Climbing Everything in Sight…
Katherine is climbing everything possible. This past week, she’s climbed the stools in our house: put right foot on stool, pull left foot up. Crouch like a frog on the stool and figure out what to do next. She’s practicing putting her right leg on the wheel of her trike and climbing into her seat. We’ve even seen her crawl awkwardly into her little Gymboree chair. She puts her right foot in, stands up as much as possible and uses the back of the chair to turn herself around. Steve and try not to hover and to let her explore, but we worry that she’s going to go tumbling. So far, we haven’t had any accidents, and she’s been pretty good at climbing down backwards or sliding on her bottom off the stool. It’s funny, because we can see her think to herself “I wonder how to climb this…”
Christmas is so much fun!
The best part of Christmas so far has been the bows. We bought a big shiny package of bows at Costco and put them in three Christmas boxes. Katherine discovered these this past week. Her evening routine is to open the boxes, throw the bows up in the air, finger them and then put the top back on (maybe!). She’s pulled bows off of packages, and figured out that she can reaffix the bows if she presses hard. The bow for Patty’s present never had a chance. Katherine must have pulled it off and put it back on the present a least 4-5 times.
We can read again
For a while, it was virtually impossible to read to Katherine before bed time. She would just want to run and run and not stop for anything. Recently we’ve altered our routine, where I’ll feed Katherine, Steve will come upstairs and then we’ll read a couple books. Katherine sits still and likes the touch and feel books and now some peel back books with colorful pictures. If we read too long, she’ll squirm off my lap and head to her crib.
Next year: Santa Training
We headed to Nordstrom this past Sunday to visit Santa. We knew that Katherine might be a bit off put by Santa, although he did his best to be welcoming and friendly. But…when we got to the front of the line, Katherine started to walk to Santa, and then turned and grabbed my leg. I lifted her up and carried her to the chair. In a nutshell, she wigged out – totally cried, kicked her legs and wanted nothing to do with him. So, Santa said “bye bye” and make a big deal about leaving. Katherine sat on Steve’s lap with me on arm of the chair. Santa sneaked from the back and put his arms around me and Steve. Katherine had no clue and we think we had a nice picture taken. The nice helper said “next year, you may want to do some Santa training.” visit the mall, read books and get her used to Santa.
I do think we’re jinxed with the Santa pictures. This is the second year out of 2 years that we’ve suffered some sort of camera damage visiting Santa. Last year, I dropped Steve’s Coolpix on the garage floor and broke it at the shopping mail getting Katherine out of the car. This year, Steve packed his Nikon equipment in his carrying case. He pulled out his flash and the display was cracked. These Santa photos are getting very expensive.
We’ll post pictures of Katherine in her very spiffy outfit and red, wool full length, black muffed coat once we get the pics off the camera.
