today was my very last day as a pollywog.  i graduated from my 4th swim session and i have 4 ribbons to show for it.  even though i’ve been repeating the pollywog class, i’ve been learning new skills each time.  in this past session, i practiced jumping into the pool then turning over onto my back.  i practiced floating on my own.  and my favorite skill:  diving down to the bottom of the pool to pick up rings, then swimming back up to the surface with them. (mama is SO MAD because she took a video of me diving for rings and then accidentally deleted it!)

in the pollywogs class, a grown up always has to swim with us.  but mama has been telling me that when i turn 3, i will get to swim all by myself.  but guess what.  even though i’m still 2, my teacher said that i am ready to swim by myself (in the 3 year old class) next week!

well, even though i can do the skills to move up to the next class, i’m taking next season off.  so, no more swimming for a few months.  bye bye pollywogs.  when i come back next year, i’ll be a… uh… uh… actually, i dunno what i’ll be.  i guess i’ll have to wait until next year to find out!

3 months ago, we went bowling for the first time. if you don’t remember, here’s the post. and here’s the video of me bowling with dada.  we had so much fun that we (matthew, logan, sienna, and i) did it again today.  (mason came too, but he just slept.)

a lot has changed in the last 3 months.  for one thing, sienna is big enough to bowl now.  sort of.  she bowled a couple of frames in my game, but dada had to help her put the ball on top of the special ramp.  we all used the ramp to bowl the first game.  that was  fun for awhile, but then i got tired of pee-wee bowling.  that’s another thing that has changed in the past few months.  no more pee-wee bowling for me.  i wanted to ditch the ramp and bowl like dada.

so i went to the bar to get a drink (milk, straight up), then i came back and bowled the second game by myself.  that’s right, by myself.  check me out.

one of the presents that i got — i mean, sienna got — for her birthday was the big blue book of beginner books. it’s a collection of dr. seuss stories like “go dog go”, “are you my mother”, and others. i usually read “go dog go” before bedtime, but today, i asked mama to read “are you my mother”. mama asked me if i thought the baby bird was happy or sad. he couldn’t find his mommy, so he must have been sad. that made me think about how sad i would be if i couldn’t find mama, and my eyes got all watery. i was trying to be tough and not let mama see my tears, but she knew. she felt so bad, but she thought it was so cute that i am so empathetic.

the baby bird found his mama and the story had a happy ending, but i was still a little shaken up. so before i got into bed, mama let me read “go dog go” because that always puts me in a happy mood.

we figured out that sienna is allergic to cow’s milk, but we thought that she was okay with goat’s milk.  we’re not so sure anymore.  aside from that first time, she has had a reaction every time she has had goat’s milk.  her face turns red and she gets bright pink/red patches all over her body.  sometimes that happens, and we have no idea what is causing it.  mama jokes that she is just allergic to food.

sienna went to the stanford allergy clinic to find some answers.  add one more to the list of doctors that she is seeing.  she likes her new doctor, can you tell?  (we are a family of golden bears.  i can’t believe sienna is seeing so many stanford doctors.  this one is the 3rd!)

it sounds like milk is causing sienna’s eczema to flare up really badly and really suddenly, but that it’s not a “traditional” allergy.  (a traditional allergy causes hives and swelling of the eyes and throat.)  that’s a good thing.  but the bad thing is that tests will only detect traditional food allergies and won’t necessarily tell us what will cause the bad eczema flare ups.

the doctor recommended a blood test so we could see which of the commonly allergenic foods sienna might have a reaction to.  sienna loved having her blood drawn…  NOT.  she kicked and screamed at the sight of the needle, but once it was in her, she stopped crying.  she is just like me.  i think she kind of liked watching the blood drain from her arm and flow into the vial.  sicko.

anyway, the allergy doctor also gave sienna some tips on treating her eczema.  he asked sienna to go back in 3-4 weeks to see how his treatment plan was working and also to discuss the results of the allergy screen.  mama couldn’t want that long to get the results, so she doc is supposed to call when they are available.  i’ll keep you posted.

things she likes:

