no longer a preemie

Since McKenna was born three months early, we've had to take her back to St. Luke's every three to six months for developmental check ups. The appointments are to assess her development (i.e. cognitive skills, motor skills, social skills, etc.) against kids her age who were born full term. As you can imagine, her development was delayed at first. Today, we learned that she has not only caught up to kids her age, but that she is advanced for a 21-month old.

As parents of course we think that McKenna is smart, but in the nurses' words she is "amazing" and "brillliant". They said that McKenna has the vocabulary of a 2-1/2 year old. She also impressed them by stacking six blocks versus the two a child her age should be able to stack and by naming a dozen or more body parts compared to the six a child her age should know. All of this was exceptional since her appointment was smack in the middle of her nap time... she didn't even have her game face on!! :)

Seriously, we are so proud of how far McKenna has come. We are thrilled to receive confirmation that she is doing so well after such a rough start.

holiday fun

dancing queen, part deux

conflict of emotions

McKenna thinks that Santa Claus is REALLY cool from afar...



but don't let him get too close.

tummy time, tummy time, tum- tum- tummy time

This is a little evidence of the miracle work our daycare provider, Jessie, is able to achieve. Rhett wasn't holding his head up this well when I started back to work, just one week ago.

will the real rhett cooper please stand up

I don't know how long this will last, but McKenna loves books!! So much so that she took off after breakfast to read to her bear, Rhett. She's also been caught giving "Rhett" a binkie, changing his diaper, and tucking him in for bed. She takes pretty good care of him and the real Rhett too.

it's my potty, and I'll poop if I want to

Okay... I never thought I would EVER get so excited about somebody pooping, but we had a monumental moment today. McKenna pooped in the potty!! We weren't really ready to start potty training yet. We bought her a potty, but that was the extent of it. We figured we would wait until after the holidays to start training. I guess McKenna decided she was ready because today she told us that she had to poo poo. What?! Really?! Okay, we'll give this a try. So we sat her on the potty and waited. I won't go into further detail. Let's just say that I got so excited that I had to take pictures of her sitting on the potty. I'd post them (they're clean), but she'd kill me someday. Yipee! Maybe before long we'll only have one child in diapers.

old mcdonald had a farm

McKenna is so proud of all the animal sounds she knows. Okay, okay... maybe it's more me being proud than anything else. I forgot to ask her my favorite one: what a monkey says. Oh well... this is still cute.

future little leaguer

happy holidays

Today marked the official start of the holiday season for us. We went to the Fed for the Children's Holiday party. Whoever organized this event did such a great job!! Several craft tables were set up for the kids, someone made balloon animals, and, yes, even Santa paid a visit. McKenna had a lot of fun making (and eating) the crafts. Although Rhett slept through the first part of the party, he woke up at the end and was all smiles. We had a lot of fun.

no more sleepy mornings

I went back to work today. It was sad to leave Rhett, but I know that he will quickly adjust to daycare. Before long he'll be having as much fun there as McKenna has. Fortunately, he has his big sister to look after him. Jessie said that McKenna does her own thing for the most part, but periodically checks on Rhett to make sure that he's OK.

I never want to forget the time that Rhett and I were able to spend together. One of my favorite parts of the day was our morning naps. Shortly after his bottle, he would fall asleep in our bed. His little face was so sweet that I would just lay there and stare at him... praying that I would never forget that peaceful look. It was never long before I was asleep too.