When Kathryn was quite young, she named her pacifier a “nap.” This seemed quite appropriate to us, especially when she was a little older and only used her “nap” for naps. Occasionally, the dad would put Kathryn down for a nap without a nap, but immediately upon closing the door Kathryn would exclaim– NAP! I need a nap! And the nap would soon be helping her nap. But, like clockwork, as soon as Kathryn finished her nap, she would come out of the room and immediately hand her nap to one of her parents.

Well, as still somewhat naive parents, they started having nightmares of Kathryn going off to college and still needing a nap. Pictures of Sunday afternoons with Kathryn curled up on the couch taking a nap with a nap. What would her roommates say? So, as wise parents who wanted to spare her the potential humiliation of future teasing, and avoid the awkward calls from her college Bishop, they decided it was time to get rid of the “nap.”

For those of you who know Kathryn, you are well acquainted with her sense of “right.” In the right way, in the right order, at the right time. Often on the weekend, you can find Kathryn’s Dad taking advantage of this innate morale compass by getting Kathryn to do things the “wrong” way. He might be reading a book and skip a page. He might put Kathryn’s pants on backwards. He might call breakfast, bweckfwest. He might sit in Mommy’s chair for bweckfwest while wearing his pants on backwards. He might try and get Mommy to say the family prayer when it’s his turn. He might even “warp” to world 4-1 in Super Mario Bros without finishing World 1-2 (this one unfortunately caused a LOT of tears last night). Such things are clearly unacceptable to Kathryn who will quickly correct such actions or burst out in tears.

This father, recognizing an opportunity to further exploit this trait for perhaps some nap behavior shaping, casually mentioned one night that big girls don’t use naps. Mommy picked up on this cue and repeated the same thing. Well, that night when Kathryn was ready for bed, Mommy tried to give her the nap, and Kathryn flatly refused. Big girls do NOT use naps. Wouldn’t take it. Said good night and asked for the door to be closed.

They looked at each other, smiled, gave a quick high-five and talked about what brilliant parents they were.

The next day, they began to realize the extent of this change. Joyfully since that innocent suggestion was put in their little girl’s head, she has never used a nap. But, very unfortunately as a consequence of not “taking” a nap–she has never since taken a nap! Gone is the pesky habit and calm are the minds of the parents thinking of her future. Also, gone is the 2-hour respite from a 2-year old’s very active lifestyle. And, as a result of less sleep, the 2 year old is often very cranky by mid afternoon and through the evening.

After a couple weeks of no naps, the parents desperately tried to reintroduce Kathryn’s nap.  To regain that beautiful 2 hours of sanity each day.  She refused.  Even cried when she saw it, exclaiming big girls don’t use naps!

So, instead of a nap, Kathryn now gets an hour of “quiet time” where she can go to her room and read books, or play. Of course, this usually results in her coming out every few minutes to see if quiet time is over, or to go on the potty (which is quite humorous since at other times during the day they carry her kicking and screaming to the potty), get a drink of water, or any other sneaky excuse she can think of to get out of quiet time.  But. she’s starting to get the hang of this and may go 30 minutes of staying in her room.

One day, she had a special quiet time! Last Saturday, a couple of the ILP girls came over and Kathryn convinced the girls to have quiet time with her. They sat and played quietly and read books. Kathryn gave them all books to read. During part of this time, Kathryn read THEM a book. They captured the moment on video. Take a look at Kathryn reading the Grover Book.

Now, Amelia has never taken a pacifier, but instead has adopted Mommy’s silky pajamas as her “comfort object.”  The parents both agree even a big girl can have silk pajamas for as long as she likes…

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I had heard from several people about the Water Museum in Kyiv. It sounded like a place Kathryn might enjoy, so I arranged to go there with a Ukrainian sister from our branch.  Besides showing me where the museum was and helping with language barriers, she helped with the girls a lot. I was so hot, tired, and sweaty when we got home. Two girls and a stroller on the metro, and stairs is not ideal. I thought, if I only had one child this would be so much easier. But the next day I took Kathryn to enrichment with me and we had a “pee-pee’s coming” experience half way home on the metro which resulted in me carrying Kathryn and running a lot and I was much hotter, tireder, and sweatier than the previous day with 2 girls. Anyway…

At the Water Museum we were able to get a guide that spoke English and seeing that we had Kathryn and Amelia, she asked if we would like to just go to the kid area instead of the 40 minute tour. I said a resounding “yes!”.

So we spent the better part of an hour feeding/looking at/touching fish, and playing with bubbles. Kathryn had a splendid time. I had been telling her for a few days that we were going to a “special place”, so it was cute to hear her talk about the “special place”. Amelia was clingy because she was missing a nap, but some cheerios cheered her up towards the end.

