McKenna's last update was from the beginning of March and reading it, it felt like a lifetime ago! She has grown up so much in the last five months! Probably some of it is real growing and some of it is just in comparison to Bella. I swear McKenna's head grew while I was in the hospital. It's huge now! Hee hee. Really she just seems so big when I snuggle her on my lap now. She's no longer my baby. She's a bonafide big kid.
With growing up has come all sorts of attitude! Not sure if it's because she's 2, because we moved, because of Bella's arrival, or all of the above. She definitely had a hard time right after our move. Even though she loves her new room and our house, she adopted some defiance issues - refusing to feed herself, screaming at me. That has only gotten worse since Bella was born and now includes throwing things, hitting and kicking and straight out telling me "No!" when I ask her to do something. So I'm doing my best to make sure she knows that is not acceptable while also trying to give her special attention so she doesn't feel slighted by the attention Bella requires.
I am so so thankful that any aggression she has is taken out on Brian and I rather than Bella. We were very worried for as clingy as she had been the last couple months that we would have lots of jealousy issues. But as it turns out, she ADORES Bella. Her first words in the hospital room (with her arms outstretched) were "Hold it?! Have it?!" Seriously melted me to my core! (Austin, by contrast, was far too distracted by all the buttons and levers and switches in the hospital room and had to be compelled to say hello to his new sister! He adores her now though.) She is always near her, making high pitched cooing noises and talking to her in her own little language. And she'll even share her favorite blanket with Bella. ("All cozy!") It really is so sweet to watch. If anything we have to make sure she doesn't love Bella too much. She can get a little grabby and hold on too tight. And she is determined to accessorize Bella with Mrs. Potato Head pieces. She will get those glasses on her eventually, even if Bella loses an eye in the process!
Once again, her speech totally amazes me. She uses complete sentences most of the time and picks up new words and phrases constantly. She's constantly repeating what Austin says too, which is good and bad! It's very cute to listen to their conversations. Their arguments are pretty funny too. Often they argue about two different subjects. "Blue!" "No, papa!" "No, blue!" It's very entertaining.
Up until last week, her affirmative answer was almost always "please", even if it was just a yes or no question. Recently she added "Sure!" to the mix but "please" was still dominant. Just last week she stopped saying it all together and now just says "Yeah." Sounds like a silly thing to document, but I'm actually really sad! I loved her "please"! Is it bad that I'm trying to get her to regress back to it?!
My absolute favorite thing she says...One day I asked her if she knew she was wonderful and she said "No! I 'pecial! I 'pecial like Bob!" Thankfully she's talking about Bob the tomato and not "What about Bob"! Bob the Tomato says "God made you special and he loves you very much!" I love that she knows that already!
McKenna and Austin are becoming the best of friends. They still drive each other nuts though - McKenna is a typical little sister, swyping his toys and pushing his buttons; Austin always has to be doing whatever McKenna started playing with and is constantly telling her the right way to play with something. But a good portion of the time they play well together. They love to chase each other through the house. (I LOVE that our new house allows them to do that! At our old one, the chase was very short - about 10 feet!) They love to dance together, which they insist on doing anytime a song comes on in any movie or show they are watching. And they love to wake each other up from naps too. Their exchanges then are so very sweet! I hope they are always good buddies!
My fear that McKenna wouldn't be a puzzle lover was totally unfounded. In the last 5 months she's gone from not liking puzzles to loving them and rocking at them. She can do the 24 piece jigsaw ones now. My mom has some multi-layer ones that she loves and will spend most of the time at their house playing with. I love it!
Her other favorite activity at my parents' house is putting on my mom's necklaces and bracelets. She is all girl!! She'll get about 20 around her neck and then come show you how pretty she looks. She looks like she's been to Mardi Gras!
Her next favorite thing to do is coloring. She could do it for hours. It's the only thing that keeps her in her Sunday school class.
We are no where near potty training. She used to go on the potty sometimes but now not at all. Even though I bribe her with chocolate. I'm not in a hurry really, except that she hates to have her dirty diaper changed. I was hoping if I could get her to go in the potty, it would cut out that drama.
She's getting there on her letters and numbers. Austin learned his primarily by doing his letter puzzle and while I worked with her as she did that puzzle too, she wasn't nearly as interested in learning them. She's picking them up though. I got a new app for the iPad this week and was surprised that she knew more than I thought she did. She does pretend not to know things sometimes.
Just like her brother, she has endless energy. She hardly walks anywhere and always has the cutest bounce in her step as she runs. Still has happy feet when she's excited too!
Her hair is getting so long now! I love having daughters just for the reason of getting to do someone's hair! It's long enough to have two french braids down the back. She actually sits still sometimes to let me do it. She likes to inspect my work in the mirror afterwards.
Her favorite book for the last several months has been "Happy Birthday Hamster". Austin got it for his birthday but she has claimed it since her birthday was more recent. She gets so excited with each page.
McKenna got an adorable kitchen from her grandmas for her birthday. As soon as we bought a house, I knew that was going on her wish list. The kids play so good with it. Austin really likes the baker outfit that she also got. And McKenna loves to "make" cookies and waffles and feed them to me. (And Bella! We have to watch her on that too!) She's such a good little hostess!
She loves all things Princess, especially Rapunzel (which is her favorite movie) and Tinkerbell and gets horribly excited when she sees them. And since Tinkerbell shows up at the beginning of every Disney movie, she gets excited a lot!
Gosh, I'm sure I could keep going. It's been a full 5 months. But I think that mostly covers it. Despite the behavior issues, she is such a fun kid! Even if she can't be my little baby anymore, I've still loved watching her grow into a little girl!
*I was going to write an update for Austin too, but he's close to turning 4, so I'm going to wait until then. Hopefully I don't forget!
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