We DO have other kids...

I mostly post here about Keeghan. She's the reason I started blogging here, but we do have three other kids...and they're funny sometimes. Particularly Carson. She's always been one who thinks outside of the box, words things in her own way, and is just a comfortable in her own skin kid. I love those things about her. So, here's a funny Carson story...

In the car the other day with my two youngest, we were listening to BNL's Snacktime (Sidenote here, if you don't own this, buy it! Best kids music out there). Keeghan has learned to "sing" pop, pop, pop to the Popcorn song which we all love. And there is a song on the album called Raisins that goes, "Raisins come from grapes, people come from apes, I come from Canada..." BUT we sing it "Raisins come from grapes, people come from apes, you came from China...". Anyway, we were listening to 7,8,9. In this song Ed (pretty, and now only, lead singer of Barenaked Ladies whom we have met several times...and I guess you should know here that Carson told Ed, last time we saw him, that he should write her a lullaby song to which Ed responded, "It's not enough that I'm a rock star??? You are always giving me suggestions.") sings about how 9 is gone because 7 "ate" 9. He makes lots of points about things that would not work out if 9 were not a number (ie how he has an extra finger and toe and how when Pluto was a planet not having the number 9 would be an issue, but now that Pluto isn't a planet, it's no big deal). So, Carson makes the connection that if 7 "ate" 9 and 9 were gone then it would be 7, 8, 10...well then 7 "ate" 10 and 10 is gone and so on. So, really, there would be no numbers after 8. After telling me this theory she announces, "I should tell Ed this." as if Ed can fix the whole situation! She's a funny kid.

Pictures

This is a face Keeghan makes at the dome light in the car...no clue why but she does it everytime and it always cracks me up. Our attempt at a ponytail...the only thing it accomplished was to make her hair stick up.
This was with the cupcakes I made for Keeghan's 1/2 birthday...the candles freaked Keeghan out a bit because I told her they were hot.

One of Keeghan's FAVORITE games...getting "tossed" off Ba Ba's legs and over his head.

Ready for Spring!

I am really ready for some nice weather. Being stuck in the house with a toddler is tough. Especially one who has become such a cling-on. Keeghan is still a bit odd about not liking to be put down outside but will walk a bit assuming the ground is even and not wet or snowy. I think she is just not used to the variety of the outside world on her feet. I can't wait to see how she reacts to being on grass without shoes or on the sand at the beach!

The wonder of watching her experience new things is so much fun. She is still a great eater, but is coming to discover the joy of sweets. If she finds something she likes she'll tell you "mmmmmmmmm". The other day I got the big kids frostys from Wendy's and Carson ended sharing with Keeghan since she was next to her in the car. Well, they finished off the frosty pretty quickly and Keeghan wanted more so she announced "mmmmmmmm" thinking that might make more appear. It's happened with a few other foods...mostly things she won't get so much of.

As for clinging, I'm getting alot of it lately. There have been some HUGE protests about having to go to the tub with Ba Ba or taking a nap. I'm not sure what started this, but I'm hoping to handle it so that we don't have any continuing problems. We managed to go "play" with a friend today. Keeghan warmed up to the other kids and adults in the house and was willing to get off my lap and check things out as long as we were in the same room. We're still doing ok with daycare at the gym. Keeghan stayed once last week without any of her siblings but since they are home on school vacation this week I've been dragging at least one of them along. It's REALLY nice for me to get to the classes I love at the gym so I'm glad Keeghan seems to be ok with that. She gets excited when I come to get her and will come right to me and knows as soon as I mention going to the gym that she can "color" which she loves to do. Now if we can get to the point where Ba Ba can do more than take her from me screaming...

Another adventure

The girls have been asking to go bowling so yesterday afternoon after naptime we decided to go. The big kids bowled while Doug and I traded off keeping Keeghan occupied. At one point, Carson decided she wanted to let Keeghan have a turn bowling so she brought her up to the lane and gave her a bowling ball ( I guess I should say here that we live in New England and we have candlepin...duckpin...small ball....bowling not just ten pin). Keeghan had been watching so she sort of knew what to do. She pushed/threw the ball and it went about 3 inches. Her sisters shoved it down the lane for her. She really got into it after a couple of trys and was grabbing every ball she could. We finally moved her away from the balls and lane so as not to have any injuries.

At the risk...

