More stuff.

I guess Makena misses Halloween (or is just all girl and loves to play dress up/pretend) because the other day, I was sitting in the living room and she brought her tutu to me, and then giggled and RAN as fast as she could to her room laughing all the way and then brought me her monkey costume. I asked her if she wanted to put it on, and the answer was an overwhelming YES, through giggles and climbing in my lap as fast as possible. She was so proud of her outfit...and she happened to put it on right before her daddy walked through the door from work to see her. When she heard the garage door go up, she ran to greet Luke with a cute, silly smile!

Notice the bottle of suppositories she's holding in the pic below? There's a story... one night, Makena woke up at about 12 am screaming bloody murder. She NEVER wakes up, especially with this scream, so it freaked me out. I went into her room, found her paci, and tucked her back in. This normally works, but not this night...the screaming continued. I was going to let her cry for 5 minutes to see if she'd put herself back to sleep, but to no avail....it worsened. As I was lying there...I remembered that 2 days prior to this Makena was playing with the tv remote control. (She has a new fascination and loves to take it apart and put it back together). The remote holds 2 AA batteries. This particular day, I could only find ONE battery, but not to worry...a "AA" battery is too big to swallow, right? I told myself the other one would turn up (b/c it normally always does). Of COURSE, my mind reminds me of this incident through the bloody murder cries, so I tell Luke HOPING that he'd calm my brain down and tell me there was no possible way she would've swallowed a AA battery. My hopes faded quickly when Luke said "What the HECK Raschel?! (only he didn't say heck), why would you tell me that?! she could DIE!!!!!!!" So much for calming MY nerves. We BOTH got up out of bed and start looking for the battery that's disappeared...I told him I'd already looked for a long time a couple of days ago and was pretty sure Makena had carried it off somewhere, and it was going to be REALLY hard to find. Luke detoured to the computer and looked up "swallowing a AA battery". Obviously it IS possible and, yes, death could result (as a matter of fact, that NIGHT on the news was a story about a 3 year old that swallowed a battery that had corroded and the child had died (though I'm pretty sure that was a tiny watch battery)...but all I was thinking was, "was that story a sign"? None-the-less, we were freaking. We turned our living room upside down, all while Makena was still in her room FREAKING, which I'm sure made the searching that much more frantic. Finally, Luke tells me to go into Makena's room to try to console her (but she was basically inconsolable at this point) while he turned HER room upside down (literally, you should've seen the mess he created that I had to pick up the next day....but at that point I could've cared less). We were both about ready to take Makena to the ER. I decided to lay her down one more time (even though the SECOND I did, she woke up again and started SCREAMING a painful scream) ...and I came BACK out to the living room to dig through Makena's tiny toy box. Do you know what I found when I pulled that tiny toy box out from it's 'spot'? A "AA" battery hiding BEHIND it. The end.

Except, it doesn't end there....I finally realize the poor girl is constipated and is crying in pain. I tried everything I knew to do non-medicine wise...The next day she woke up from a nap SCREAMING in pain AGAIN. And this time it was so scary that it made ME (almost) cry, so, fighting back tears, I called the Dr's office and made an appointment through Makena's wails. Ten minutes after I got off the phone with them....? She pooped. Mind you, it was a cute little constipated rabbit turd poop, but it made her tummy feel good enough that crying wasn't an issue anymore. So, I called and cancelled the appointment and spoke to a nurse instead and she recommended this little beauty of a suppository if she needed it again. They work wonders. Producing poo 2 minutes after she'd been given it. I love them. And now, b/c she still is having clogging issues...she's trying Miralax once a day. Poor poopy girl.

One day, out of the blue, my sweet Luke showed up with these pretty flowers and a sweet, SWEET card (my favorite part) that he took time to write in....a treasure that I'll save forever. I love out of the blue "I love you" cards....they're so much better than a forced holiday (such as Valentine's Day...a day of which I REFUSE to go eat at a restaurant b/c they all majorly up price their menu's for sub par food). Anyway baby, I LOVED it. Please don't let it be the last. It was special. Thank you!

Speaking of the silly smile (mentioned withe the monkey costume)...Makena's learned how to "smile" on cue, only it turns out looking like this (but I still love it and laugh every time she scrunches her eyes and nose):

Again:

I also wanted to document this special day...i took Makena to McDonalds where she got her very FIRST happy meal EVER (hamburger with fries and apple juice). She got a cute chipmunk toy that says "It's so BEAUTIFUL" and she LOVES to make it talk. She ate at the table like a big girl and was excited about the new experience. (I was incredibly nervous b/c I was there alone, and had to get ketchup out of the dispenser while trusting she'd follow behind me, and I let her sit at the table without a highchair because I didn't want to have to find one and carry it along with us, but it turned out to be really fun). One of her OTHER new favorite things to do is to dip her food into things (like ketchup). I think it makes her feel like a big girl. I love this big girl.

Makena is also "mommy's little helper". She LOVES to help clean. (Please Lord, let this fascination last WELL into her teen years...). :) But seriously, she practically takes my cleaning instruments out of my hand to help out.

This particular day we were dusting the blinds (and of course her hair is a mess, the priority this day was to clean, then bathe):

Helping vacuum the living room tile is hard work, but at least I have a helper (that might or might not make it take 3 times longer..but when she looks as sweet as this, I can't resist):

Sometimes she even tries to help do laundry...(this is her baby doll's outfit in the dog water bowl...of which i forced them to drink around it for a while b/c it was funny to see the dogs freak out when they'd stick their noses in for drink only to get scared by the visitor and jump away, and then come back for more...torture? no. I call it entertainment.)

One day, while making breakfast, I tried to keep Makena occupied with something so she wouldn't run under the splattering/popping bacon. She'd never been interested in drawing before, but when I gave her a pencil and taped the paper to the ground, she got excited. Probably because she couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting mad at her for drawing on the tile also (which kind of became a game), but it was pencil and it pretty much wipes right up. It was cute to watch her maneuver her hands to try to figure out which end would write. Don't mind the snot dripping out of her nose...we were dealing with allergies this day also (at least her hair is pulled out of her eyes).

I love you K-Leigh! you're growing TOO, TOO FAST!!