I had been told about the largest toilet in Ukraine (or maybe the world, I’m not sure), so I was expecting something much larger than this:

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Kathryn loves her clothes. Before she was 18 months old, she had a favorite dress that she wanted tied around her waist over her other clothes. She definitely had a favorite outfit, which was the red jump suit she got for her 1st birthday from the Skidmores. Amelia won’t be getting that one for a hand-me-down.

When Grandma Harrison sent some spring clothes, Kathryn spent quite a bit of time playing with and sorting them. Here they are spread out on the bed – you can see she sorted like things together.  Kathryn immediately picked the Winnie the Pooh shirt-dress (as she calls it) and green pants as her favorite outfit. You can tell by the smile on her face, and by the fact that she wears it 4 times a week.

I kept some of those spring clothes, along with clothes given to us by some friends with girls older than Kathryn, in a separate drawer.  Kathryn realized it and then always wanted to dress herself in the “spring” clothes. This is what she picked one day. She was so excited about her choice that I didn’t have the heart to tell her a turtleneck isn’t really for spring, let alone that it wasn’t actually spring outside.  Kathryn is very good at getting dressed by herself, especially putting things on backwards.

From the “spring clothes” drawer Kathryn found a pair of “spring” pajamas. I’m not sure where she learned about spring, because I don’t think I had talked about spring yet. This was all going on during the snow. Anyway, she LOVES the spring pajamas, and I let her wear them if she wears pajama pants over the shorts part. Which she does, over her panties, which are over her diaper. Here she is modeling her spring pajamas and her wavy hair after wearing braids.

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Today is Kathryn’s half-birthday.  Before I had children, I really didn’t know anything about them.  I never would have known a 2 1/2 year old could do so many things.  We went outside today and I let Kathryn play at the park.  We came home once for her to go potty, then back outside for more play.  Some other kids came and shared their toys with Kathryn.  She enjoyed swinging this truck.  Last week Kathryn painted and had a great time painting faces and rainbows.  She is a great helper with Amelia.

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Monday morning we started officially potty training Kathryn.  Gone were her diapers (except for sleeping).  I went with her a few weeks ago to buy some panties.  She was very excited about them, though.

Potty training is something I have been dreading since before Kathryn was born.  I just had no idea how to do it and was really afraid of accidents.  So I asked someone in our branch that has a daughter one year older than Kathryn.  She recommended a book, “Potty Training made Easy, Fast, & Simple”, by Johanne Cesar.  It sounded reasonable to us (since I had no idea what to do), and was also similar to what Andrea had told me, so we decided to try it.

We set a timer and when it went off, we took Kathryn to the potty.  Darryl put the Veggietales theme song chorus as the timer music.  Monday I set the timer for 10 minute increments, Tuesday 20-30 minutes, by Friday I didn’t use the timer, but just took her once an hour.  For Kathryn this worked well, because the first day she was going quite a bit – a little at a time.  But Friday just going once an hour she didn’t have any accidents.  We obviously still have a long way to go.  She hasn’t yet told us that she needs to go.  We just take her and she goes.  But I do feel encouraged.

It is interesting to see how all children are different.  From what we have heard and read, incentives can play a big part in potty training.  The first day we started giving Kathryn stickers when she actually went on the potty.  By the end of the day she didn’t care about stickers.  Then we moved to candy.  By the end of Wednesday that didn’t mean anything, either.  So we really aren’t using anything as incentive. 

I’m looking forward to not using/buying so many diapers.  Of course, she went through 4 diapers during one of her naps this week.  She kept getting up and wanting to use the potty right after wetting in her diaper.  But Kathryn isn’t ready to go nap-less.  And neither am I.

So we’ll just keep taking her to the potty regularly and asking if she needs to go.  We welcome tips from anyone!

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Darryl got home from work about 8pm on Valentine’s Day.  He called to see if Kathryn was still up (which she was).  He walked in with a red heart balloon for her.  From the way she squealed and ran around with the balloon, he concluded it had been a good idea!  Darryl and I had already planned to go out to dinner Saturday night (but he also brought tulips and a chocolate candy bar for me.)  Later that evening Amelia took her first steps!  She took 2 and 3 steps, and has done so a few times each day since.  She was 2 days shy of being 9 months old. 

Saturday we had a couple of the ILP teachers come over to babysit.  Darryl had made a reservation at a restaurant recommended by one of the partners at KPMG.  He ended up eating there twice during the week for work things, before we went there!  So by then he could recommend it himself.

It is a French restaurant, very small (about the size of our living room), and is on Andrievskiy Sputsk, a very old street lined with souvenir vendors.  That street alone is on my list of places to go to in Kyiv.  I’m always glad Darryl speaks Russian, but the woman offered us English menus which was nice.  The partner that recommended the place mentioned that one reason it is so nice is there are no TVs in the restaurant.  Even Mcdonalds has 3 or 4 big TVs.  The only thing I would change is the smoking.  By the time we left it was getting to me, and when we got home my sweater was extremely smokey. 

