Our Latest Battle

The latest battle at our house is trying to keep Maryn off all the chairs that she can now climb. Her favorite chair is definitely the computer desk chair. She loves to sneak up there and start pounding away on the keyboard or clicking on the mouse. Even when I move the chair away, she'll stand there on her tiptoes and still try to reach :)



We were convinced that she would learn her lesson sooner or later if she fell and got hurt. Well she finally fell this morning. She got bonked pretty good but was climbing the chair again within 2 minutes. She is fearless.

Today Makenna and I colored Easter eggs. It was the first time we have ever done this with her so she really enjoyed it! She is so proud of the colored eggs sitting in our refrigerator.




Last week I was busy doing all of my laundry and didn't time have to put it away as it was getting washed and dried. I was headed up the stairs to put Maryn down for her nap and Makenna was asking me if I could play a dozen different things with her while Maryn was sleeping. I told her that I would love to play all of that with her, but mommy needed to put the laundry away first. I told her that she could help me by getting started while I put MarBear to bed. I told her to start by sorting (towels in one pile, her underwear in another, socks in another, etc). Well apparently the project just got too overwhelming because this is how I found her when I came back downstairs ;)



Me and my girls :)

18 Month Check-Up

Maryn had her 18 month check-up today. She grew quite a bit in length, over 2 inches in 3 months!!! She's now up to 33 inches tall :) And the weight is slowly but surely coming. She put on 1 lb 13 oz. since our last official check-up putting her at 21 lb and 13 oz. Still pretty small for an 18 month old, especially for an 18 month old of her height. She took a big jump in her percentages for length, from being in the 50th percentile pretty consistently her entire life up to the 80th percentile this time around! And her weight percentage has remained fairly consistent - she was around the 8th percentile at her 15 month appointment and it was at about the 10th percentile today.

The doctor said that her ears looked great (after having two ear infections this winter) and that she is very healthy and active for her age! The only concern we have is regarding Maryn's hearing. Josh and I have noticed that she doesn't seem to always be able to hear in situations where there is a lot of background noise. We discussed this today at her appointment and we are going to see an audiologist with Maryn in a few weeks. They will start off with a simple hearing test and hopefully that will give us some answers. The doctor said the answer could be as simple as she's at the lovely age where she likes to ignore us. Totally feasible given her personality, but we want to make sure. Dr. Sterling said that at her young age that there are many things we can do to correct hearing loss (if that is the case) so we should get on it early. We'd rather be safe than sorry.

Maryn - 18 Months Old

All About Maryn Leigh at 18 months old....



