Honea Traveling, Trials and Triumphs : Karis Turned One...6 months ago

Back in January, my little girl turned one. I had high hopes of filling in her "what you were like at exactly age 1" type of blog post. Alas, the ministry wife life is rather busy, and John and I shared the laptop at night, so sermon prep was more important than blogging, and my days were full of child-rearing type stuff.

For your first birthday, both of your sweet nanas came to visit and shower you with affection and presents and cake. You loved it all. We had a fun quiet evening at home, so I'm sorry you didn't get a massive party, but I don't think you cared. I wore my sweatshirt from Granny Em going to the Grand Canyon, to kind of feel like she was there in some way. Your Granny Em, the one you get your Emily middle name from, she would have thought you were funny. It was a good weekend. Then a good friend of ours at church, Valerie Griffin, took some pictures of our family on Sunday to document your big "First Birthday."

As for your personality 6 months ago, it was the same as now, but less expressive. So, Karis, this is exactly what you are like at 18 months old, before I forget again, because I love you so much more than I ever could have imagined!

You are the most affectionate little baby girl toddler I have ever seen. The nursery workers frequently tell of you kissing and hugging other babies and kids. You say "Mmmmmm...hug" while you hug, a very effective hug with both your little arms around someone's neck and your cheek pressed up close to theirs. You pass out hugs at home a lot. Jonah receives your hugs about 50% of the time. You spend a good deal of time trying to chase him down, and then running in equal delight when he turns around and chases you instead, although you missed that hug. You also give kisses, mostly on the lips, and mostly to mommy and your grandparents, and frequent attempts at Jonah. You also say "I love you" frequently, although it sounds like "Luh Yew!" and sometimes you say it while you are hugging someone. If you think it looks like Daddy is leaving the house, you start yelling at him "Luh Yew!" and then you pucker up and fully expect him to kiss you. It is adorable.

You love to be held, and say, "Hold me!" all.day.long. However, when you say it, it sounds like "Homie!" and it melts my heart most of the time.

You liked to climb inside the cabinets for a few months.

I attempted to make you look like a little princess.

You spent this entire 'photoshoot' trying to grab the glasses from Jonah,
and this was your face when you finally achieved it.

This was a surprise for Daddy's birthday in March.
On the card I wrote "From your Mini-Me and your Little Princess."

It all ended like this.

You adore reading books and being read to all hours of the day. You become obsessed with a book or five for about a month and you want us to read them over and over, while you find more interesting things in the illustrations every single day as you pour over them. You tell us about the illustrations, and you want us to acknowledge that we understand you before we are allowed to turn the page. Your favorites lately have involved the boxed set of 4 Elmo books with flaps discussing: "Balls," "Babies," "Puppies," and "Food," then some classics like "Goodnight Gorilla," (which you call 'Rilla' without clear 'L' enunciation, so to you this is 'Riwa'), "Hand, hand, fingers, thumb," "That's Not My Train," "Marcos Counts," (which you call "Marco"), "Peek-A-Who," and "Johnny Tractor" books because you adore pointing out all of the farm animals and making the appropriate animal noises.

You talk frequently and astonish us with new vocabulary every day. You do not like loud household machines such as the vacuum, and the blender, and you run away or toward me saying, "Scared!" which sounds more like "'keered."

You do not appreciate me putting your hair in pig tails or in a little top knot, but at least you do not pull your bows out nearly as often as you used to, so I am more motivated to keep putting them in. It takes less than 5 minutes, and after the 30-45 minute hair sessions I had with our foster kids, your whining and wiggling is nothing. I will continue to win this battle in the quest to give you cute hair, and keep the longer strands out of your eyes, so I wish you'd just get used to it and stop fighting. Although you resist getting your hair done, you always smile in the mirror at the finished product.

In the car, after the zoo one day.

That one time I took you to the "Winter Jam" Concert and hoped you'd fall asleep.

Nope.

Easter Sunday

This has been a favorite activity of yours for months:
Climbing on top of the toilet to play with the flush or the paper.

Your smile.

You love being outside.

Smiling at Ms Donna and Mr. Ronnie, some of your favorite
'adopted Grandparents.'

The first time you threw a fit in the front seat of the basket at Kroger,
and kept yelling "Car! Ride! Car! Ride!"
because you wanted to be in this with Jonah.

First pigtails day.

You have also discovered your tongue and
you think this is the funniest face you can possibly make.

At a local playground they have these tricycles all over.
You don't even try to pedal, but love being pushed around on them.