• gym class.  she rides on parachute, rides up and down the air track BY HERSELF, and lets the teacher use her for demonstrations all the time.  i wouldn’t do any of those things when i was her age.
• stroller rides.  now that sienna isn’t taking a morning nap anymore, miss denise and i take her on morning walks around the neighborhood.  she likes it when we walk to the park so i can push her on the swings.  she also likes visiting the ducks in the pond near our house.
• pushing elevator buttons and flipping light switches on and off
• reading out loud.  she turns the pages and reads, but nobody can understand her yet.
• singing duets with mama.  whenever mama sings to her, she sings along.
• talking on the phone.  she holds up a phone to hear ear and pretends to talk.  i think she’s just copying me because i’ve been doing that a lot lately, too.  (“hi mama, what you doing?…  oh!…  ok, cool!… yeah… yeah, i do that too…  okay, see you later… good-bye.”)
• knocking on doors.  she must be practicing for halloween!
• edamame.  no matter how full she is, there’s always room for edamame.

things she doesn’t like:

• her crib.  she acts like her crib is a fiery pit of death.  any time she gets near it, she screams like she’s being tortured.  for the past couple of weeks, she has refused to nap in it during the day.  (she is only 1!  she still needs TWO naps.)  and since she hasn’t been napping, she is sooo tired at night, that she goes to sleep without much fuss.  the problem is that when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she stands up and cries and screams.  it seems that she is starting to get over her crib-hating phase.  thank goodness, ‘cuz nobody was getting any sleep around here.  *fingers crossed*
• staying still.  it’s getting harder and harder to photograph her.
• wearing shoes.  she un-velcros her shoes every chance she gets, but she doesn’t know how to take them off yet.
• milk.  well actually, she likes to drink it, but it makes her skin all red and itchy.  we thought she was okay with goat’s milk, but that seems to be causing problems for her too.

every couple of weeks, auntie mimi comes over to spend the day (and sometimes the night) with us.  she tells mama that she comes to keep her company while they “work from home” together.  but it’s pretty obvious that she actually comes to hang out with me.

today, auntie mimi and i raced all around the neighborhood.  i was on my bike, and she was on foot.  i told her “let’s race to that tree!”  so we did.  “let’s race to the mailbox!”  and so we did that too.  then we raced to another tree, to another mailbox, to the stop sign, and all the way to the new townhome construction outside of our neighborhood.  and then we raced back.

i am getting brave on my run bike.  i can actually run with it now, and i love picking up my feet and gliding!  i used to call my it a “slow bike“, but its a fast bike now.  in fact, i beat auntie mimi every time.

my the bike doesn’t deserve all the credit though — i won all those races because of my winning strategy.  wanna know my secret?   while auntie mimi was busy saying something about “on your mar–“… i’d just go.  i didn’t wait around to see what else she was going to say.  and the few times when she actually caught up to me, i ran her off the sidewalk.  that’s not cheating — just competitive strategy.  isn’t that what they do in the x-games?

we have gilroy gardens season passes this year, just like last year.  but here we are near the end of the season, and today was only our second visit.  i think we all got a little burnt out from the 10 bazillion times we went last season.  all of us except sienna, that is.  most of the times we went were before she was born.  poor sienna.  she gets gypped out of lots of things that i used to do when i was her age — like monthly visits to gilroy gardens and children’s discovery museum.  i guess that’s what happens when you’re a little girl who follows your big brother around all the time.

but anyway, gilroy gardens was a whole new place today.  for one thing, we didn’t go with our usual crew — we went with abby and isaac.  and it was isaac’s first time there, so we got to show him around 🙂  we drove the cars and rode the train, of course, but we tried out some new things that i had never done before: paddle boat, big slide in the big kid sprayground, and the goldfish ride!

the line for the paddle boats moved really slowly (about 40 minute wait), but it was really fun.  mama kept complaining that she could only turn her duck in one direction.  something about sienna being too light for the rudder to work.  i think sienna was just not pulling her weight.  i must have done a good job because dada didn’t complain about me at all.  and by the way, sienna looked like a big orange buoy in her PFD.  so for all of you who think that sienna is sooo cute, this very uncute photo is for you.  she looked ridiculous.  especially since the photo caught her mid-chew.

it was a hot day, so we played for a pretty long time in the big kid splash garden.  sienna really likes getting wet!  i climbed up the towering tree top sprayground and rode the slide down all by myself!  i thought it was going to be a waterslide, but it’s just a regular tube slide.  a really long one.  and there was a little trickle of water in there, probably from all the wet kids sliding down it.  gross.