Nicknames: MarBear, Leigh Leigh
Weight & Height: She was weighed at the doctor's office a few weeks ago (ear infection) with all of her clothes and shoes on and she weighed 22 lbs and 15 oz. Finally putting on some weight! We'll see what they say at her 18 month check-up.
Hair: Light brown hair. She is growing tons in the back and not as much up on top :) The mullet lives on...
Favorite foods: She lost her appetite while she was sick but it is back with a vengeance. This kid puts down an amazing amount of food for her size. Right now she is fascinated with apples and oranges and constantly points up at our fruit dish and asks for them using her little words. She loves all the kid favorites... tacos, pizza, chicken nuggets, anything Italian, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. She is also following in her big sister's footsteps and is developing an unbelievable love for cake (and broccoli oddly enough) :)
Favorite Drink: Whole milk, water and water with an ounce of apple juice in it.
Favorite toys: I think I have to go with books on this one (can books be considered a toy?). She LOVES books. It is the one thing that I can guarantee you that she will play with everyday and usually for a long period of time. She sits in her rocking chair and reads her books, she sits on the floor in Makenna's bedroom and reads her books, she reads books in the playroom, and we read to her before her nap and bedtime. She can't seem to get enough of books! Otherwise I would just say she likes whatever toy Makenna is playing with ;)
Favorite books: She still really likes "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" but also rediscovered "There's A Wocket In My Pocket" and has been carrying that one around with her as well. She has a dozen or more books in a basket in her room that are her "regulars" that we read almost everyday.
Favorite Game: Hide and Go Seek, Simon Says (she tries really hard to keep up with Makenna), Ring Around The Rosie, Duck Duck Goose (she can only say "duck" though... makes for an interesting round with no "goose"!)
Favorite stuffed animal: Always and Forever Pup Pup
Favorite Person: I actually think this answer finally changed... I think it's mommy now! Sorry daddy, you've been dethroned.
Bedtime: Approximately 7:00 pm
Wake-up time: Approximately 7:00 am
Naps: She typically goes down for her nap between 12:30 and 1:00 pm and sleeps for 2 - 3 hours.
What she's saying: My favorite word of hers right now is "thank you." It sounds so cute in Maryn talk - "Dank you." She also says "Juice Please" quite a bit and likes to say "Cock A Doodle Doo" and "Peekaboo" from some of her favorite books. Oh and I can't forget "Elmo"! She is scared of our stuffed Elmo toys but yet is oddly drawn to them... she will run into the playroom, squat down, point at the Elmo dolls, scream "Elmo" a few times and run out of the room! It's quite amusing! She is very into repeating whatever is said. She repeats songs and anything sing-songy. She has sung her ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and counted to 10. And one of my favorites... you can tell we are a wrestling household because whenever either of the girls falls down Josh always says with enthusiasm "Take down" so they won't get upset (similar to how some people will yell "Safe" in reference to baseball). Well now whenever Maryn falls down or trips she will say "Take down!" to herself! :)
Latest Accomplishment: Climbing onto the chairs! Much to my dismay, I found her standing on the desk chair pounding on the computer keyboard this week. She was so stinking proud of herself! Now I have to move the chair away from the desk so she can't get to the computer. Also, singing her ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and matching the puzzle pieces to the correct location.
Likes: shutting herself in the laundry room, climbing up on the step stool in the bathroom and trying to eat the hand soap, playing with the buttons on the stereo, Veggie Tales and Curious George, starring at ceiling fans, playing in Mommy and Daddy's bathroom and trying to suck on the toothpaste bottles
Dislikes: when Mommy and Daddy make her share her toys (she's honestly too young to grasp the concept of sharing but we have to remain consistent in this policy at our house to reinforce the behavior in Makenna), when I make her get down from the computer, wearing a bib
What gets said about Maryn most often: comments about how cute and sweet she is. She has a killer smile that she loves to flash at all the old people in the grocery store and they just want to eat her up!
Best known for: her dimples, being little for her age, being King Kong (this is Makenna's term for her since she always knocks down and destroys all of her toys :)
Health: Everyone in our family got an icky respiratory illness/cold in February and unfortunately Maryn's turned into an ear infection as well.
How she's like Daddy: Can you spell O-R-N-E-R-Y! Anytime she is up to no good I blame it on Josh :)
How she's like Mommy: She looks more and more like Mommy everyday!
Interesting Tidbits: Maryn is a walking accident waiting to happen. She is constantly getting hurt. Obviously there is the time she fell all the way down the stairs and then just a few weeks ago she somehow pushed herself over on the dining room chair and hit her head on the wood floor (despite the fact that she was buckled into a booster seat). She seems to find a way to get hurt almost everyday. Some people laugh when I say this, but I think her head must proportionally weigh more than the rest of her body because she is always hitting her head on things. Or maybe it's just the wrestler in her blood that makes her lead with her head??? I have no clue. I'm hoping she grows out of this stage soon :)

Also, Maryn has followed Makenna's interesting pattern of getting teeth. She got 6 up front first, skipped a few and then got her 4 molars. She is now back to getting the rest of her teeth up front. She currently has 11 teeth and is working on the next one.

Maryn on the stairs... where you can usually find her. Maybe I should've listed this as her favorite toy?


Deep in play...


Maryn's version of playing with Care Bears


More Care Bears...