Your favorite toys are baby dolls and their accessories, mainly the paci and the stroller. You are such a sweet little 'mama' to your babies, hugging them and kissing them, when you're not jabbing their eyeballs saying "Eyes! Eyes!" emphatically. You still attempt to do this to real babies, too, so I am super hesitant and close whenever we spend time with infants. You are fascinated by eyes.

After your baby dolls, you like stuffed animals, and walking around pretending to make the animal noises. You loved a rocking horse, but got way too proficient at that, and looked like you were constantly about to rock right off the front onto your face, so we had to put it away. You do push Jonah's cars and trains around on the table with him sometimes, when he lets you, and you don't see a baby doll. You like to say "Twain - CHugga-chugga ChOO-ChOOOOOOO!" in a very loud, high pitch train-whistle attempt. When you can get ahold of our phones, you hold them up to your ear and say "Hew-Oh!" multiple times, as if no one ever answers your calls. You attempt to enter our pass codes and lock our phones up for minutes at time. You have also figured how to swipe up to get to the camera without unlocking the phones, and this results in 20 or more selfies/strange images of whatever is in front of you.

You love reading with Daddy.

After your Baby Dedication

During the Baby Dedication

You are surprisingly good at hitting the ball off the T.

You walk very "Pigeon-Toed" but your pediatrician says not to worry about it
until you are 3, that it is a normal developmental stage,
although you often trip over your own feet from turning them in so much.

Upon just waking up from a nap.

Your tiny foot next to mine

You love these pinwheels Nana got.

You like to make the 'duck face.'

After VBS, you sat down just like Jonah.

One Sunday after church.

Matching with Mommy

Our family picture

Karis, you are really cute. You smile and laugh easily, and are easy going in your personality. You like to get out of the house and go places, content now in your carseat for about an hour at a time, as long as your mirror is up on the seat in front of you so you can smile and 'talk' to yourself. You smile and wave to strangers as we go places, who almost always smile back at you, because how could they not? This smile is extremely infectious.

Your favorite person from birth has been oh so lucky me, your Mommy. You always run to me with arms wide open, and say "Mommmmmyyyyyy" about 30 times a day. Jonah pulls in a close second on your hierarchy of people. You smile and laugh at us both. You call him and it used to sound like "Jew-Nah," but lately you do pronounce it more "Jo- Nah." He responds and can't say the 'R' in your name, so you are his "Kawis." It's sweet.

Although dainty and petite, and weighing it at 20 pound 8 ounces for your check-up last month, registering in the 25th percentile for height and weight, the doctor said you were very healthy, proportionate, and a genius! You have been walking since ten months, and climbing anything you could reach since you turned one. You have amazing strength in your scrawny arms, and pull yourself up to new heights daily. You are extremely active, and do not sit still much. Although quietly moving, and not being rough, during this first trimester of our baby number 3, I have become more aware of your propensity toward wiggling and wanting up, then down, then back up, then back down, over and over and over again. I remember you being very wiggly in utero, and you have continued to like to move your little self since you were born. You do not like to be in a room alone, and chase down Mommy or Jonah to find one of us.

You refused to eat for the longest time. From the time you were 6 months old, I remember being so very frustrated at your refusal to eat the healthy baby food I made you. We soon learned that you would not eat anything unless it had a generous slab of butter and sprinkled cinnamon in it. So for a while, that meant apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash were your only foods. Then you slowly warmed up to the savory side of things, and we could feed you plain potatoes and green beans if we also added putter, salt, pepper, and onion powder. Then right after your first birthday, when you finally got about 4 teeth, you began to love picking up finger foods and anything you could feed yourself was suddenly delicious. In the last few months you have gotten more proficient at the fork than your big brother, because I think you just like to use it. You are not picky at all now. Your favorite foods are yogurt, cheese sticks, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, cereal, toast, and scrambled eggs, spaghetti, and pizza. You always refused the bottle, and were fully weaned at 15 months onto the cheap "Take and Toss" sippy cup. Your favorite drink is now regular whole milk. You often ask for milk 'miwk' and occasionally want water, 'wa-wa.' If you see us eating anything you point and holler "EAT!" at us, and if we ignore that you start to say "Some. Bite. Some. Bite. EAT!"

You handed me a booger the other day before I realized what was happening, and I was thoroughly grossed out, but laughed because you acted like it was a gift, and smiled so sweetly.

You are such a gift to our family. Needy, clingy, sweet, busy little you make us smile and laugh and sigh in delight at your long hugs. I cannot wait to see how God uses your little happy, loving personality to further His kingdom.