Kindergarten Ready

I took Kylie to her kindergarten testing appointment on Wednesday with her new teacher, Mr. Plott. She got to see her classroom, the seat where she would be sitting, and where she would hang up her backpack. I filled out a ton of paperwork while Kylie tested with Mr. Plott, who does not look like your typical kindergarten teacher, by the way. He's tall, kind of barrel-y, and has a pony tail! I have to admit I was a little nervous about this guy, but he seems to be really nice and I've heard a lot of really good things about him.
Anyway, he was really impressed with her reading skills. He mentioned that she reads with good voice inflection, and not in the monotone of younger, just-starting-to-read readers. He said she was confident, smart, silly, happy, and laid-back. (All character traits she inherited from her mother. He-he. Okay, she probably got the silliness gene from her father.) He also said that he asked her what her favorite book was and she told him that she didn't know because there were too many that she liked. Does that not just tell you that she loves to read and that she reads a lot?! She'll be put into an advanced reading group with some other kids who are reading as well. I was so glad to hear this, because I didn't want her to be bored while the rest of the class was learning the letters and their sounds.
She is so excited to finally be able to go to school next week. However, seeing her excitement makes me feel a little sad...My little girl is growing up, stepping out of my secure, little nest into the big, sometimes scary, world. It makes me proud, too, to see that we've prepared her to where she wants to try something new and is not afraid to do it. I'm so glad she's got a good start in reading. I hope she can be successful in everything else, too.
Here we go, Kylie!

New Haircut!

Kylie wanted to get her haircut yesterday, so we did. She really wanted to have bangs again, so I let her. She looks so cute. It's so easy to manage. I really don't have to do anything with it because it stays out of her face. I'm wondering if her hair is even long enough for the flower barretts I just made. We'll have to try them out and see. Here is a before picture:And after:And here's silly Cooper (who needs another haircut, by the way):

The Dairy Man

There are only a handful of things I can get Cooper to eat. He loves bananas, but he won't eat them cut up; it has to be whole with the peel peeled halfway down. He'll bring it to me when he's ready for the peel to be peeled down some more. It's so cute and funny to see how he prefers to have certain things done, or he gets very upset with me! Sometimes I like to NOT do things the way he likes because his temper tantrums are so cute! He'll storm away to the nearest wall and smack both of his hands on it and then look at me with his "mad" face to make sure that I know that he's mad. I need to try to get it on tape and post it on here.
Anyway, the purpose of this post was to highlight Cooper's finicky eating habits. I know that I've blogged about his eating habits before and I keep doing so because I'm so confused at why he's such a picky kid. It bothers me that he was well in, and even over, the 50th percentile for height and weight in the first 6 months of his life and now he's in the 10th percentile for both. And I know it's because he does not eat enough food!
So, here's some of Cooper's fussy eating habits: He really doesn't like picking up his food with his fingers. He prefers that it's stuck on a fork or a spoon; I usually stick the food on there for him and he takes the fork from me, puts it in his mouth upside down, and then hands it back to me and we do it all over again. When I do put food on his plate for him to eat with his hands, he plays with it like it's finger paint and not a single bit of it goes into his mouth! What a stinker! He doesn't eat vegetables or meat and I can only get him to eat a few fruits. But, thank goodness, he loves anything dairy! Eggs, milk, cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, and ice cream! (I guess he's getting his protein, right?)

4th of July

I'm sure some of you are dying to hear about our fun, exciting 4th of July...how about our disappointing, sad, depressing 4th of July? Yup, Kylie and Cooper both came down with the nasty flu on Wednesday. I spent both Wednesday and Thursday trying to get Cooper to throw up in either the sink, toilet, or barf bucket, cleaning up puke, doing laundry, and trying to get some sleep. (I worked both Tuesday and Wednesday nights). By Friday, Cooper had been having 3 days of raging fevers, so I finally took him in to our pediatrician who happens to belong to a clinic that has holiday hours. (How awesome is that?!) It turned out that he'd also been battling an ear infection. He had lost 5% of his weight, and the doctor said that if he lost 5% more, then he would be getting IV fluids. Poor kid! He was miserable. For the rest of Friday and Saturday, I really thought he'd end up getting IVF because he had absolutely no appetite, threw up just about everything he tried to drink, and had only two wet diapers where his urine was practically orange because it was so concentrated. Kylie was semi-better on Friday; she wasn't throwing up, but she told us about 50 times that her tummy hurt.
Anyway, for the 4th, we hung around at home: Scott and I had BBQ burgers for dinner; we played some soccer in the front yard, and set off a few cheap, lame-o fireworks. We were able to watch 4 different firework shows going on in the valley from our sidewalk, which was okay, I guess. I really like to watch fireworks up close. I was sooooo bummed. I had been planning an awesome 4th of July BBQ dinner and I had planned on taking the kids to a carnival, the parade, the pool, and the Riverton fireworks show, and I didn't get to do ANY of it. I felt like crying so many times. Scott could see my disappointment, so he PROMISED me that I would get to watch a fireworks show up close on the 24th of July. We'll see, though; there had better not be any sick kids!
Illness update: After a few days of complaining of a upset stomach, Kylie has made a full recovery and is eating very well. She is thoroughly enjoying the watermelon she wasn't able to enjoy last week.
After 5 days of Amoxicillin, Cooper finally perked up on Tuesday. He was back to his happy, busy, old self again. It had been pretty depressing watching him sleep so much and thinking about how miserable he probably felt. He wanted to be held almost constantly, which I gladly did. But, now I'm glad he's running around the house, making messes, and getting into mischief. (See below.)
Here are some pictures of us playing soccer outside. Sadly, these are the only pictures of our 4th of July I got. I was too tired and bummed out to get into the picture-taking thing.Kylie is a natural. She can dribble a soccer ball better than I can!We were playing one-on-one with Kylie and I playing on the same team. At one point, when it was me playing against Scott, Kylie got frustrated with my soccer-playing skills and my inability to score a goal, so she yelled out, "Come on Mommy, you runned a marathon!" Ha-ha! We had to stop playing and laugh.