And proof of our climbing monkey


Purposely closing her eyes for the camera

Sick Sick Sick

We just can't seem to get healthy at our house. The illnesses are flip-flopping between children. Sunday night it was obvious that Makenna was coming down with something and we were praying it was just a cold. Well Monday morning she kept complaining of a sore throat so I took a look at her throat with a flashlight. Her tonsils were so swollen that they were practically touching in the back of her throat and there were these little abrasions all over them. They looked horrible. Luckily the doctor's office had a cancellation in their schedule because they were otherwise full for Monday. The doctor was so shocked by what she saw in Makenna's throat that she didn't even do the typical swab because she said there was no point in putting her through that pain when it was visibly obvious that she had strep. From what I know, I don't think they forego the swab test very often. So the doctor got us on antibiotics immediately, but of course that couldn't be the end of it.

Last night when we were giving Makenna a bath we noticed a rash all over her torso. She has had allergic reactions to another antibiotic before (Bactrim) so the doctor told me to really watch her with this one. And low and behold, she's allergic once again. I called the doctor on call who very nicely called in a different prescription at 9:00 at night for us so we could try something else today. The doctor last night was very helpful and basically informed me that since Makenna seems to apparently be allergic to Cephalexin as well, that this could pose problems since that particular drug is a member of one of the largest antibiotic families. Therefore taking away most of our options for penicillin/antibiotics if she ever were to get sick in the future. She said that there were a few other options out there (for example the Azithromycin they put her on next) but nothing strong if she were to get really sick. That is very frightening for me to think that if my child were to get really sick that there aren't a whole lot of options out there for her.

So after thinking it through and talking to yet another nurse this morning, I think I'm going to make an appointment to talk to the doctor about this now so we don't have to deal with the guessing game the next time she gets sick. I know that allergy testing might be an option but I'm not sure if that's something I want to put a 3 year old through. I guess we'll weigh the pros and cons with our doctor.

The good news is that Makenna seems to be feeling better and I think she is handling the current antibiotic just fine. Our nights have been horrendous with her as she seems to get feverish (causing nightmares), her rash itches and she just plain old can't sleep. I was pretty much with her from 12 - 7 last night. Since I went to bed after 11:00 last night that didn't add up to a whole lot of sleep. Thank goodness for my sweet dear husband who worked from home until 9:00 this morning so I could at least get a few more hours of sleep. Thank goodness for a flexible work schedule. Despite not feeling the best, Makenna is acting fairly normal and even managed to beat me in 2 out of 3 games of Dora Memory today (and trust me, I was not letting her win!).

Pants Heads

I have no idea where the idea came from, but Makenna and Josh were pretending to be pants heads last night :) Josh is a crazy, fun dad and always comes up with great, imaginative activities to play with the girls. They just LOVE it! I don't really know the history of pants heads, but I get the distinct impression that this has been played on more than one occasion when I haven't been around :) Makenna sure knew what she was doing last night! Here are some silly pictures to capture their fun moment... Note that Makenna was working with Josh to get him to smile with his teeth and not his lips ;)





QUEEN PANTS HEAD!!!

Reading At Age 3

***KID BRAG ALERT***
This is as much for my records and personal journal as it is for everyone else to read.

I have been delaying this post thinking that it really isn't true... Makenna is reading. After her outstanding preschool conferences a few weeks ago, I came to the realization that the things she can do are not typical for most kids her age (and I say "I" because Josh claims he already had this all figured out :). I really had nothing else to base her progress on since she is my first child. I figured she was ahead of the curve but didn't realize how far ahead. After her preschool teacher recommended us to an enrichment program here in town, we were trying to make a decision whether we would send her for math or reading (I refuse to send her for both at this age). In trying to figure out if Makenna was ready for the reading class, I talked to my friend Jen who was a kindergarten teacher for 12 years. After having a lengthy discussion about Makenna's abilities, she told me that Makenna is farther along than most kindergartners and has been giving us the signs of being ready to read for months now. Little did I know. So she gave me ideas about how to approach reading with Makenna. I bought a fun reading game that requires the child to put together 3 "puzzle" pieces - it forms a picture and at the bottom it also forms a 3 letter word. The first one we tried was a picture of a pan with an egg in it. She put the puzzle together easily and as she was doing so said "Look Mommy I'm putting together a picture of an egg." I thought for sure this wasn't going to work because the word on the bottom of the cards was "pan". Anyway, so she got it together and I told her to sound out the letters at the bottom and put them together. Within seconds she had "pan". After doing a few I was still skeptical so I flipped the cards over where there are just letters and no pictures. I would put a word together ("cat" "dog" "pig") and she could sound these all out and read them. You should have seen me literally jump for joy the first time I realized she was actually reading! She didn't understand why Mommy was so excited but she got excited too :) We have continued to slowly work on her reading and she seems to really enjoy it. As we drive places and she sees words on signs that she can read she loves to point them out to me :) Yesterday she wanted to sit on my lap at the computer and have me type words so she could read them. On the math side of things, we just realized that she can identify numbers up through 30 as well.

