Monday, August 18, 2008

Spring and Summer of 2008

Kristen is super-sensitive. In watching her play with Momma's two daycare kids, cousins and church friends, we see her empathizing with people already. She hugs kids who are hurt or sad. She seems worried when a kid is crying. She feeds off my emotions and tries to comfort me when I am sad (or hormonal due to pregnancy). She cried the other day looking at a picture of herself in Branson and in the photo she was upset and crying. We have started the tantrums but overalll she is pretty obedient. She will do what we ask most of the time...we run into trouble when she doesn't want to leave (the library) or if she doesn't want to get dressed. She loves being naked and has a hard time understanding why she has to wear a diaper...or why she has to wear shorts and a shirt. She LOVES being barefoot and most of the time i am okay with it... but some places, where I know she is going to have to get down and walk, I battle over the wearing of shoes. She does some battling over food as well. Kristen loves her bathtime with Daddy. Her favorite part is being wrapped up like a burrito afterwards. Sometimes she asks for "burrito" even when she hasn't bathed, but wants Daddy to wrap her up anyways.
On July 5, Kristen graduated to a Big Girl Bed!!! Lily, her stuffed sheep, all the Pooh figurines, a pink elephant, and Bryan (her white and purple polka-dotted bear) made the move with her. She got a new night light on the second night in her new bed. She loves to turn it on and off her "self".


She loves babies. If we are at the store, park, church, etc, and she sees one, she wants to go pat it. And she will say "pat gently". She loves baby dolls as well. She rocks them and pats them. We have a couple of dolls, blankets and bottles. She loves to wrap them up in the blankets and then feed them with the bottles. Her new favorite thing to do is burp them. She pats them on the back for a few seconds and then makes a burp noise and then laughs. Often she has a rag nearby to clean up the spit up. We have been educating her on what the new baby will be like and what she will do. Burping was one of the lessons she enjoyed hearing about. She repeats the main points like babies can't eat, babies can't walk, babies drink milk, etc. She seems confused, but then also happy about the new baby. She will give you a weird look if you talk about the new baby.... but at other times she will come up to me and hug my tummy and say baby. Sometimes she lifts up my shirt a little to lay her head on the baby. She will say "new baby come soon.....dr. help get her out." I tried to explain to her that we still have a while to wait... but she has little concept of time. We have read a few books about new siblings and she likes them. Last friday she got to see the new baby on the computer screen at my sonogram.... but I think she was a little confused. (This is Phil jumping in now...I want to take the chance to brag on my wife and say that she did an AWESOME job preparing Kristen in advance for the major transition of having a new baby sister. I did not realize at the time what a difference this would make, but now I can look back and see how great it was that Cecilia spent all the time and effort doing that. This is just one of the MANY ways that she has been an incredibly awesome mother to my daughters over the past couple years. Thanks, Honey, and I love you!)

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