While we were still discussing the menu, I saw the server bring out someone else’s food.  To me it looked like raw meat shaped into a hamburger (without bun), but with a raw egg on top.  I thought surely this was on its way to some oven at the other side of the restaurant.  Not so. 

We shared a salad – pretty much a novelty because lettuce is very expensive and bag salads are non-existent.  It was delicious and included duck meat.  I have to say I really like duck – I had it a few times in China.  I got a steak shashlik (shish-kabob) which was very tasty, and homemade puree (which is mashed potatoes).  We also had carpaccio as an appetizer.  It was quite tasty – especially when we sprinkled it with lemon juice.  The whole meal was very delicious, and just as nice was not having to feed Amelia, jump up for something for Kathryn, wipe up the spills, and especially do the dishes (by hand).

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On Saturday we went to the circus!  We had tickets for Darryl and I to take Kathryn to the circus.  However, Amelia has been sick and was still not well enough to be left with a babysitter.  After much discussion and persuasion, I was off to the circus with Kathryn.  I was able to find it fine, the travel was fine, and I enjoyed the show very much, so thank you Darryl for making me actually leave the house!   Some nice people at various times helped me get the stroller up and down stairs and escalators.  I actually understood them asking me if I needed help.  We changed lines on the metro, and made the 10-15 minute walk to the circus from the metro stop. 

We got to the circus and I immediately saw that we could/should check our coats.  I was hoping we could also leave our stroller there.  The first two places I approached, the lady started talking and pointing and so I kept going until someone took the stroller and our coats.  Then I had no idea how to find our seats, but we walked in and had an usher help us. 

We had been telling Kathryn all week that we would see elephants and lions and bears at the circus.  We got there and it was more like an ice skating show at the beginning.  They did circus-y type of things, but on ice skates!  I thought it was great.  I didn’t get a picture, but they had cats (like house cats) doing tricks.  The best one was doing a cat doing parallel bars like on gymnastics.  Not a gymnastics routine, but using its front two legs to go across.  It was fun to watch, but at intermisison Kathryn asked, “Where are the animals?” 

Finally out came some polar bears!  They were so huge, and looked so cuddly. 

I wondered if Kathryn would be able to sit and watch a two hour show.  She did like to climb on and off her chair, but I was very impressed that she was watching most of the time.  In fact, I liked watching her just as much as I liked watching the performers!  She was so cute, clapping and dancing to the music sometimes. 

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Kathryn has all but mastered using the mouse on the computer!  A few days ago she wanted to try, and I was amazed at how well she did.  She likes to play games at pbskids.org.  She spent quite awhile today figuring out how to make the teletubbies dance. 

She loves building, but also loves organizing.  She likes to put the blocks she calls “moons” together, and the blocks she calls “tables” together.  The “moons” fit into the “tables” and she always has like colors together.  Sometimes she puts the triangles on the rectangles, arranged together by color.

She likes to have a pretend picnic with her play food.  She cooks soup or fruit salad and gives everyone a serving, and we eat it on a blanket.  Amelia is usually not invited.

She loves to sing and can remember the words to many songs.  She has told me her favorites are “We could be the heroes” (SUV Song) from Silly Songs with Larry, and “Domn, Domn, s-analtam”, a Romanian Christmas carol! 

She likes to get dressed by herself.  Well, let’s say she likes to put her clothes on by herself.  She doesn’t really like to get dressed.  She also likes to wear dresses.  We’re very lucky to have received some dresses from the 2 other families in our branch that have girls a little older than Kathryn. 

Kathryn loves peanut butter sandwiches.  She has this for a “snack” at lunchtime, while Amelia and I have lunch.  Then right before her nap, she claims that she needs “lunch”.  Kathryn also loves milk!  I am so glad she is a milk drinker.

Kathryn also loves nursery!  Sometimes we go to pick her up and she asks to stay for a few more minutes. 

And just for kicks, here are a couple pictures of me.

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I often call my girls Miss Kathryn and Miss Amelia (or Little Miss for Amelia).  Recently I started calling them missies.  I say, “come on missies” if we are going somewhere, etc.  Kathryn loves to play in her room (she calls it her store) and the other day she went in there and then said, “come on missies” to Amelia and me!

Here are some pictures, because I want to make sure I am following the “family rules” of average one picture per blog.

Kathryn likes to be inside things, as you can see.  The middle picture is under her bed, and the last one is our cupboard for toys.  I don’t know if you can that she is smiling, but looking at her book and not the camera.

Amelia, Kathryn, Kyiv Adventures | 3 Comments »