March 24-April 14

Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned four on March 27. She seems relatively convinced that the cake is the magic vehicle by which birthdays are conveyed, so it is possible that everyone who partook of said cake is now four as well. We gave her a PJ Masks MeReader set as a gift, which was a big hit.

Kaitlyn says "to-later." I think it is similar in meaning to "tonight."

Kaitlyn has discovered books on CD at the library. They have a selection of Disney stories with CDs and she checks out a whole stack of them. Combined with her CD player that she got for Christmas, this makes for one quiet, happy Kaitlyn.

Gretchen has lost two teeth now. Her second one took quite some time to fall out, so she was wiggling it during every waking moment for a couple of weeks.

Matthias tries to jump (but his feet rarely leave the ground), enthusiastically gives high fives, and grudgingly gives fist bumps. His favorite method of returning fist bumps is to unroll the other person's fingers into a flat hand and then give a high five.

Matthias has a pillow now. He was jealous of Kaitlyn's PJ Masks pillow and used it during naps, so I finally just got him his own PJ Masks pillowcase and gave him a pillow in his crib. He spent the first week sleeping curled up in the opposite corner of the crib, but now he is generally on top of his pillow. Unrelated to pillows, but in the milestone vein, he weaned forever ago (back at the beginning of February, I think) and is still rear facing in his carseat.

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but the girls got Create Your Own Story books a few months ago. Olivia, seeing pages set aside for a table of contents, immediately sat down and wrote a table of contents, complete with chapter titles and page numbers. Now whenever she decides to write her story she is trying to fit words into the exact number of pages that she gave herself for each chapter. :)

Matthias thinks Bryan's dad is named Boo Boo Butt. Gretchen and Kaitlyn call grandpa Boo Boo Butt to be silly, but Matthias has decided to use that as his name. Sometimes grandma gets to be Other Boo Boo Butt.

Matthias has a name for Olivia. It initially sounded remarkably like Oo-de-lally, but has recently settled into Ololly. Still no consistent names for Gretchen or Kaitlyn.

Matthias words: sorry, garbage, socks, ummm, belly, owie, other train (car), okay, uh-uh (which means yes), thank you, pizza, cookie (which can also mean doughnut and is the same sound as the one for cracker)

The three younger kids and I spent 45 minutes in the parking lot after Music Together watching a utility crew take out an old telephone pole and put in a new one. There was a truck involved, which pleased Matthias, and also chains, a pulley, and a giant drill. Gretchen wondered why they would knock dirt off the drill onto the ground if they'd only have to clean it up later, and was pleased to see that they had the foresight to put a large tarp down first. Kaitlyn's favorite part was the man in the bucket (of the crane) who removed the wires from the first pole and then just waited around for the second pole to be put up so that he could reattach them. Kaitlyn thought that it would be fun to play in a crane bucket. A few days after this learning experience, the excitement came even closer to home as a pole on the corner of our street was replaced in a similar manner and all three of them could watch from the front porch.

We took a brief trip to Michigan last weekend for the birthday party of the child of some college friends. They live in Taylor, so we took a trip up to Livonia for church on Sunday and got to see Jacob.

I was recently reminded of the somewhat questionable calculation that can be done to determine a toddler's adult height. Allegedly you can double a girl's height at 18 months and a boy's at 2 years and come up with a reasonable approximation of adult height. Here is where we test it, because it will be written down (and forgotten by the time it matters in 15 years).

Olivia at 18 months: 32.25 inches. Doubled is 64.5, which means an adult height of  5'4.5"
Gretchen at 18 months: 33.5 inches. Doubled is 67, which means an adult height of 5'7"
Kaitlyn at 18 months: 33.5 inches. Doubled is 67, which means an adult height of 5'7"

These results leave some room for error since only Olivia was actually 18 months old at her 18 month appointment. Gretchen was 18.5 months and Kaitlyn was 19.5 months. I'm pretty sure 18 months is still a horizontal measurement at the doctor's office, which can be tremendously unreliable. Remember the time that Gretchen grew zero inches between 9 months and 12 months? Also worth noting is that on our homemade height tracker Olivia and Gretchen run very close to the same height by age and Kaitlyn is consistently about an inch shorter.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 40

Kaitlyn: I am 3, because Grandma gave me my birthday!
Gretchen: Grandma didn't give you your birthday. You gave you your birthday. The calendar gave you your birthday.

Kaitlyn: My mouth hurts.
Me: Where does it hurt?
Kaitlyn: *pats neck*
Me: That's your throat.
Kaitlyn: There is fire in my throat.

Kaitlyn: Hello! I'm a princess! My name is Elsa, but I'm not a princess!

Olivia: I'm going from drab to fab!

Kaitlyn, with one eye closed: I shooted a laser beam out of my eye. This eye.

Gretchen: Why did the cookie need to go to the doctor?
Me: Why?
Gretchen: Because it had some crumbs on it!
Me: ...I think you mean "Because it was feeling crummy."

Kaitlyn: Gretchen, let's bonk into each other and see if one of my tooths is loose.

Gretchen: If a shark is hungry and you are swimming around and crash into him then he will swoosh, grab you with his fin and put you in a jar for breakfast. Then he will go look for lunch and when something touches him he will get it with his fin and put it in a jar for lunch.

Kaitlyn: Mommy, when will it be Easterday? Daddy said that on Easter it will be Easterday and we will see the peacocks.
Me: ...The peacocks? What peacocks?
Kaitlyn: The peacocks that we can't touch.

Olivia: What does a cow say? Moo moo. What does a dog say? Woof woof. What does a mom say? You do this! You do this! What does a dad say? Go to bed, go to bed!

Kaitlyn: I am allowed to eat my dinner!
Me: What dinner?
Kaitlyn: My cereal.
Me: That's breakfast, you silly. Why did that make Matthias cry?
Kaitlyn: Well, he was trying to get my lunch.

Kaitlyn, upon waking up in the morning: I think my hair is styled like Anna's (from Frozen) when she is in bed.