Reflections on my 1 year old

Kyndal's birthday has come and gone and now we officially have a toddler. I am so glad some of you got to come to see her in person for her birthday and get to see a little bit of her personality. She is the best thing that has happened to us. I can't believe how much joy and fun she has brought into our lives. She totally has a personality all her own, or Bret will say just like Momma (he only says that when her temper flares up or she wants to do something by herself with no help).

Kyndal is a talker. She will sit and read her books jibber jabbering as she flips her pages. Her favorite word these days is "that", although she can say many others....Ball, Baby, Shadow(babow), Dada, Mama, Bye Bye, Hello, this, among others. She has figured out that "that" describes everything so she is choosing to use that more and more. I guess we say "give me that", or "do you want that" a little to much to her. I think my favorite thing that she says, is Bye-Bye Dada in the morning when her Daddy leaves for work. I guess that is a sentence, LOL!

Kyndal is also a climber. She loves to climb in her toy basket, although it is a little too full for her to get in since we had her birthday party. She will stand in her little Mickey Mouse bus ride on toy. She opens the lid and climbs in. Today she actually climbed up the little stairs at the McDonald's play place on the toddler toy. She is still as flexible as ever though, the first step was the biggest, when she couldn't climb it she did a split and put her leg up on the first step and pulled herself up.

She is such a happy little toddler. She will laugh at the other babies, sometimes hysterically. She will laugh when we laugh. She will sometimes crinkle her nose when she laughs or smiles too.

She eats anything and everything. We still haven't given her peanut butter. She doesn't like carrots though, never really did. She knows the color and will refuse sweet potatoes at first until I get one in her mouth and she realizes it is not a carrot. She always wants to feed herself. If you even try to put something in her mouth, she will turn or head, or take it from you and put it in her own mouth.

She is still a good sleeper and napper. We were really blessed by that. She goes to bed around 8:15 or 8:30 after some milk and a couple of books. She goes to sleep on her own. She normally takes two naps a day. Most times she goes to sleep on her own for those, sometimes she goes out in the car if it is around naptime and I transfer her to her bed. Other times she need a little song and rocking. She wakes up around 6:30 in the morning. In the morning when Mommy is brushing her teeth, Kyndal brushes hers too. She has a Hello Kitty toothbrush and she reaches up when I get my toothbrush so that she can have hers. She screams when I take it away.

She loves her kitty Shadow. She tortures her, but Shadow loves the attention. She lays on her, gives her kisses, pulls her hair until we stop her.

Kyndal loves to give kisses. She will even give kisses to her doll, stuffed animals, even the books with babies in them she will give a kiss to each and every baby. She will blow kisses too.

She loves to play with the phone (she called and hung up on Daddy once all by herself), the remote, Mommy's cell phone, the doorstop and Mommy's make-up. All things she is not really supposed to have.

She loves other children. Her buddies, are Brooke, Lola, and Emma. She thinks Lola is funny and cracks up at her. She likes to chase Emma around. They are all close to the same age.

She is very social and will go to most anyone. She doesn't cry when I leave her at the YMCA or church nursery. She cries when we leave the room and shut the gate, she hates it when anyone is on the other side of the gate. But other than that she doesn't cry after us when we leave.

We take Kindermusic on Tuesday and I take her to the YMCA on Wednesday for my Zumba class. We are in a MOM's group now so we have plenty of activities to do each week. When she dances she sways back and forth. She gets to dance at Kindermusic a lot because there is a lot of music and singing. She wants to be in the middle dancing though instead of sitting in Mommy's lap like the other babies do. I think she thinks it is all about her.

Kyndal of course has a temper. She will get mad if something doesn't work like she thinks it should and sometimes throw it. Like if her sippy cup is empty.

She has a ton of balls in the house, more than most kids I have seen, even boys. And she sure can throw.

Oh, Bret is thrilled now that if he tells her to go get something for him she will. Just like a Dad, LOL! Of course it is mostly, go get "that" and pointing to the object. No wonder her favorite word is "that".

Kyndal wants to go go go, she is not as content just sitting in a high chair or shopping cart any more. So sometimes that is a challenge when we go out to eat or grocery shopping. It seems like now that she can walk good that is all she wants to do.

Well, I know that I can go on and on, I guess I just did. Hopefully that will make you all feel a little bit closer to this precious precious 1 year old.