Just A Minute, I'm Eating

A few weeks have passed and Makenna has grown more verbally and definitely has more of an opinion on things - whether we like it or not.

Tonight during family dinner (I mention family dinner as it seems so rare that the three of us get to actually sit down together to eat,) we were telling Makenna about how Daddy and Mommy are going on a trip and that she will be staying with Grandma & Grandpa Jones. We were telling her that she has to be good and listen to them as she will be with them, overnight, for seven nights. Her reply, "why?" Not why does she have to be with them, but why does she have to be good. Chris told her that he was asking her to be good and would like for her to listen to what they ask. Her reply? "Just a minute, I'm eating dinner."

As I was having a good laugh he said to her, "I'm sorry, I just thought it was a good time to let you know since we're all together." I again laughed as he was trying to calmly explain to her why he was so rudely interrupting her meal. This just goes to show you, that family meals together can be entertaining and should be done. When she's actually the age of a teenager instead of just acting/replying like one, I'll have to bring this blog back out and read it to her to stress the importance of eating together as a family.

Hopefully by then, I'll also be able to not hide her vegetables in the food she eats. I actually went out and bought squash (frozen kind,) and made it to go along with our dinner last night. Chris was ecstatic as he loves squash. We thought we'd try it on Makenna again as she used to love it as a baby. So much so that she actually had a yellowish/orangish tint to her - no kidding! The doctor said it was from the squash and sweet potato baby food.

After much coaxing, she ate it and liked it. We had leftovers and I brought it out again for tonight's dinner. She was hesitant about eating it again, but agreed once I said I'd put A1 sauce on it. Then I started to put her chuck roast meat on top of a spoonful of squash and that went down real well and she was much more agreeable to eat it again. I also had her eat some cooked carrots (again with a bit of A1 sauce,) and even snuck in a bit of potato and celery. She did notice one bit of celery once though and pointed and grunted. I quickly took it off and then re-hid it under some squash.

Success!~ (for now).

Don't Bother Me!

Okay, well I know I just blogged yesterday but there were a few good comments from my little one today:

In the store trying to buy her shoes - she was trying on shoes that were way too big for her and walking off down the isle. I was trying to be calm and was patiently asking her to return and try on other shoes. Her reply, "Don't bother me!" After picking my mouth up off the floor I calmly let her know that we were going to leave the store without any shoes if she didn't comply to trying on what I had picked out. She did return and we agreed on a pair of shoes.

Tonight at dinner as she was blessing the food with our "ritual blessing" she stated, "God is good, God is Great, let us spank him for our food...." I smiled and held back a big chuckle and let her continue.

While getting her ready for bed after bath, I was trying to again get her to comply with getting dressed, and she said, "Don't push me!"

Okay, well we had a bit of an attitude issue from my pseudo teenager today. I don't know if I'd rather deal with this attitude now where I still have some sort of control (so I think) or wait until she's an actual teenager...unfortunately, I'm sure I won't have a choice in the matter...but if I did, I'd choose now as it has a hint of cuteness to it...when she's in her teen years...not so much.

I Sing Too Much

Makenna, as usual, is keeping me entertained with her daily quips or comments. Just this morning after pooping in the potty, she asked for a "high-five" for accomplishing the "deed." I heartily complied.

I look at her sometimes and wonder how she has gotten so big so fast. It amazes me to see how much language she grasps and then uses back on me. Just last night, Chris and I were looking at some pictures from our trip in Europe, and stay in England and I was just amazed how much hair she has now compared to six months ago and how much older she looks.

Well what really got me laughing today happened on the way to my exercise class. I may have mentioned in another post that Makenna has a "thing" for church music as she calls it. She insists all the time while we are in the car that it be on. It can't be any church music, it has to be the Children's Songbook music that I bought on CD (5 CD's to be exact). I tried putting an adult church cd in and it was a no-go with her.

The only time it's acceptable to turn it off is if she wants to sing her own song. Anything from the ABC's, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Bingo was his name-o, etc. Well tonight on the way to exercise class, she actually made up her own song. Something about the TV being broke and eating noodles and playing with toys. This gave me a big smirk and I told her that I loved her song. She said, "No, I Sing Too Much." I was like, "no you don't!"