Tired Of Winter

I think it's unanimous... everyone in the state of Iowa is tired of winter, even the 3 year olds! Well at least our 3 year old is! One morning this week (when we woke up to yet even more snow) Makenna came walking down the stairs in the morning, saw the snow and immediately her shoulders dropped and she defeatedly said "It snowed AGAIN! I'm tired of winter Mommy. I'm ready for summer. Daddy is too." She couldn't have been more accurate. Daddy is more than tired of winter and shoveling :)

One afternoon last week the girls and I were playing hide and go seek. The girls were having a blast and really enjoying themselves. Maryn was my partner and she was being really good. She would be super quiet while we hid and then would screech with delight whenever Makenna found us. Well we played for quite awhile (probably 45 minutes) and I noticed towards the end that when I would go in the playroom and count that Maryn would put her hands up to her mouth, mimicking my hands covering my eyes, and she was counting to 10 with me! So so cute!

The other night Makenna was admiring one of our family pictures in our bedroom. She was commenting on how cute Maryn's smile was with her the two little teeth she had at the time showing in her smile. Then she was talking all about my smile and her smile and how you could see our teeth. She started to examine Josh's smile and realized that his smile was different than the rest of ours... he didn't smile with his teeth!!! She was just horrified. She quickly ran downstairs to inform Daddy that he smiles wrong and proceeded to give him a lesson on how to smile with his teeth! She still makes a comment about Daddy smiling wrong every time she walks by that picture :) The hilarious part is that Josh thought I put her up to it because I always give him a hard time about not smiling with his teeth (I think he should), but I didn't mention a word to Makenna. She came up with it all on her own!

We are having so much fun with all of Maryn's new words. A few mornings ago we were all crammed into our bathroom and Makenna sneezed and Maryn promptly replied with a "bless you." Later than same day we were at a friend's house playing and Maryn and Aubree were playing together and Aubree sneezed. Once again Maryn told her "Bless you." She is such a polite little toddler... even when she was sick if I would get her a cup of water in the middle of the night she would tell me "thank you." Melts a mommy's heart :)

Busy Weekend

We went back to Cedar Falls for the weekend. There was a surprise birthday party for Josh's aunt and uncle and Jeanne and JT brought Eden home for her first trip to Iowa! It was great seeing everyone and the girls were super excited to meet Eden! The bummer of the weekend was that Maryn got really sick on Saturday. Luckily my mom got us an appointment at her office that same day and Maryn was diagnosed with an ear infection. We immediately got her on the antibiotics but we had a rough afternoon on Saturday. Her temp was well above 103 degrees at one point and she was absolutely miserable. She would just lay in my arms so lethargic and then cry in pain. So needless to say, Maryn and I had to forego the birthday party on Saturday night :( Josh and Makenna had a blast though and enjoyed spending time with the Budkes. I'm happy to report now that Maryn is definitely feeling better. By Sunday morning she had perked back up and was running around like normal. She still needed the meds and wasn't 100%, but much better than the day before. Today she has no sign of a fever and is doing well (other than still not eating much).

The girls checking out their new cousin Eden when she arrived!


The three Boutott cousins! They all looked so cute in their purple jammies so we just had to get a picture together!


Snuggling with baby Eden


Maryn really liked Eden and was quite fascinated by her little feet. For the most part, she was very gentle with her.


Baby Eden actually happy in her bouncey seat!!!


Makenna all ready for the party!


I love this picture because it looks like Makenna and Maryn are examining Eden's little tiny baby hands.


This is Maryn on Sunday morning... can you tell she was feeling better?! She LOVED the bouncey seat!