The party today was a lot of fun!

It’s Tradition!!! Happy Birthday Lil Sweetie!

1. Her favorite toy is a baby Ipod that plays music.
2. But she likes anything with music and lights.
3. She’s a pacifier fiend.
4. DH showed me how a pacifier fit into one of the many circles in a toy ball of hers. I amused her for a long, long time last night by filling the whole ball with pacifiers, all facing out and suckable. 🙂
5. She’s a smart cookie!
6. She’s pretty too with adorable curls along the bottom and over her ears.
7. She cruise along furniture very well.
8. She likes to let go for a few seconds when no one is looking and laughs at her game.
9. She has said many words and we suspect several phrases. Her current favorite is “ball”.
10. She has quite a shrill shriek to her too!
11. She hates being alone.
12. She loves the bathroom.
13. She even more loves going outside.
14. She can watch cars drive by forever, I think.
15. She likes getting into things… our computers, books, dumping puzzles…
16. She does not and never has liked bananas.
17. She does not like to lie still for diaper changes.
18. She weighs 19 pounds.
19. She wears size 4 Pampers Cruisers- and has for awhile now- but she shouldn’t be able to fit in them yet!
20. She’s also quite tall for her age.
21. She likes Gerber yogurt melts.
22. She loves bath time.
23. She loves going places.
24. She likes cinnamon cheerios. She hates baby puffs.
25. She likes American cheese.
26. And chicken. A lot!
27. She drinks about 5 oz formula at a time. Sometimes. She’s a petite drinkers but babbles in delight when she sees her bottle.
28. She prefers us to leave a bottle on the floor so she can grab a drink when she wants one.
29. She has a beautiful coo that she lets out when something pleases her.
30. She’s definitely a people person- she learned our names quite early on!
31. She will sit when you ask.
32. She will also give you her pacifier if you ask.
33. But she prefers you to play the pacifier game and take it from her mouth with your mouth and then give it back. Haha.
34. She sleeps with mama at night. More often than not she naps in her crib or the car.
35. She likes peas and yogurt.
36. She loves to play with our cell phones. She holds it up and says “Hello”.
37. She likes butterflies.
38. And pizza.
39. She loves to be danced with.
40. She likes to be surprised and startled.
41. She is very ticklish. Especially when I nibble her ribs and sides.
42. She likes it when her belly button is booped.
43. She likes playing peekaboo.
44. And “This Little Piggy”.
45. She beams when you tell her good job.
46. Loves to have her clothes taken off.
47. Loves to see a particular magic rainbow spell on a game called “Wizard101”! She goes crazy!
48. Loves to crawl in the sand and tiny waves of the ocean.
49. Loves to clean out the cupboards and drawers.
50. She is very much adored by everyone. And they stop to tell us so! Love you baby girl!
Andy’s 50 things
Brendan’s 50 Things

Ohhh, I wish Kayley had more hair! I’d buy us both one of these Flexi Clips! Go enter her giveaway!

Under my desk!!

That’s what Kayley’s brown spots are called. They are collections of white blood cells. He scratched several of them and they puffed up and turned a bit white. He said they swell and release histamine. You can treat them with oral antihistamines (like Benadryl) but he prefers cortisone ointment and prescribed some. The good thing is they eventually go away. He wants to see her again in 3-4 weeks.
He’s gotta be right too, because Kayley’s nose ran like crazy for 2 hours after he scratched the spots!
Edited to add: [Evening now] Yeesh. She has been whiny all day. We wonder if the spots itch her now but she doesn’t pull at her skin anywhere. Her nose started running again and she threw up too. I guess the histamine in her system makes her feel sick? He said you can have these internally too and severe cases would give a person massive diarrhea… I imagine activating some of hers could cause tummy upset and vomiting. She started breathing fast too.
He had told us the appropriate dose of Benadryl to give her is 3/4 teaspoon. That seemed high to us so we gave her 1/2 t. She’s just now drifting off to sleep. We still need to pick up her rx ointment but I don’t want to mix the 2 drugs so I’ll start it tomorrow.
Quote from a website about this condition-
“Solitary mastocytomas are collections of mast cells presenting with a single or multiple (usually five or fewer individual) orange- to red-brown plaques or nodules ranging from 0.5 cm to 3.5 cm in diameter. They typically appear within three months after birth. They may develop a “peau d’orange,” or an orange peel-like texture. The clue to diagnosis is the Darier’s sign, which is development of a wheal and flare following firm stroking of a lesion with dull edge of a pen or fingernail. The stroking leads to mast cell degranulation and histamine release. The lesion typically develops a raised, white wheal in the center and then a surrounding bright red flare within several minutes. The lesion may subsequently blister in children in the first year of life but does not lead to permanent scarring. Such lesions are often mistaken for bullous impetigo.
If there is enough histamine release, some patients may develop systemic symptoms including nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, flushing, pruritus, hypotension and rarely, respiratory symptoms of bronchospasm. Rarely, enough histamine is released to cause anaphylaxis and death. Treatment of choice is administration of oral antihistamines such as diphenhydramine. Epinephrine can be given in acute situations. Lesions typically involute over eight to 10 years.”