Then on the way home, she wanted to sing some more. I forgot to mention that she usually wants to sing alone, she'll say, "No My Turn!" Well, she started singing the Mockingbird song. You know the one where daddy will buy you a mockingbird....Anyways, she kept saying something about "if that......(uninteligible)...Daddy will buy you a diamond ring. She kept repeating that line about daddy buying her a diamond ring. I guess that's the one that stuck with her. I found that quite amusing and warned Chris he better start saving up.

She also wants to be the one to say the blessing on the food - by herself. She'll push the food as far away from her as she can, fold her arms, put her head down on her arms and whisper some words, and say "Amen." I sometimes hear various words like something about swim and pre-school and maybe some names of people. Occasionally I'll hear something about food being nourishing for our bodies. I wish we could get her to be as reverent when we say our prayers at night. It's a free-for-all then it seems. She jumps around, talks, reads, anything but be quiet. Well, we're working on it.

Well, she's talking on the calculator, as she thinks it's her Blackberry, telling someone that she threw something down the cellar, and it's time to get her to bed. Here's to hoping that I'll hear her sing a lot more songs...it would just be nice if it was a modern Top 40 song once in a while.

My Turn

This has been the phrase I hear the most now days. My little 2.5 year old teenager is moving on in her bid for independence by voicing the fact that everything is "my turn." It's her turn to open up doors, close those same said doors, turning on and off faucets, buckling her self into her car seat, and a myriad of other tasks.

What is nice about this is that we've channeled some of this want of independence into helping around the house such as doing dishes. Since she has always loved playing in the water and wants to be the one getting the soap for her hands and cleaning the table with the sponge after dinner, I figured why not put the three together and get my dishes washed. I admit I still help to get all the gunk off the dishes but I get her to rinse and dump (repeatedly by her standards) and then it goes in the dishwasher.

She also likes to put clothes down the laundry chute and this is quite helpful until all the clean clothes start going down the chute along with shoes and other miscellaneous objects such as books, toys, and other toiletry items. If you're missing something...ask us...it might be down our laundry chute.

Well on some other good news, potty training has been going pretty darn well. If you would've asked me this almost three months ago, you would've found me in tears saying this was impossible and that I hope before she goes to college that she would've figured the whole peeing in the toilet thing out. Well, I truly believe what I read in a book which was, when they're ready, they're ready and not before.

If you read our old Blog (chrisandterijo.blogspot.com) from when we were in England, we somewhat started the potty training journey back then but it didn't really take off per se as we had first thought and hoped. Granted we were not consistent in our attempts either. We've always talked about it, encouraged it, and tried to get her to move towards this goal since she was just a little over two. It wasn't until we started her in pre-school here, that they really encouraged it and in all honesty, I figured, since she was going to be with them the majority of the day, they could be the ones to deal with the frustration I felt back at the end of May.

I also agree with the many mom's who've written on various mom blogs and posts that pull-ups are just another diaper. Now we try to just use them at night and for long trips and stick to underwear otherwise. Yes, we've had a few accidents as expected and we're still expecting more but hoping for none. She's usually dry in the mornings and we get her to come down and use the potty.

In fact, she's doing really well at asking us to use the potty. We do still ask her every 20 minutes or so and after every hour or so, making her sit. The problem with this is that I forget to ask assuming that she's going to ask me and that's where one of our accidents came in this week and our poor couch got drenched. She has also discovered that using the "I have to go potty tactic" works in getting her out of things such as taking naps at such appointed times. She even tried using it last week to get out of sitting on the naughty step and I refused to listen. Unfortunately, that back-fired as she really did have to go and then I had to clean up the naughty step along with Makenna.

One thing you DO NOT DO is say, "would you like to go on the potty?" I'm trying to instill this into Chris as it gives Makenna the option of saying "No." Instead say, "let's go sit on the potty." She can still say no and she does, but it's more of a statement than a question.

