15 Months

As of July 1, Kamdyn is 15 months old. Today was her 15 month check-up. Kamdyn weighs 22lbs. 11oz. and she is 32 inches long. She is in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height. I knew she was tall, but didn't realize she was 90th percentile tall. Dr. Foushee said, "Is your husband really tall or do you have really tall relatives?" Of course my answer was "no." Who knows where she gets her height from? But then again, she has blue eyes that neither of us have. Genetics, you just can't figure them out!!! As for her weight, Dr. Foushee says it's fine and is somewhat low most probably because she is so active. She definitely eats A LOT so I'm not really worried about it.

As for everything else, Dr. Foushee said that Kamdyn is doing great! She was amazed at her vocabulary. She says that most babies at this age have a vocabulary of about 5 words. I think Kamdyn could say 5 words when she was 9-10 months old. Kamdyn just talked and talked to Dr. Foushee. She told her all about her Dora doll. I'm proud of my little stinker and hope that she continues to do so well.

This week has also marked some milestones. We were supposed to get rid of the bottle ("ba-ba") by the end of April. Well, we delayed it until this past Monday!! Oops!!! Kamdyn seems to be fine without it. Now we have 3 cups- one for juice, one that sort of looks like a bottle for milk, and one cup for water. Kamdyn is picky and only likes certain things in certain cups. Oh well!! Whatever works! It doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, I think it's pretty clever that she can distinguish the look of the cups and the color of the liquid inside of them.

Also, she got a Dora potty today. Have I mentioned that Kamdyn loves Dora and Boots? Anyway, it is now sitting in my bathroom beside my "potty." We're going to start slow and see how Kamdyn does. I'm not in a rush to potty train her, but she seems ready to learn. She can tell me when she is wet or stinky. She knows that toilet paper is to "wipe". We all know that she can flush the toilet. She also knows what to do in the toilet. So, we're going to give it a shot. I'm going to let her go at her own pace and see how it goes. I will keep you posted!!

Fridge Farm Dance

I know it seems that I always have a camera on Kamdyn, and most of the time there is always one nearby, however, tonight Kamdyn was being particularly funny. I couldn't resist taking a video of her dancing to her fridge farm music. Potter and Carrie bought this for her for her birthday. She rarely walks by it without pushing the button and dancing a little bit. Tonight was no exception except for the fact that she kept doing it over and over again. Too funny! You can also see that she was ready to "eat, eat" and she wanted to "love" Mommy and drink her "juice"! The cabinet that she is trying to opening is the cabinet where we keep her snacks. You can see it is held together with rubber bands so she can't get in to it. Otherwise, she would eat snacks all day everyday! I love my little sweetie. While she can be a handful at times, she, most of the time, is such a joy!

I Love Books!

I think that Kamdyn gets her love for books honestly. NaNa, Grand, and I absolutely love to read. Kamdyn is really obsessed with her books and she can tell you one thing (word) that is happening on each page of most of her books. Her favorite book was The Grandma Book by Todd Parr. As of today, I took out, Brown Bear Brown Bear, and it is her new favorite book. She wants to take her book everywhere and wants to read it all day long and everyday to everyone she sees. I really am happy about this because she isn't all that interested in toys. She has a few toys that she will play with every now and again, but for the most part she would rather be in someone's lap reading a book. In fact, she will say "lap, lap" when she wants you to read to her. I was cooking Kamdyn and myself something for dinner tonight (Richard it out-of-town) and Kamdyn sat in the floor the entire time reading her new favorite book! Yay for books!!!

You can see that she has one shoe half on and one shoe off. She was distracted when taking her shoes off by the book. In the second picture, she was looking at the camera and saying "cheese." She heard the camera after the first picture and had to pose for the second one. Our little show off!

