I got "Mom Brain"

I keep forgetting to take the camera with me when we go to neat places. Last Sunday was a gorgeous day and we went to the Lynden City Park after church. They have a new "Million Smiles" play area there that we wanted to check out. I was just kicking myself for missing out on taking pictures - so I'll have to try to paint a picture with my words. Imagine a big play area with tall spires and slides, swings, bridges, tiny little store fronts, tractors... just an unbelievably cool place to play! Then imagine tall oaks and maples littering the ground with leaves of red, orange, yellow, brown and green. There's the babbling sound of the creek winding it's way around the play area. Bright sun, cool air, kids laughing and playing. Kaylee was really into the slide. We couldn't get her off of it. We played on the swings, we ran around and climbed everywhere, but we kept coming back to the slide! Kaylee was up early that morning and we had lunch at church for Pastor appreciation... it was way past time for Kaylee's nap. It was so hard to leave when she was having so much fun!

Yesterday we had a spot of good weather, so I took Kaylee to Cornwall park. This park is closest to us and has all we could ever want: a playground, trails, and a splash park. Again, I forgot the camera. What a perfect autumn day! How I wished I could capture the memory on film! The sun was bright and angled low in the sky, casting long shadows even in midday. It warmed our faces as the cool air nipped us from behind. The ground was littered with huge maple leaves. They come from a tree called the "large leaf maple" - where they get that name, I don't know. :) These leaves are so big - bigger than a dinner plate! And you know how big those dinner plates can be! Some would say they're out of control. ;)

Kaylee was fascinated with the leaves and had to carry one with her wherever she went. I can't even describe how cute that was! She climbed on the play set and went down some slides, but her favorite was the swing. "More", she kept saying. Here's the picture - remember that warm sun and the cool air? Now see Kaylee in her swing, the soft golden curls of her hair flying in breeze, and her giggling laugh as she swings high. It just felt like the perfect moment that I wanted to live in forever. She must've felt the same way. After a while I could tell she was getting sleepy by the glazed stare that eventually came over her face as she watched other kids playing. But whenever I would ask if she wanted "up", she would say "more" instead.

I also strapped her into the backpack and we went on a little hike. The trails remind me a lot of my park back home in MN. The dirt trails, the leaves of all colors falling all around. We came to a fence and saw a few horses. Saw a lot of dogs and their people on the trail as well. Kaylee is still very fascinated by dogs - and really any kind of animal. I suppose that isn't unusual.

Her signing has come along quite well. She's able to sign: more, please, baby, water, eat, up, down, help, book, ball, dog, monkey, butterfly, daddy, bath, and airplane. We're working on: out, moon, pain, mommy, wait, where, what, look, potty, happy, sad, angry, frustrated, banana, apple, cat, sleep... and others I can't think of right now. She knows most of these, just hasn't signed them back yet.

She does a couple funny things that I have to write down. When she's playing with her toy that has buttons and pop up animals, and uses the one trigger that slides back and forth (and a cat pops up), she goes back and forth really fast and shakes her head back and forth as well. I know she got the sliding back and forth from her dad, but where the head shake came in, I have no idea. It's so funny though. The other thing she started doing is trying to wash her hair. In the bath the other day, I put soap on her hands and she started to rub it in her hair. Later on, I was showing her how I put lotion on my hands then decided to put a bit of lotion on her hands. Well, both the lotion and the soap come from a pump bottle, so she was a little confused and decided to rub the lotion on her hair. :)

Kaylee has become quite the Daddy's girl lately. I think it's adorable and only rarely do I get jealous. As soon as Kaylee sees her dad, it's goodbye momma and hello daddy! She gets really clingy and starts to cry when he has to go to work... so sad! During meals she hardly ever looks at me. All her attention is on her dad. She watches everything he does and by the look on her face, she is in awe of him. When he gets home from work she becomes his shadow until it's bedtime. It's nice for me in that I can leave her with him and get things done without worrying about her having a fit that I'm gone.

She's been down to one nap a day for about a month now. It's nice that we can have longer outings, but it's hard to get stuff done when she's up so I've gotten behind on just about everything. She goes to bed at 8:00 and wakes up anywhere between 5 and 6 a.m.! She eats pretty much anything and everything and will tell me when she's hungry by walking over to her high chair and hitting it. The only thing she won't do yet is drink regular milk. Everytime I serve it to her she takes one sip, makes a "yucky" face, and never touches it again. I even tried vanilla and chocolate flavored Pediasure, but she does the same thing. If anyone has any good ideas on how to get her to drink milk, please let me know. The doctor said when I'm ready to wean, to just not worry about it and that she won't let herself get dehydrated. I hope that's true.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully we'll get more perfect autumn days and I can remember to bring a camera so you all can see what Kaylee looks like now.