Yesterday she actually even asked to go poopy on the potty. We were so excited and elated. This was technically the fifth time we got her to go on the potty - the first being by accident months ago when she sat to pee. Then we caught her twice as she was about to go in her underwear and got her on and they got her once at pre-school. Well yesterday was the first day she actually asked to use the potty for this purpose so we felt as though we were really gaining ground and then today.....she made a complete mess in her pants. When this happened to Chris a few weeks back I scolded him for throwing out her underwear instead of just dumping it in the toilet and rinsing it out. When it happened today to me....I could see why he did that and I followed suit...underwear and all went in the garbage.

So as happy as we are that she's gaining all this independence and learning to use the potty it's still very hard to see her grow up and get bigger. I miss the little cooing baby who was learning how to reach and grab for things while on her tummy and how to roll over and crawl. I'm glad for video cameras which can remind me how far she's come and gives me a chance to re-live the moments when she was small.

Summer - Where Art Thou Going?

I am truly conscious of the fact that the Summer is quickly escaping. So much I want to do and so little time to accomplish it in. We were able to enjoy a weekend up in RI last weekend to celebrate my aunts Lth birthday (Roman numeral used as she doesn't want people to know).

It was nice to see the surprise on her face and the enjoyment she had seeing that we made the trip up. Makenna really enjoyed it, minus the long trip in the car without a DVD player. Plus, we had to stop a few times as we are still in the midst of potty training her. We brought along her potty and I would open up the back of the car and sit her down - for all to see. This girl better not grow up to be an exhibitionist due to my lack of securing privacy for her. It made me remember all the different places I changed her diaper in Europe - out in the open for all to see. I did try and find a little corner of sorts but her butt has seen more of the world, or rather more of the world has seen her butt.

I haven't been really good about keeping track of all the little things Makenna does, cute or otherwise like I had hoped. I can tell you that we are progressing on potty training and we seem to be getting her to pee more on the potty than off. She's even starting to do a little better at pre-school.

Yes...she started pre-school. She started on my birthday (July 27th) and she did really well. We leave her there almost all day. I was going to pick her up shortly after I get out of work but she's napping at that time so I tend to pick her up later. They were/are concerned as she doesn't eat much there. She's seeming to get a little better but she still has her days. They are the ones that really encouraged me/her about the potty training so I figured, yup...it's time to be more consistent. They also take her swimming twice a week and she's in her glory. They told me that they are shocked and amazed about her swimming abilities for her age.

Speaking of which, I am now taking her to swim lessons again. Unfortunately, the class is a little beneath her in my opinion. It's more of a "get used to the water" class with a few things geared to moving their arms. I asked if they would let her go into the older class but they first said she had to be in pre-school (which I said she was,) then they said she had to be three. So we'll suffer through and let Makenna swim circles and jump over the kids as she's doing.

Also on my birthday, I had to give a eulogy for my uncle Jim (my mom's brother) who died unexpectedly the Thursday before. Everyone else close to him were too upset so that kind of left it to me and my brother. I didn't know my uncle all that well, but my brother Jared knew him even less. I appreciate the church and those who helped to pull the funeral together pretty quickly.

There are a couple of cute things that Makenna has said recently. One was after she went pee in her little potty she wanted to "show Jeff & Tara" (her teachers at pre-school) and I told her that we could tell them that she went, but we were not bringing the potty full of pee to them. Then just yesterday she was being "punished" as I told her for not listening. When she got to pre-school she told her teachers, "she's being punished."

Makenna talks about herself in the third person all the time, "she" this or that. Well when we were at her doctor's for an annual check-up, the doctor walked into the office and Makenna goes, "she wants to leave now, she wants to go outside." I could tell the doctor thought that Makenna was talking about me so I clarified that she was talking about herself. He found that quite amusing as she kept saying things like that during the exam. He never heard a child her age talk about themselves in the third person. We still have to go back to get another blood test in a week or so to make sure she's over whatever it was that caused her to have a low blood count a month ago. But thankfully, she's doing much better.