Funny

I have to share this little story with all of you. This morning I was attempting to take a shower, which Kamdyn absolutely HATES!! She pulls the shower curtains back, gets water all in the floor, and screams the entire time I'm in the shower. I guess today she wanted to "teach me a lesson." All of a sudden it was quiet so I knew she was up to no good. I look out and she is unrolling the toilet paper. I say her name and she takes off running with it. I, thinking that I am much smarter than her, say, "Kamdyn put the toilet paper in the potty." She does! Then, I say, "Flush it like Dora flushes the potty in the book." I look out again and the Dora Potty book is in the toilet along with the toilet paper. Where else would the Dora Potty book go besides in the potty? I jump out of the shower, shampoo all in my hair, water all in the floor just in time to save the book from the flush of the potty!! Whew! That was a close one. The Potty Book was almost ruined!! Thanks NaNa for the potty book. Kamdyn is getting a potty this week and I will keep you posted on how she does with this potty training!

July 4th Week at Hartwell Lake

Wow! What a wonderful and relaxing week we had. We decided to rent a lakehouse (thank you so much, Ruth Ann) on Hartwell this year during the week of the 4th. Richard always has this week off and we knew we would have LOTS of help with Kamdyn if we went to Hartwell. What would we do without our family? It was the perfect opportunity for a family vacation. Uncle Matthew and Holly stayed the week with us, too. Kamdyn was shuffled from here to there and everywhere, but didn't seem to mind because she was the center of attention no matter where she was. On the 4th we had a cook out at our lakehouse and invited some of our family and friends. We had a great time! Thanks to all of you who came. That evening we went to the Straup's house and enjoyed some BBQ and the greatest fireworks show around. They make their own fireworks and they are the loudest most beautiful fireworks that I've ever seen. I'm not even a big fireworks person which means they must be good!


Hanging out with Mama Lucy!


Matthew and Richard catching fish off the dock.
Richard was in heaven with his boat, the fish, a house
on the lake, and our family! What a great week!


Kamdyn and DaDa


Eating! YUM!!


Potter and his Dad, Bob! Kamdyn
also loved saying "Hi, Bob!"


A family picture!


Having fun with Holly!


Kamdyn loved playing with her bubbles on the back patio. She learned how to say "Uncle" and she loves saying "Hi Holly!" She also learned how to say Potter. Everytime she would see Potter or we would talk about Potter, she would put her finger on her lip and say "shhh." A few times when Kamdyn saw Potter this week, he was sleeping. So, she would say "shhh" to remind us all to be quiet! :) Kamdyn also learned that MaMa and DaDa were out on the boat with Uncle Matthew and Holly a lot this week. She finally got used to us leaving because she knew we would eventually be back. When Kamdyn first saw the lake she kept saying "pool." AFter a few days, she knew it was a lake and could say "lake." She is such a quick learner!




Lastly, we got to hang out with one of my Clemson friends, Libba, who was in town from Colorado. She was staying at her parents lakehouse on Hartwell. We drove the boat up to their house, hung out with her family for a while, then ventured to T60 Grill for dinner. We had a great time with you, Libba!






Home Again, Home Again!

Spending the Day with Mrs. Georgia

Everyone knows how wonderful we think Georgia is. Turns out, she is even wonderful during the summer when she's not even supposed to be keeping Kamdyn. :) Georgia has wanted to see Kamdyn periodically over the summer. Kamdyn loves it and it has been great for me because I am able to get some things done (i.e. clean the house, pack for trips, enjoy some time to myself, etc.) I met Georgia this morning at Starbucks in North Augusta so Kamdyn could spend the day with her. I know that Kamdyn absolutely loves Georgia. In fact, when Georgia is around it's like having Na-Na around. Kamdyn wants nothing to do with anyone else. Georgia enjoys Starbucks and Kamdyn thinks she gets to drink coffee with Georgia. Georgia orders Kamdyn a cup of whipped cream and they have a coffee break together. Just as I handed Kamdyn over to Georgia, Kamdyn immediately started pointing to Starbuck's because she wanted to go in and have her "coffee." I drove off waving goodbye to Kamdyn. Kamdyn wasn't phased in the least at my leaving. She was probably just happy that she got to avoid the daycare at Jazzercise today! I know that Kamdyn is enjoying her day. Mommy is sure enjoying her day, too. I went to Jazzercise, cleaned the entire house, packed mine and Kamdyn's clothes for 4th of July week, and enjoyed my own company. It makes me wonder what I ever did before I had Kamdyn. I must have been really bored most of the time!!! :)

