15 months (or 16, as the case may be!)

Lyla had her 15 month checkup on Saturday, though she was actually almost 16 months. I guess it's fitting that the youngest is also the peanut of the bunch, and Lyla continues to be very petite for her age. At 16 months, she's only 20 lbs. 10 oz. and 29 inches long -- which puts her in the 13th percentile for weight and the 7th for height. Her ped thinks she's perfectly proportioned, but that she is definitely in a slow growth mode right now. While she's not worried about it, she thinks Lyla may be exhibiting a "constitutional growth delay" where she may get fairly behind in her growth for up to the next couple of years, and then all of the sudden shoot up to a different growth curve. She said it's actually not all the uncommon for kids her age, but of course it's just one more thing for mom to worry about. Anyone who knows me knows that I had such a hard time with my small height (personally) during my school years, so obviously I really hope that my girls end up taller than my petite 5' 1/2" adult height. Her ped said it's a bit early to tell and they'll have a better idea at age 2, but that it's not likely she'll end up shorter than me. Phew!!

But of course, in the end height is a small thing. And as long as my baby stays happy, healthy, and as gorgeous as I *of course* think she is, we'll consider ourselves lucky no matter how tall she ends up. Hopefully we have a nice growth spurt to report at 18 months. The ped was really very surprised by her height measurement this time around, so much so that she thought the nurse had mis-measured and felt the need to do it again. No such luck, but I swear the next day she looked like she had grown overnight. So maybe we just missed a growth spurt in there!

It's so crazy how different all of my kids are in this department. We've got Maddie who's very average height and always in the 50th percentile, Sienna who is the biggest of the bunch and is more like 70th percentile for height and always seems tall for her age, and now Lyla who's at the opposite extreme. I'm so curious to see where they all end up in relation to eachother and to Brad and I! Maybe Sienna is like Daddy, Lyla is like Mommy and Maddie is the true mix, height/build wise. Funny.

Hose Her Down!

What kid doesn't love a nice, messy bowl of spaghetti? Lyla seems to be no exception...you give that girl a bowl of spaghetti and it's a recipe for instant mess. Not much news to report on this front, but last night she was so cute stuffing spaghetti and red sauce in your mouth and wearing half a bowl down the front of her. When all was said and done, I had no choice but to throw her right in the bath -- and sink the sink was handy, we opted to put her right in the sink for a bath so as not to trail pasta throughout the house on the way up to the bathroom.

She loved being in the sink -- probably because she was guaranteed to have the space all to herself, with no possiblity of having to share with her sisters! But even so, Sienna stayed close by and was happy to help shuttle soap bottles, toys, etc. to make Lyla's bath more enjoyable.



I had taken Lyla for her 15 month appointment yesterday morning, a bit late since she'll be 16 months tomorrow! She is still very much a little peanut, and has dropped even more in her percentiles. She's only inthe 7th percentile for height (which explains why everyone wonders if she's really old enough to be walking) and in the 13th for height. So very proportionate, just petite. Not too surprising given the short genes that her mother donated to the mix! The ped isn't too concerned at this point, but hopefully she'll have a growth spurt soon to catch up a bit. She's right on track or ahead with all of her other milestones, so she's doing great overall! She's been a bit cranky today after having several shots yeterday, but I guess that's to be expected. She's also working on her one year molars and her eye teeth, so I guess we'll forgive her crankiness a bit.

Can I just say...

That having ONE child in diapers is such an improvement over having TWO kids in diapers?!! Yes, Sienna is officially potty trained now... YAHOO!! We still have an occasional accident here and there, but we've gone days without one. And last night, I put her in undies even for bed, since she's been napping in them, waking up to go potty when she needs to, and waking up dry in the mornings. This morning...dry undies! Hooray Sienna! With prices of everything so high these days, it's really nice to be getting a break from having to buy double the diapers each month!

The End of the School Year

Maddie's preschool wrapped up for the year last Thursday, finishing with a cute end of year celebration: an animal fashion show. Miss Kate went all out and rented a tent for the Pre-K graduation and the preschool refreshments after the show. The kids had each been assigned a particular animal and had to do homework assignments concerning that animal over the past couple of weeks. Madelyn had chosen a lion - and had been going around the house practicing her roar for at least a few weeks! (Funnier still is that she's also had her sisters practicing, so Sienna and even Little Miss Lyla have gotten their ROARRRs down pat!) Miss Kate had taped each of the kids describing key facts about themselves as the animal, which she played while each child was walking down the "runway." It was so adorable to hear Maddie's cute little recorded voice saying, "I am a lion. I live in Africa. I weigh 500 pounds. My enemies are: buffalos. Something special about me is: I only live in Africa." She had her face lightly painted and a posterboard lion placard that she had painted and decorated hanging from her neck. Some of her friends were frogs, panda bears, tigers, etc. and they were all just adorable.

After the fashion show was over, the kids sang some songs and then we headed to the tent for refreshments and socializing. It was a very nice end to what has been a great year. It's amazing the difference that a great school can make... Madelyn has truly flourished this year in Miss Kate's class, and has so thoroughly enjoyed it that I really wish I could send her every single day, just because it makes her so happy to go. The amount of things she has learned in one year just amazes me, and she's had such a nice opportunity to grow her leadership skills and to make some good friends with the other two girls in her class. Her end of year report indicated we should continue to provide her with opportunities to do higher order math (addition, subtraction, word problems, etc.) and to sound out words, etc. These are things she loves to work on -- she amazes me with her ability to do math in her head at age 4! If you ask her what 7 minus 5 is, for example, she can usually answer without hesitation and get it right. I think she has inherited her daddy's mathematical mind -- because it surely does NOT come from me. The thing about Maddie is that we're never trying to encourage her to learn this kind of thing - I'm all for kids being kids, knowing they'll spend plenty of time over the years in school, etc., etc. But Maddie usually begs for this kind of exercise and just really has fun doing it. So we figure we might as well encourage it. She probably won't enjoy word problems and homework forever!