and then on the way out, i kept saying that i wanted to ride on the goldfish ride.  mama thought i was just stalling because i didn’t want to go home, so she called my bluff.  so we waited in line, and guess what.  i rode the goldfish.  by myself.  and i liked it!  mama and dada were so surprised.

sienna also had some firsts today.  she rode the apple and the worm and the bumper boats for the first time.  she and mama must not have weighed enough because the boat behind them (abby and her family) kept bumping into them.  how funny, huh?

we had a fun day at gilroy gardens.  and now that i’ve discovered some new things to do there, i guess we can keep going back to let sienna have a chance to enjoy it too.

at sienna’s birthday party, uncle randy gave me a present.  isn’t he the best?  it’s a back to the roots mushroom kit.  i was very excited because urban farms are so “in” these days.  (plus, one of the founders of the company that makes those kits was one of the guys on the “bachelorette”!)

day 1:  mama helped me cut an X in the plastic bag,  and we submerged it in water overnight.

day 2:  we put it back in the box.  we sprayed it with water twice a day — once after breakfast and once after dinner.

day 3 through 7:  continued to spray it twice a day.  i looked forward to taking care of my mushroom and i was so excited about how quickly it was growing!

day 8:  my mushroom started to look sad and shriveled.

day 9:  mama helped me harvest my mushroom and let it sit in a bowl of water.

day 10-11:  my mushrooms were looking great!  maybe it wasn’t getting enough water before?

day 12:  we ate my mushrooms for lunch (along with cherry tomatoes that auntie mimi picked from her dad’s garden, potatoes from our organic delivery box, and moroccan salmon.  this would have been a better story if sienna had caught the salmon, huh?)

in mama and dada’s BK years (that’s “before kyden”), they used to foster puppies. but now that i am here, i’ve spread my stuff all over the house, and there’s no room for puppies anymore. luckily for us, uncle henry still fosters, which means that we can get our puppy fixes every now and then. mama still volunteers her time with pound puppy rescue by interviewing prospective families, processing paperwork, giving training, and doing placements of uncle henry’s foster puppies in their new homes.

when i got home from school today, uncle henry was at our house with a puppy. whoa. it was baby koda! the puppy looked just like koda when he was little. he had all the same markings, those long legs that girls are so jealous of, and big ears that are trying to stand up straight but flop over under their own weight. how did uncle henry shrink koda?

sienna and i had so much fun playing with baby koda. he ran circles around sienna and chased me around all over the backyard.

when baby koda’s new family came over, mama reviewed their adoption agreement and did all the official puppy business. on their way out the door, i kept asking them “where baby koda going?” i didn’t want them to take baby koda away. i mean, i love our regular-sized koda, but it was so great to finally be bigger than him for a day. i have been waiting for this day for my whole life.

well, the good news is that sienna likes to drink milk. (i didn’t, when i first started transitioning to cow’s milk.) the bad news is that she’s allergic to it.

after sienna turned one, i had planned to start sharing my milk with her. so one day, mama made a strawberry breastmilk smoothie for sienna and added just a little bit of my (cow’s) milk to it. sienna sucked it up through the straw, then then it run out of her mouth. suck, run out. suck, run out. over and over again. a few minutes later, sienna started kicking and squirming and scratching herself. her chin was all red where the milk touched her skin and she had a rash all over her body. all that happened after sienna had just a little bit of milk and barely swallowed any of it. so no more cow’s milk for sienna.

but when sienna went to see her new dermatologist last week, he suggested trying cow’s milk again. since it didn’t seem to cause any problems with her breathing, why not? so that evening, sienna drank a mix of breastmilk and cow’s milk. same reaction as before. then, just to be triple sure, mama dabbed some milk onto sienna’s skin — on her back and on her forearm. her skin turned red in both places.

sienna has an appointment at an allergy clinic next week. until then, she is not allowed to eat foods that commonly cause allergies (like peanuts and eggs).

today, dada bought some goat’s milk for sienna. (i didn’t even know that goats could make milk!) she likes it, and she is not allergic to it. yay! but did you know that goat’s milk is 6-7x more expensive than cow’s milk? dada thinks we should get a pet goat so we can get free milk all the time. but i have a better plan. i think we should get a girlfriend for koda, and sienna can just drink dog’s milk.