Water Baby

Today we took Kamdyn to my friend Suzanne's pool, just as we did last summer. You can imagine how much more Kamdyn enjoyed the pool this year. First of all, at the mere mention of going to the pool Kamdyn started throwing a fit because she wanted to be in the pool at the very second that I mentioned it (I'll never do that again!). Secondly, she thought she was going swimming in her tiny plastic pool outside of our house. When we put her in the car, she really started throwing a fit because she knew that the pool has never required a car ride. We didn't really catch on to what all her crying and carrying on was about until we actually reach Suzanne's pool, which thankfully is only about 2 minutes away, and her fit halted. She ignored the dog which she has always been scared of, a big greyhound, I might add. All she said was "dog" and "hush dog" and was ready to jump right in to the pool all by herself. Luckily, we were able to get her coverup and shoes off quickly enough to suit her. Patience is not a virtue of hers so far!!! She definitely proved that tonight!

So, she swam around with Richard for a while. Put her face in the water. Swam around with me for a while. She kicked, drank some salty pool water, slid down Suzanne's legs, and swam around some more. Until......she discovered the steps in the pool. Then, it was all over. All she wanted to do was climb up and down two stairs, sit down on the top step, and do it all over again. She didn't do this slowly either. Richard and I had to be on "high alert" so she didn't fall. She has ABSOLUTELY NO FEAR of the water which is good in some ways, but bad in others. After playing her "game" relentlessly for about 30 minutes. We gave up!! Richard even tried throwing her up and down in the water for a while, but that couldn't keep her away from the steps. Remember my previous post about her learning to climb steps??? Turns out she doesn't just like climbing steps, she is truly obsessed with it!!

So, here is our little water baby enjoying swimming in Suzanne's pool.

This was our little roly poly this time last year!

Putting her face in the water!

Clapping for herself as she made it to the top of the steps saying "yay!"

Lunch with Mrs. Denise and Ana Blake

On Wednesday afternoon Kamdyn and I met my friend, Denise, and her daughter, Ana Blake, for lunch at the Mello Mushroom. Kamdyn was such a "trip" when we first got there. First of all they sat us at a booth that was kind of high off the ground. Asking for a high chair was out of the question due to the height of the table. Needless to say, Kamdyn was having a ball climbing around in the booth pointing out all of the things that she knows words for. I knew that after having climbed in the booth for a few minutes that trying to get her to sit in any kind of seat was probably going to be hopeless. Even so, I asked the server for a booster seat. We had never tried a booster before so I knew it would be interesting. Just as I thought, she refused to sit down in the booster seat. She wanted to drink my tea instead. Ana Blake was enjoying watching Kamdyn and she was trying her best to entertain her, too. All I could think of was, how in the world am I going to eat lunch with this little stinker climbing all over me? I should have known, however, that as soon as the food got there that Kamdyn would be much more compliant. She couldn't reach her food just by seating in the booth, so she gave in and sat in the booster so she could eat one of her favorite foods, pizza! After enjoying our lunch, as much as possible, Ana Blake came over to our side of the table to play with Kamdyn some more. Kamdyn stood up in the booth and turned to the booth behind ours. She PULLED THE LADY'S HAIR WHO WAS SITTING BEHIND US! (Kamdyn is somewhat obsessed with hair these days most probably because she doesn't have much of it.) Anyway, the lady thought Kamdyn was adorable (thank goodness), but I was somewhat mortified. I couldn't apologize enough. At this point, it was time for us to go. While Kamdyn did pretty well, it's kind of hard taking her to restaurants at this age. She just doesn't quite understand the concept of table manners, not bothering others, etc. She never ceases to amaze me!! I love watching her as she goes through all of these cute little stages. I wonder how long it will be before I no longer think all of this is CUTE!!! :)