh, yeah... "Get out!"

Really though, bathrooms are magical places. A bathroom, whether a home restroom or public, is where a mom learns what she is really made of. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a public restroom having to balance Kaitlyn on one hip or over my shoulder while I pull up my pants or all the other tasks that go with being in a bathroom. It can be a serious juggling act. I also must play bathroom defence on a regular base. Honestly this one can really drive me nuts. Kaitlyn's game is "let's see what I can get out the door with". My job is to stop her. *sigh* There have been quite a few tampons earn their wings as they fly down the stairs. Kaitlyn will snatch something just out of my reach, play with it for a moment, then take off running out the door while I call her back. Sometimes she giggles while running out while other times she completely ignores me. My goal is to snag an arm, piece of clothing, anything really as she runs out the door. I'm getting better at the game so Kaitlyn has changed the rules. She doesn't always run out the door with her bounty, sometimes she brings it all to me. Yes, this may not sound bad, but when you find yourself with three boxes of tampons and the extra rolls of TP in your lap then see the toilet bowl brush coming at you, bristles first... not so cool. This really happened. Yesterday actually. Or was it the day before?

My favorite time in the bathroom is chat time. Kaitlyn is a girl who completely understand why some women's restrooms have couches and she fully supports them. She can be more chatty in the bathroom then anywhere else. At different random times I'm in the bathroom Kaitlyn will stroll in, put her hands behind her back (not always) and go off on some topic. I can't always understand her, but for a while she would talk about the Shiny Show. Now she has expanded her discussions to different characters on the CBeebies toddler channel. Her and I will go back in forth (which I love) saying names, portions of toddler show theme songs, and show names. It's the funniest thing. I must admit it's like talking a foreign language in front of Neal and it tickles me.

Some of the main things we say are: The Shiny Show, come on, Mukka, Pippin, "Ooh, Pippin", Upsy Daisy, "Upsy Daisy here I come", Igglepiggle, Makka Pakka (our favorite), ogpog, and Tombliboos. Just for kicks we throw a little counting in too. Kaitlyn's actually good at counting. She can count to 10, but tends to leave 8 out. She will not repeat numbers after you. If you say, "Kaitlyn say 1" she will say, "2, 3..." What makes our conversation so great is Kaitlyn's attitude about it all. You wouldn't think we were throwing out a big bunch of gibberish.

Kaitlyn's 22 months old today. You now have two months of shopping days left before Christmas.