Of someone calling DCYF on us for giving this child too much sugar...here's a series of pictures of Keeghan eating frosting. If I do say so myself I make great frosting! I guess half the fun of watching Keeghan is watching her discover everything. Yes, she's 18 months old, but there are so many things she hasn't had a chance to experience yet and I'm sure the treat of licking mixer beaters clean was one of them.

Today makes 2 months since we got home...we were probably about to land in Manchester this time 2 months ago. It's hard to believe Keeghan hasn't been ours forever. She fits in with us amazingly well and brings us tons of joy and laughter (and a bit of anxiety as well). She loves to sing and dance. I will often look in the mirror in the car to see her bobbing her head to whatever tune is on. She loves making animal noises and knows what dogs, cats, snakes, monkeys, tigers, elephants, sheep and cows "say". She understands pretty much everything we say and is starting to repeat words when we ask her to. For now, that's ok, but pretty soon she'll be repeating everything and we'll all have to be careful of what we say! Well, as I type, Keeghan is kissing her sisters goodnight without prompting so I'd better get back to mommying and put her "night night". LOL...she just kissed the dog goodnight!

Valentine's Day...

Keeghan and her new baby...in front of my new fridge

Typically, the kids get gift bags with some candy and a few small things in them for Valentine's Day. I went a little overboard by getting Keeghan a Bitty Baby (http://www.americangirl.com/) and therefore had to go a little overboard with everyone else too. It really was a function of the fact that finding Asian looking dolls is all but impossible. All the dolls in our house are blond haired and blue eyed (ok no, we have a doll one of our travel-mates bought Keeghan that is soft and Chinese and a puppet too) since that's what Kennedy and Carson look like and I wanted Keeghan to have dolls that look like her. I assumed I'd be able to find Cabbage Patch dolls that were dark haired, fair skinned, and possibly even with Asian eyes...but no. The only one I could find had some kind of color changing hair. Not such a good choice for a 18 month old. So, I gave in and ordered a Bitty Baby. Then, Friday, while I was in Toys R Us I gave Keeghan a doll stroller that she took off with, so we needed one of those too : ) So Keeghan got a baby (I think we're naming her Mei) and stroller, Kennedy and Carson got Jie Jie (big sister) sweatshirts and a bunch of Bath and Bodyworks stuff while Devon got some much needed new jeans. Doug got some crocs that he was supposed to get BEFORE the cruise (whoops) and a concert ticket to see Gaelic Storm in April. I got...a new fridge, a new camera, and a Dunkin Donuts gift card. Ok, the new fridge we needed but the camera was a couldn't pass it up deal. I think everyone enjoyed their stuff. I know Keeghan spent a good part of the day yesterday hauling her doll around the house in the stroller. It also happened that we had an extra 4 kids in the house last night so Val and Craig could enjoy a night out and in exchange I'm going to try and leave the kids with Val tonight (after Keeghan is in bed of course) so Doug and I can go have dinner or dessert.

Mmmmmmm (Keeghan's word)

Here's what happens when you give an 18 month old her first taste of brownie batter off the beaters...

...it ends up with a bath!

Ugh

It seems we have the stomach flu...two girls down for sure. Possibly the third, but I'm not sure if the blowout diapers of the past few days are a result of something I'm feeding Keeghan (dairy perhaps) or this stomach thing. Carson barely made it in the door from school yesterday before she started puking and then Kennedy came home after basketball and puked. They aren't feeling so great this morning for sure but hopefully we're done throwing up. They both just ate something so we'll see...

Wordless Wednesday

A bunch of the blogs I read do wordless Wednesday...just pictures...

This bib was one of my favorite shower gifts.

Dogs...lying in wait!

ok...a few words

It's Been...

...2 months since you came to me, cocked your head to the side and started screaming, 8 weeks since we made it home saying "Get that together and please come and feed me!", 5 weeks since the crib is your bed, I realized we should have done that on day 1, Now-a-days you've forgiven me but it will still be months before you say you love me...