Well I thought I'd end with a few pictures:

This one was taken on June 13th - Makenna's first pony ride:


Here, on the same day, she got to play in a Firetruck and an ambulance

This was later the same day up at the zoo in Syracuse

This was on July 23rd, the Mace family from England came for a visit

These last pictures were taken on August 7th - it was costume day at pre-school so we borrowed the mermaid costume and we found the sun-glasses at a store and Makenna loved them:

My Teenager

Didn't I tell you...I have a teenager....or so it seems! She's a complete grouch if you wake her up instead of letting her get up on her own naturally. Then she constantly wants to drive the car and wants keys to do it. She requires "different keys" as she puts it. Then she is always talking on the phone. She'll take my cell phone or a house phone or daddy's blackberry and constantly be "talking" to someone. You can usually tell who she's talking to, or trying to have a pretend conversation with as she starts the conversation, "hi, this is grandma," or "hi this is steffie," etc. I try to tell her that she's supposed to say "Hi, this is Makenna," but she doesn't get it...yet.

Today was really funny as she got my cell phone and I hear her saying, "Oh My gosh!" and then a hearty laugh would follow as if someone told her something unbelievable. Then she'd also say, "we'll talk about this later." I realize that she got that from me but I think it's funny that she's applying it to her phone conversation as if she doesn't want her "uncool mom" to hear her plans.

Plus, she takes my wallet any time she gets her hands on it. Off she goes taking out any money and credit cards....yup I'd say I have a teenager. Did I also mention that on occasion I catch her rolling her eyes at me!~

She can also repeat many lines from different movies that we watch. She's also into singing lately. I bought a CD of Primary Songs and every time we're in the car it's "church music?" So I have to put on one of the CD's and even if I think she's asleep I can change it for a break to regular FM, I hear in the back a weary voice say, "Church music?" I love hearing her sing the songs though. It's a good motivator too. I tell her that if she's doing something naughty that church music will not be heard in the car and she straightens right up...most times.

I guess as she ages physically to meet up with her "acting" age I'll have to come up with new things to "motivate" her with to fall into line.

One last thing I wanted to add that she did today (and once or twice in the past,) was to sing Old McDonald had a Farm....and on his farm he had an "Eli"....with a "wah, wah here and a wah, wah there, etc." I thought it was pretty funny and inventive.

I Know

Well Makenna is definitely on the mend. She's getting to be her usual 2.5 year old self - into everything, a pain in the butt (to which she'll attest to by saying, "you're a pain in the butt!~") but still cute as ever.

Today while getting ready for church I said to her, "Makenna, you're so pretty." She replied, "I know." I'm glad she knows. I hope that she grows with this confidence and self-assurance that never leaves her. Ever since she was a baby I've always told her that she was a smart, beautiful girl so that she gets it into her head. I always try to put "smart" first so that she recognizes that's a quality above others that she should be proud of. Lately, it's been a smart-alec.

She's into this whole, "It's mine not yours" phase which is a real treat. She'll take something that's not hers and repeat this phrase to get her way. Today she wanted grandma's (my mom) wallet. She likes to get into bags and purses, as most kids do, and she especially likes the wallet as that's where all the "pennies" are. When she starts flinging it around with it unzipped is when the restraints go on and then the fighting begins with, "it's mine not yours."

After the traumatic past week she's had, she also remembers about giving blood and going to the doctor's so most days she'll say, "Go to the doctor's to give blood?" When I tell her, "nope, we have a break for a while," she'll reply, "other kids turn." "Yes, other kids turn," I reply.

Yesterday we went to get her haircut again for a second time. She was NOT up for it in any shape or form. I was getting mine done at the same time and she relaxed enough to see that it didn't hurt me so while daddy was holding her in a chair (not the barber chair,) the beautician went over and just cut away. I'm grateful that Chris's blackberry kept her interested enough in sitting still so that it could be done. This was only her second haircut, the first being back around the holidays before we went back to England. Since she didn't sit still for that one either, there were wispy pieces always hanging in her face that bothered me, and her. This looks more evenly cut so I'm happier. Plus the back of her hair was getting so ratty.

Well, my goal this week is to try and at least write down if not blog daily some little thing that Makenna does/says. We'll see how I do...although some days may be combined but I definitely don't want to forget all the special moments that she creates for us whether good or bad.