Here and There

a. swiffering in her underwear, with a chihuahua audience b. sick baby c. painting her way d. purple fingers e. nakey sandbox time f. gathering the garden troops

Smell

I find that smell is often the most underrated of our five senses.  We see, we hear, we touch, we taste, and, oh yeah, we smell.  With food, oh that sure smells good, but we really don't appreciate the food until we taste it.  With flowers, they may smell good, but we usually don't sit around smelling them all day, we put them in a special place where we can see them.

I can tell where Kylie has been by the way she smells.  Most people look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that, but it's true.  I know she has been with my husband because she will smell like his deodorant which she loves to put on and will have a faint scent of his cologne if they went out anywhere.  Kylie smells like Banana Boat sunscreen when she's been spending time with my dad, who wears the stuff religiously.  She's been doing doing crafts and will smell of tempera paint.  What my husband has cooked that night for dinner.

Sometimes it's much subtler.  How certain houses will have certain smells.  I won't be able to pinpoint an individual one, but am able to recognize the source.  My sister in laws' house.  Day care.

As I've gotten older I've started to realize how much I associate certain memories with smells.  The smell of DEET bug spray always reminds me of the summers I spent as a kid at my grandparent's cabin in Northern Idaho.  Picking daisies in the front field, searching for wild strawberries among the ferns in the forest in the back.  Feeding the neighbor's horses carrots and then walking down the road to swim in the Pack River.

Spending the week before school started at my grandparents' house in San Fernando Valley.  The smell of my grandma's walk in pantry, of the mulberry tree in their back yard.  The smell of dust and books in the small library that we would walk down the back alley to.

How my husband smells after coming home from a long night of work.  Slightly of sweat, Monster Absolute Zero, diesel fuel, and grease.  How Kylie smells of Burt's Bees and Tide when I put her to bed with her freshly washed hair and jammies warm from the dryer. 

I love how these smells can comfort me and ultimately take me back to a place in time when no photographs are to be seen.

I Have a Two Year Old

 

 

 

I was always scared of the toddler years.  People relished in telling me their horror stories of public meltdowns, potty training accidents, and general impossibleness (I know that's not a real word, but I like it). I was sure that the time Kylie turned two she would grow two heads and go all crazy on me. 

It's not true, y'all.  Well, yes, we have had some temper tantrums in the grocery store when there were no race car carts left, the time she pooped in the bath tub instead of the toilet, and times when she refuses to eat anything but plain white bread and strawberries, but we are not only surviving it, we are enjoying it.  It's not as bad as we thought.

I've found that I love her being two.  Ky's so much more independent now, and learns so quickly.  It's absolutely amazing how fast she picks up on new things.  Yesterday, she "read" Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? to one of her baby dolls.  I mean, obviously she doesn't actually read the words yet, but she knew all of the animals and their colors and asked each one what they saw.  And when she got to the page with the teacher on it, she said, "Mama, you teacher!" (I'm a teacher at the daycare she attends).  I mean, how neat is that?

Ky has turned into quite the little helper.  She gets mad if I don't let her help carry in groceries, and always makes me give her at least two bags.  She will walk one of the dogs for me when I take them outside to go potty.  Doing the dishes is her favorite inside chore, and she also helps me weed and water our little, fall garden.  

She sings to herself all the time.  When she plays with her toys, in the car, reading books, taking baths, at chapel time at daycare.  She loves the B-I-B-L-E song, the Little White Box, Jesus Loves Me, Five Little Monkeys, and the Raindrop and Snowflake songs. 

Perhaps the scariest part of the toddler hood is potty training.  There are so many options, and so much different advice we got from everyone.  While we were living with my sister in law Kylie was in pull ups and she might go potty once or twice a day.  When we moved into our house in July, I started using her cloth diapers again since now we were able to wash them with hot water.  She slowly started to go potty more and more until the last week or so she would stay dry all day or maybe have one accident.  Over this past weekend she did great, on Saturday we did a bunch of running around and she stayed dry the whole time.  So today is her first day completely in her big girl underwear.  So scary but so great at the same time!  I'll have to write another post just about how we potty trained.

Ky still adores her baby cousin, Kaid, who is six weeks old now.  She is super protective of him and doesn't like anyone she doesn't know well to be near him.  She helps with diaper changes and loves sitting next to him in the car.  The only time she seems to get jealous of him is later in the evening and I'm holding him when he is crying, then she wants to be held too. 

So I'm enjoying the terrible two's so far.  I know as she gets older Kylie will only get more and more opinionated, but I am in awe of all that she does and how she thinks.