Ok, I'll stop the Barenaked Ladies "One Week" remake, more because I'll sit here for hours trying to be funny and I don't have that kind of time than because I want to. Seriously, it's been 2 months since Keeghan was handed to me (really??? only 2 months???). She is such an amazing clever little girl. If she's up in the morning when I'm in the shower and getting ready for the day she loves to pull the shower curtain open (and of course get all wet) to make sure I'm still there. Then, when I'm doing my hair and putting on makeup, Keeghan will pull out hair products or makeup brushes and "do" her hair and makeup. She already knows what the hair straighteners are for...though I'm pretty sure she'll never need those! It's so funny to watch her take stuff and mimic what I do with it. Since Doug and Devon were gone this past week I tried to make sure I talked about them alot and Keeghan was sure to point them out anytime we walked past a picture of them. I think we're starting to see more and more of her personality. She is starting to make her opinion known if something is not going her way or she want something. BUT she is also making great progress with language. She says tons of words...juice, cracker, Ba Ba, Ma Ma, ball, book, car, no, Ge Ge, Jie Jie, night night and there is other stuff she is saying that I'm SURE means something but I can't always tell what. She understands almost everything we say and will head for her room if you tell her it's time to go night, night or if she needs a diaper change. She makes the most amazing faces and is very expressive with them. Sometimes it's hard to believe she's been with me for two months and other times I feel like I've known her forever. She has certainly just fallen into place with our family and makes it that much more complete. Uh, oh...naptime is over!

Our visit to the plastic surgeon

I guess I never really posted about this. Keeghan's medical condition is very outwardly obvious. Her hand is very swollen, but honestly, we don't really notice it. It certainly doesn't stop her from doing ANYTHING and it doesn't cause her pain. Obviously, we're very thankful for this. Anyway, our pediatrician really had no clue what to do with her at all so he referred us to a pediatric plastic surgeon at Dartmouth. We went up there on January 26th. The Dr was great. He has a terrific bedside manner and didn't mind that all 6 of us piled into the room : ) He looked Keeghan over, measured her swelling, and had some pictures taken. Then he started talking about treatment/etc. He commented that there is a possibility her condition is vascular as opposed to lymphatic but we're all pretty sure it's lymphatic. He does want to do a MRI at some point to be sure it's lymphatic, but being as that requires an anesthetic we're going to wait. It won't change the course of treatment so it's not something that we need to do quickly. From there we were given the names of some people here in Nashua who can measure Keeghan for compression bandages and get us going with massage therapy. Basically, this condition is rare and no one can really tell us what will help, how much it will help, or how Keeghan's condition will progress. We are pretty confident that with proper management she will do well and possibly get to a point where she will not need compression bandages all the time. Only time will tell.

Day 3

edited to add: Keeghan just learned a new word..."no"...not good!

Wow, that's weird. It doesn't feel like the boys have been gone that long. I guess since we were busy Saturday I don't feel like that day counted. Anyway, Doug and Devon made it onto the cruise and got to play floor hockey with the Barenaked Ladies drummer (Tyler Stewart) yesterday so that was cool. We are now pretty much without communication as Doug's cell phone won't work on the ship and we aren't gonna pay a million dollars for a phone call that isn't an emergency. I'm not sure if Doug is checking e-mail...no big deal. The girls and I are doing well. Kennedy and Carson are huge helps with Keeghan. They gave her a bath tonight : ) It's tons of fun watching them interact together. Keeghan was thrilled to death when Carson got in the car after school today. She keeps asking for Devon (Ge Ge) and Doug (Ba Ba/Da Da)...I hope this week away doesn't push us too far back.

Keeghan and I hit the public library for storytime this morning. She wasn't so thrilled with sitting to listen to a story but had a fun time dancing and watching a puppet show. It was fun to see her so intent. She really likes to dance. I think the funniest part of it all though, was her growling at the fish tank. We keep identifying animals with their noises and her favorite noise is a growl...so the fish growled LOL. She played a bit "with" some other toddlers too. Then it was time to come home for lunch and a nap. I used naptime to get some housework and laundry done. Not having the boys around makes less messes for cleaning up...I'm sure they'll make up for it by bringing me home lots of laundry though!! I hope they're having fun...we miss them.

Pics from the past week

Keeghan giving a hug to Shoshi.
Just being cute : )

The dragon from the dragon dance...Keeghan LOVED watching the dragon and lion dance!

Keeghan was growling at the lion dance.

We got ribbons that the girls had a great time playing with...watch out for Keeghan with hers though...you need a 2 foot radius for safety!

Sisters : )

This is how we tried to eat lunch at the CAWLI Chinese New Year party...it's tough to feed a kid when you can't see their mouth!

Sisters...chatting on the phone. Keeghan loves the phone and the rocking chair...oh and her sister too.