McDermont Afternoon

We were feeling a little blue this morning due to the very sorry state of the peanut butter supply at our house:

as well as the fact that in central California summer is the time that you have to stay indoors often because of the wretched heat.  But we don't go over to McDermont nearly often enough, so I have a rather copious amount of arcade money saved up on my card, so McDermont this afternoon was the place to be.  We played lots of arcade games, and since Daddy was there all day working on the slot car track, he took a break and did a little Nascar racing with the older kids:

Keilana and Dylan haven't spent much time in the Big House yet, so we went and checked all that out, too.  They watched a game on the first floor soccer field before heading over to the tree:
Kylie loves real grass, so I thought I'd see how she did with the artificial turf.  It was a hit, she loved it!  She was crawling all over the place, content as can be.  Unfortunately, I had to pick her up after a while, because she kept eating the rubber:
(Yes, in the above photo that is my child with the Pebbles hair do and little pink flower.  Don't hate 'cause you ain't).  Keilana and Kylie posed near center field on the 3rd floor soccer field.  If you look hard, behind them you can see (past the cat walks and what not) the huge tree a the other end of the building:

The tree turned out oh-so-cool.  To help you with the size, this thing is five stories tall. There are party rooms (for birthday parties and whatnot) inside the tree.  Next to it is the rock wall, for some excellent climbing.  The soccer logo banner hanging in the foreground is for one of the semi-pro teams that plays here.  Doug designed the logo (well, and the tree, since I'm mentioning it).  He's so talented!!
Dylan and Keilana both love the bounce houses.  We spent about 2 1/2 hours over there today, and nearly an hour and a half of that was spent at bounce houses.  This is Dylan's favorite, the Lightening McQueen slide:
Keilana checks out the waterfall that comes down the side of the rock wall.  She is still undecided about climbing it.  She was absolutely fearless until her 2nd birthday, but then her peripheral nervous system finally kicked in and she realized that the world can be painful.  Ever since then she's been a bit of a wimp. :)  
Someday I'll go over when my hands aren't already totally full and take a real camera, perhaps do a McDermont tour on my blog.  But for now, iPhone shots will have to do :)

Locks of Love

So, there aren't many physical features I care for much about myself.  I can pick apart just about everyone of my own features until I'm in tears if the mood is right.  But God did bless me with one beauty: thick, healthy, shiny, beautiful hair that grows pretty quickly.  And it so happens that the one physical gift I was given is something I can share with others.  How cool is that?  Fortunately, my little girl seems to have inherited my hair genes, so she joined me in donating her locks to locks of love, where they will be used to make wigs for little girls who have cancer and have lost their own hair to chemotherapy.  This is the third time I've done it in the last 4 1/2 years, totaling somewhere around 5 1/2 feet of hair.  And I got a great haircut that will fare much better in the CA heat out of it!

Keilana and I holding our donations.  I didn't measure them this time.

Keilana's awesome new haircut.  Doesn't she just look like a doll?

The shortest haircut I've had since I was 8! Love it!

Becky Theorizes

So I've decided that in the premortal existence you don't have to be built like Mary Lou Retton to be a gymnast.  Instead, you are divided into weight classes, like boxing: lightweight gymnasts, welter weight gymnasts and, of course, heavy weight.  And Kylie was apparently a heavy weight gymnast before landing here.

This child, ugh.  Don't get me wrong, she's a delight.  I wouldn't dare say any one of my children was a favorite, but she'd definitely be in the running if I did.  But oy vey, girl, slow down.  She was "sitting up" for several seconds at a time and rolling from her back to her tummy at 3 months;  she was sitting up solidly (including catching herself with her ab muscles when she started to tip) at 4 months;  she was crawling by 6 months, including getting herself from her tummy to sitting up without assistance;  she hasn't hit seven months yet, but for the last two weeks she's been pulling herself to a stand on everything in sight (including, a couple of times, just the wall, with no fixtures of any kind to grab onto);  and a few days ago she got up the first stair without assistance.  Tonight she very intentionally and very carefully backed herself off the couch onto the floor--and onto her feet.  Then she smiled with pride and cooed to me about her accomplishment.

