All About KENNA

Today Kenna is 14 months old, so it's appropriate that we put the spotlight on her.

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Crawling is becoming a distant pastime, as Kenna is walking all over the place. In fact, she moved up to the walkers classroom at church today, leaving behind some nursery workers in Babyland who were very sad to see her go, I'm sure! However, along with her walking skills we need to encourage some shoe-wearing skills. We haven't forced shoes on her because 1) she didn't really need them and 2) she wouldn't have kept them on anyway. (She also doesn't care for socks.) But now that she is officially a Walker, it's time to get her used to wearing shoes. We tried 2 different pairs on this morning and went with a Nike pair (hand-me-downs) that velcroed all the way around the back, making it easy to slip her little foot inside and then secure it. It was not secure enough to escape Kenna's shoe-stripping attempts, but at least she managed to keep the shoes on long enough to get to church.

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Currently Kenna has one baby sign which she does very well. It's the sign for "more," but it pretty much means, "Give me that food right now" whether or not she has already had a portion of said food. She knows what she wants, and she helps us know, too, by pushing our hand away if we are offering her something she doesn't want. She's like a little queen rejecting anything that isn't worthy of her time and attention! Thankfully she's a pretty good eater.

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Favorite foods these days include bananas, strawberries, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, and scrambled eggs. Of course, anything on our plate is always much better than what is on her plate.

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The newest hobby is switching lights or fans on and off. We have a set of switches within her reach, but she can really only turn them OFF, though she can almost turn them ON if she's on her tippy toes. So she strains and grunts and stretches, then fusses until Big Sister comes and turns the family room light and fan on for her, and then she happily turns them off and the process starts all over again. She enjoys "helping" us flip the switches when we go in and out of rooms. I remember doing this with the other kids--how time flies!

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Kenna's tummy and back are very ticklish, and we love hearing her howl with laughter when we're tickling her. She's also getting into the "where's your [insert body party here]" game. She particularly likes to show us her belly button, and she'll happily show you YOUR belly button, whether or not you're interested in allowing the world to view it. She can also pat her head and tummy, and we're working on facial parts. She can locate other people's noses quite handily and likes the reaction she gets when she pinches them hard, but she isn't as amused when we tweak her own nose!

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Kenna's schedule these days usually includes a morning and an afternoon nap that are around 1 1/2 to 2 hours, though there are times when she only takes one long nap. I suspect that before too long we'll be dropping the morning nap, and that should make our school schedule interesting. We'll probably work on math and individual language arts activities in the mornings, when the kids can work somewhat on their own, and do our Sonlight reading in the afternoons when Kenna is napping. I won't worry about changing anything yet--we still have 2 weeks on our old Sonlight schedule before we're ready for the new, and we have a trip to Idaho to plan as well. So hopefully by the time we're ready to gear up and get back into the swing of things we'll have a better feel for what our days might look like.

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Overall, Kenna is a happy, healthy girl! At her one-year check-up (which occurred when she was 13 1/2 months old) she weighed in at 21 pounds, 7 ounces, but I can't remember how tall she was. (I was stressing out over having all 4 kids in a very small exam room while the doctor came in and out, apparently not knowing what to do for a well-baby check up. Why can't we just stay at the pediatric clinic, for crying out loud?!)

We still call Kenna a baby, but I can already tell her independent streak is going to propel her to the next stage long before I'm ready for her to leave babyhood.