We’re reading the Laura Ingalls books right now. I saw on a blog how some kids built log cabins out of empty milk or cream pint containers, stick pretzels and chocolate frosting… wow, what a fun and easy craft! wub.gif Most seemingly simple art projects prove to be harder than I realized or just not a lot of fun/ hard work for my boys. It’s kind of frustrating. But this one was a winner. Yesss!
Art is the subject I want to teach the least… am I that odd that teaching Calculus doesn’t intimidate me but teaching drawing does?

29.5 inches long (86th percentile)
Head 17.5 inches (46th percentile)
Weight 18 lb 1 oz (19th percentile)
Pedi is sending Kayley to a pediatric dermatologist to look at her numerous brown spots. That’ll happen on the 25th. She’s really come down under her typical weight curve. She is such a petite eater… she’ll eat many foods- just not a lot of them at one time. She rarely finishes a jar of baby food in one sitting. She nibbles at regular food. Pedi said to keep her on formula past her first birthday until her next appt mid-June and to use 3 scoops of formula to 5 oz water as well… to make it a little higher calorie. He doesn’t want her to switch to whole milk yet because with the change most kids start drinking a lot less. That was true with both Brendan and Andy.
Other than that he was quite happy with her progress and again highly complimented us on Brendan and Andy’s good behavior. 🙂 That earned them root beer floats!

2/17- Kayley pulled to a stand in her crib today!!! WOW!!! She also pulled herself up to a sitting position on the bed for a 2nd time! Her army crawling is quite impressive now. She’ll come find me in the kitchen haha!!
Darrell weighed under 200 today!!! Way to go honey! I’m stuck at 221-223. Apparently it’s a “set point” for my body. It doesn’t want to let it go!
2/18- Kayley cut tooth #2 tonight! Darrell caught this one. It’s the other bottom center tooth.
Kayley is trying to say “pretty” and “butterfly” now! She mimics pretty when I say it and when I was changing her table she said something like butterfly with a clear “buh” beginning and looked right at the butterfly on her wall. 😀 I don’t think anyone besides me and maybe Darrell would catch these however.
2/19- I heard “pretty” again today!!! 😀
2/21- Happy 9 months Kayley girl!
K sits up by herself regularly now. She has changed from “muscling herself up situp style” to sitting up from a crawling stance.
2/22- Kayley took her first couple “steps” crawling tonight! Both Darrell and I saw it. 😀
2/26- K will get up on her knees now to be tall enough to reach into a bin. She is into everything!!! She wears 12 month clothes now!
3/2- K ate TWO entire pieces of cheese pizza at Alayna’s Chuck E. Cheese birthday party!!!
3/3- K said “tickle tickle” several times this morning! 😀 I usually tickle her on the changing table and that’s where she said it… she had an impish grin on her face too!
3/6- Yell for Andy or Brendan and Kayley will mimic you! 😀 Her “Brendan” is quite close.
3/10- K says baby! 😀 No more butterfly but pretty is a definite fave. She had her first grapes and goldfish (pizza flavor)- and loved both!
3/12- Bren’s first overnight campout! Dad and Bren went to a “Cub N’ One” and had a blast!
3/13- She crawls!!!!! Today she also started to stand up places other than in her crib!
3/23- K demanded a bottle today- “Bee! Bee! Bee!” Haha. That’s a useful word!
3/26- Happy Mizuumi-Con 4!
3/27- K said “Kayley” today! Mimi said she heard it once too.
Lots of family and friends got together to devour the famous 42 inch Big Lou’s pizza today- one of Brendan’s birthday gifts. It was a blast!
3/30- Kayley said her name again today!
Andy is doing fantastic with his reading. He is learning _u_ words now. We are enjoying a lot of Dr. Seuss books. We finally ordered his MUS Primer book and he is flying through it as well.
Bren is learning about Ancient India and multiplication problems like 681 x 38. UGH! LOL.
I love how Andy says “I love you mom, alsoly!” 😀
4/1 Kayley’s words to date. Definitely my gabbiest kid this young!
Dada
Mama
Brendan (quite clear, surprisingly!)
Andy (less clear… started as A-Day but now much better)
pretty
hi
hey!
yay! (when clapping)
She says Bee! for bottle
her latest is her own name… also quite clearly- Kayley
I’ve heard Mimi, butterfly and bye-bye only a time or two…

Pics of K’s new standing in crib ability and her 2 teeth. The boys made plaster feet- haha!