I give it max 2 weeks before Madelyn is begging to go back to Miss Kate's. One thing is certain, she will definitely get bored around the house this summer with a less structured weekly schedule, so I need to find some ideas for Rachael. Bored kids = trouble for everyone around!

Maddie Knows Best

Maddie is 4.5 going on 30. More specifically, she's a preschooler going on being a mother. Her most favorite activity is to boss her sister around and "discipline" her as if she's a parent. She is driving us NUTS with this. Poor Sienna gets told how to dress, what to sing, where to dance, what she should go to time out for, what color cup she should drink out of, what to build with the mega blocks, etc. etc. Seriously, it's amazing that Sienna even knows what she wants at all or has an opinion on anything, given that Maddie seems so willing to impart her wisdom on every aspect of Sienna's thoughts and actions. As ridiculous as it seems, I often find myself trying to defend her and speak up on her behalf. I have such a hard time just sitting and watching her get told which play food to put in the play oven, for goodness sakes!!

The flip side of it is that even though her bossiness seems to have reached a new level lately, she really is a good protector of her little sister -- and sometimes with Sienna, you're really grateful that Maddie's always got her eyes out for bad behavior, LOL. Maddie's the first to let us know when Sienna is getting into trouble, and also the first to help keep her out of trouble when we're out and about. So I guess there's a positive side there somewhere.

The other day I had had enough of Maddie acting as if she was Sienna's mom (she was telling her she was going to have to go to time out for some little thing) so I said, "Madelyn, PLEASE stop telling her what to do. We have enough parents in this house!" Without a moment's pause, she shot back, "Moooomm! We ONLY have two!" Didn't even have a response for that one!

Sienna takes a lot of it in stride, but does get ticked off every now and again. And her repsonse is usually to squeal or yell back and say "NO Maddie! I'm NOT doing that!" or "No Maddie! I NOT going to time out!" And then every once in a while, she tries it out on me and sends ME to time out...because who wouldn't want to copy big sister? Gotta love it. I've already spent more time in time out as a mother than I can remember spending in TO as a kid!

This is one of those lovely behaviors that I'm really hoping is a phase...

Sweet Summer Evenings

On Thursday, the weather was just so beautiful and perfect that when 5 PM rolled around and we finished work for the day, we just couldn't imagine *not* taking advantage of it. Brad and I talked it over and decided to quickly grill dinner, feed the kids, and head down to the waterfront for an ice cream. Actually in our world, having an ice cream out means stopping at McDonald's for a soft serve - since it's pretty much the only allergy-friendly ice cream option we have for Sienna in terms of restaurants. But even soft serve vanilla from Mickey D's tastes great when you're sitting by the harbor on a beautiful night (and when you're a toddler/preschooler and ice cream of any sort is a treat!).

Brad looked at me a little strangely when I suggested the idea, because I think he thought it was odd that I mentioned going down to see the boats in the harbor as an activity. But that's one of those things we did plenty of times with my parents as kids, so I have fond memories of it and seems like a real summer thing to do. The tourists must feel the same way, as the harbor and waterfront was really busy - in a good way! The kids were so well behaved and so many people stopped to smile or say how cute they were...which always has a way of making me feel so proud of them. Maddie and Sienna had fun climbing up a little tree, and checking out the boats (even spotting the pirate ship that they went on last summer, which was obviously a huge hit!). Little Miss Lyla was walking all over the place - and was very mad that she didn't get her OWN ice cream and had to share with me.

It's taken us a while to adjust to a new life since moving from Chicago, but this was one of those nights where it was fun to see this town from an adult perspective, and from the standpoint of now enjoying it with my own kids instead of just calling on my own memories of it growing up. We hit one of the gift shops before leaving (potty stop!) and picked up a couple of town t-shirts for the 4th of July for $5. Hard to believe they'll be wearing them soon! An all around fun way to kick off summer, though.

I'd love to say that the evening finished really sweetly and all, but hey - 3 kids, an extra dose of sugar, pushing a late bedtime, an unexpected delay in departure due to the (LONG) potty stop Maddie needed to make, and you figure we were headed for some meltdowns. Sienna and Lyla both had had their fill of fun summer activities, and after some major tantrums, both passed out in the car on the way home.

Well...

The Fish
It didn't take one to lose one... sadly, we had a ceremonial toilet flushing this morning to mourn the loss of "Lyla's Little Orange Fish," who hadn't even been with us long enough to get a real name. Though it's not really funny, I seriously think that the reason poor little Lyla Jr. died was because the other - bigger - two fish in the aquarium were terrorizing the poor thing. Brad and I had a feeling the orange fish wouldn't be with us too long, because by day two the poor fishy was hiding out under the pirate ship, with "Spotty" (Maddie's big spotted black fish who loves to eat and seems a bit aggressive) always standing guard on either side and looking like he might be getting some enjoyment out of it. Hmmm...does this seem to reflect our lives at all? Any symbolic meaning here??