Shannon

The elephant photos of Kelly made me get a little nostalgic for back when I used to include monthly updates about Shannon's latest milestones. So this post is dedicated to the original Baby McGee and what she's like these days.

She is a toddler in the truest sense. From 6:00 am when we hear "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Mommy, Daddy" at her door to her goodnight kiss, she is a busy, busy girl.

Right now she's on "sibling leave" from daycare and spending those busy days with Mom at home. We bounce around the house; watching Elmo on the couch (so Mom can get that last hour of sleep while Kelly is still snoozing), making breakfast in the kitchen (smoothies are our favorite), toys in the family room, markers or stickers on the big dining room table, playing babies in Kelly's room, dress-up in Shannon's room, tummy time up in the attic, coloring at her little table, doing laundry in the basement. Factor in feeding Kelly every few hours and you see how the day flies by!

Shannon's getting good at colors, counting, & shapes Up until last week, everything was "lello" but now she's correctly identifying blue and green and pink. She can almost count to ten by herself, although she's got something against seven and usually ends at nine. She's just starting to get the whole ABC's idea; when we ask her about letters she says "abby seedy"

She's got some obsessions.
Pizza: Ask her what she wants to eat and this is always her answer. And she seems to think that Daddy does at work all day because we had his team over for a pizza lunch while Chris was home when Kelly was first born. At least once a day we have this conversation, "Daddy, bye-bye, Daddy, work, bye-bye, work, pizza?"

Elmo: Total Sesame Street junkie now. About 15 seconds after we get her out of her room in the morning, she's asking to go watch the red guy. Cookie Monster runs a close second, but Elmo is her man.

Andy: Her little buddy who lives across the street. He's a regular on her "checklist of where people are" list. Mommy? Home. Daddy? Work. Andy? School. We're excited the weather is warming up so that we can spend more time playing outside with Andy.

Butt-butt: I'm not sure how this became our name for diaper cream, but Miss Obsessive Compulsive insists on having some applied at every diaper change. If you forget, she'll exclaim "bu-butt," take her diaper off and then do her head-shaking, hand-to-the-forehead-bonking "Oh, Mommy" sigh and grin as you correctly change her. Sometimes I feel like I'm not so much the one in charge!

Knives: Before you go calling Health and Human Services, it's just an obsession with the concept of knives, not the start of a collection or anything! For some reason, Shannon is fascinated with knives, scissors and all things sharp and dangerous right now. Anytime she sees one, she points it out. And recently she pointed to a picture of an apple in a book and said knife. Come to think of it, she always points to the fireplace in Goodnight Moon, puts her hand over it and says hot. Maybe I need to tone down the safety lessons!

And look who learned how to put her own coat on with an over the head flip! I love it when she does is wrong and ends up with a tail!

Return of the Elephant

Remember this guy? He's baaaaaaack!

Here is a photo of Kelly at one month. I forgot to snap these photos when she was a true newbie and as you can see, she's changed a lot already! We had her one month doctor's appointment last week and Kelly tipped the scales at 10 pounds, 10 ounces and measured 23 inches. And, we were happy learn that her collarbone is healing up quite nicely.

She on the verge of smiling and just started bringing her hands together. She's sleeping well (we've had a six hour night once!) thanks to Daddy's efforts to keep her awake in the early evening. And she's holding her head up well thanks to the expert training she's getting from Shannon who serves as her personal trainer during tummy time.

Love you Kelly Belly!

Grandparents

Our girls have four amazing grandparents. In the blur that the last few weeks have been, we've had the chance to see them all.

Grandma came over to watch Shannon on the night Mommy went into labor. She met Kelly at the hospital.

Grammy was next. She came in from Cleveland a few days after we got home and spent the weekend with us.

Then Grandpa met Kelly. He wasn't feeling well when she was first born so waited until he was feeling better before meeting his eleventh grandchild.

And completing the grandparent visits was Grandpa Joe/Gramps/"Pop pop" (in Shannonspeak) the next weekend. We were glad he was able to come since he missed out on coming with Grammy because of work.

Think they are the just the teeniest bit delighted by these girls? :)

Sisters

From the very first time she saw Kelly at the hospital, Shannon has been so excited about her baby sister. We had planned to let Shannon come snuggle with Mommy for a little while before getting Kelly out of her little hospital crib, but Shannon had other ideas. As soon as she noticed Kelly, she was wriggling out of the bed and racing over to see Kelly, saying "Baby! Baby!"

Shannon has stayed just as enthusiastic about Kelly as time goes on. The first few days at home, Shannon was the hat police. If Kelly wasn't wearing a little infant hat, Shannon would obsessively say "hat, hat" and go find one for us to put on. Gotta keep that little head warm!

Shannon is great at helping out. She's quick to point out that Kelly is "pee yew" whenever she wakes up and will rifle though the stack of diapers until she finds the one that Kelly should wear. We've been using diapers which have Sesame Street characters on them, so most of the time Shanon is looking for Elmo or Cookie. (We've also mastered the slight of hand technique needed to convince Shannon that she too is wearing an Elmo diaper on the times that she brings us a newborn sized diaper for her own diaper changes!)

Entertaining Shannon while nursing Kelly with nobody else around is going better than I had anticipated. Granted, whatever room we're in ends up looking like a tornado came through it, but we haven't had any major meltdowns or trouble-making. (Yet... I've spent enough time with toddlers to know that I should add "yet" to that sentence.)

Shannon melts my heart a million times a day when she wanders over to Kelly and gives her a little kiss or pat on the back, just because.

Love you, sweet girls!