This is all well and good, I suppose. I'm grateful that she's healthy, strong and very curious.  But seriously, I think some wires got crossed somewhere.  I know so many mothers who anxiously await those moments when baby first crawls, stands, walks.  Mothers who burst with glee when those moments arrive sooner than anticipated.  I, on the other hand, am that mom who would genuinely love it if her babies just kind of hung out and laxadaisically, sort of, kind of started crawling around 8 or 9 months;  I would love to have a baby that would casually start to attempt walking on their own at 13 months or so.  Yet I keep getting these 6 month crawlers, 9.5 month walkers, and just generally busy little nuisances!  

I know its a silly thing to complain about (and if you're one of those moms that just wished your babies would crawl early, I apologize), and I do love my kids just as they are, but sometimes I wish I had a little more time before I started having to constantly trail my husband and other kids to make sure they haven't left anything that's likely to choke the baby lying around;  a little more time before I started finding little half-eaten crackers and slobbery, gnawed on carrots everywhere;  a little more time before my baby turned into a kid.  *sigh*

She does look awfully cute standing up in her crib, though. . . . . . . . . . . .

4th of July

Good time was had by all.  Happy Independence Day everyone!

Wishlists

1. Baby Stuff

Having now had three babies in what (by American standards) might be called a bit of a "minimalist" style, the cool things I want to get the next time I get pregnant:

*a boppy

*a jumperoo

*a super nice electric pump (seriously, I breastfeed exclusively in about the truest sense--Dylan only ever had a bottle about a dozen times, and Kylie's only had 3 or 4, why don't I have one of these already?)

*nursing bras (OK, so I had nursing bras with Dylan, but its one of those things I kept putting off shopping for, so here I am with my sixth month old and still nursing with my regular bras)

*crib mobile

*playpen

*a new carseat (the plastic on mine has obvious weak spots now)

*a bigger car

And then, the things I will spend money on some day.  Probably after my house is mostly paid for and I no longer feel like I constantly smell like peanut butter:

*adorable, feminine clothing (that will not be covered with jelly spots and little sticky finger prints)

*inexpensive, fun, funky jewelry

*home decor (a la the list of paintings I'd like for my home, not one of which I'm going to get a framed print of for less than $250-$300)

*child-free vacations to locales that require a passport

*child-free vacation anywhere

*weekly date nights

*camera lenses

*bi-annual hair salon trips

*mani/pedis

*weekly professional massages

*ridiculously expensive presents for my grandchildren (if you hadn't already caught on, this is a long-term list)

*a trip to Italy with my mom and sisters to Pam's B&B. . .maybe a few side trips in Scotland and Paris

That's the bulk of it.  Perhaps I'll come back and add more as they come to me. . . . .

6 month well check

I took Kylie into the doctor today for her 6 month well-baby check up and immunizations.  She's 25.75 inches long (around the 40-45th percentile) and weighs 18 pounds and 4 ounces (around the 80th percentile), which means at 6 months old she still has not doubled her birth weight!  She's much shorter and a little lighter than Keilana and Dylan were at this age, but she did well.  She got four shots today and she grimaced and whimpered a little bit, but didn't cry at all until the last shot was given, then stopped as soon as the nurse let her leg go.  She fell asleep on the ride home :)

She's a happy, curious little girl.  She started REALLY crawling this week (rather than scooting or inch worming).  Its still a new skill, and so she belly flops out and scoots occasionally, but for the most part she's a crawler.  She chews like a puppy (and, like a puppy, her favorite chew toys always seem to be shoes).  She has her two bottom teeth, which surprised me when they popped up last month (Keilana and Dylan didn't have teeth until almost 9 months).  She is trying to pull herself to a stand on everything in sight, so falls are becoming quite commonplace.  She has started trying to get up the stairs, but fortunately all she can do so far is pull herself up to a stand on the second one (heaven help us when she figures out how to get those legs up onto the step.  She has hit the age where her favorite activity is pulling all the DVDs off the DVD stand.  So, in short, she's lots of fun and a big nuisance!

Overheard

Clayton (naked after getting out of the tub, while bouncing around Keilana's room):  "Look at my weiner dance!"

Dylan:  "Its my Kylie.  That's Clayton's Kylie."  (explaining to me the difference between Kylie and Claire)

Clayton (barely understandable through lots of tears):  "Keilana hit me!"

Me (to Keilana): "Did you hit Clayton?"

Keilana (rather matter-of-factly): "No.  I punched him."