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Archives for 2003

Katherine Takes Her First Steps

We saw Katherine take her first couple steps tonight. We think the trick is to distract Katherine with a toy, in this case her beloved green pinwheel (courtesy of her friend Sid). I held the pinwheel just out of reach on top of the coffee table. Steve held her up, and we encouraged her to get the toy just to see what would happen.

After a few tries, she took a couple wobbly steps forward, grabbed the table and tried to get the toy. (On one try she accidentally bonked herself on the padded table, so this wasn’t such a great idea.) Katherine may have been motivated lately by other children who she’s seen walking. Or, she may be getting more balanced; it’s unclear, but nonetheless very exciting.

Katherine Plays with Legos

Katherine has been picking Legos out of her blue Lego truck for a while now. Tonight she crawled over to her truck and took some out again. Steve showed her how to pull them apart, and put them back together again. We would hand her Legos, and she would grasp them and pull them apart. For the most part, she was successful if we showed her which ends to pull – on other occasions, she would try and pull one Lego apart or pull the Legos the wrong away. But, she really seemed to enjoy being able to play more actively with her toys. She got a big kick out of playing with the truck and seeing her stuffed animals in the truck or Steve stirring up her Legos.

Happy Birthday Francesca!

One of Katherine’s PEPs buddies, Francesca, turned 1 this past weekend. We went to her birthday party and had a wonderful time. Francesca showed us how she can walk (wow!) and shared her toys with her friends. One very cute moment occurred with Francesca stood on top of one gift to reach the curly ribbons on another gift. Both girls eventually ended up standing side by side playing with the ribbons before Katherine edged Francesca off the box.

More Adventures with the Chariot

We went cycling again this Saturday to prepare for our upcoming trip. We started at Redmond Town Center, went up the Burke Gilman trail and stopped for BBQ sandwiches in Woodinville. All was going well, especially since Katherine fell asleep in her trailer. I stopped by a nearby store to say hello to a friend, Katherine woke up, and we hit the trial again. Despite the best of intentions, we made it only to the 10 mile mark before everything let loose. Katherine had had enough. She was hungry, wolfed down a whole serving of bananas, drank milk and was generally very unhappy. We tried to give her a break by stopping at a nearby children’s park on the trail. She seemed to enjoy this, but didn’t have the wherewithal to make it back to the car. Steve and I flew back up the trail with Katherine screaming bloody murder. Other cyclists seem to find the screaming Chariot Doppler effect pretty funny. ๐Ÿ™‚ Anyway, I stayed at the willows lodge for 30 minutes until Steve could get back to the car and pick us up. Katherine also showed us why we call her our little Houdini. At the children’s trail, we pulled off to find Katherine holding her bike helmet! Holy Cow.

Redmond Park

It turns out that Patty has been taking Katherine to a nearby park in Redmond to see the animals that the park service imports during the summer. We stopped by the park with Audrey and her parents to see the park ourselves, and it is quite a cool place. The ponies walked over to say hello. The sheep and goals were pretty friendly too. Katherine loved the animals and seemed to like talking (er…loudly) to them.

Labor Day Weekend with Katherine

Steve and I had a wonderful weekend with Katherine. On Saturday we had few commitments aside from our haircuts. So, we had planned to take her to Gymboree in the late morning. Unfortunately, I discovered when I got home from my workout at 10:30 that Katherine still had not taken her morning nap. Steve had pulled every trick in the book, but to no avail. She cried some more and was fairly unhappy until 11 when she finally passed out. Needless to say, we missed our one opportunity this weekend to see Katherine in action at Gymboree, which was very disappointing.

We recovered in the afternoon by taking her to Remlinger Farms in Carnation. Katherine had a nice time at the restaurant watching other children and then going through the barn and seeing all animals. Her favorite was a goat that poked his head out of the fence as we walked by. While she was a bit small for the roller coaster, the mini-merry go around, and teacups, she was just the right size for the steam train. ๐Ÿ™‚ It was a really hot day – well over 85 degrees, so by the time we had made our way around the park, we were pretty tired. We grabbed some fresh fruit, vegetables and drove back towards home. Katherine slept in the car as we dropped off our groceries and went to our haircuts. Post-haircuts, we drove to Kirkland waterfront and walked to a Mexican restaurant. Katherine shared part of our meal – avocado and mushed beans. Given all the excitement of the day, she was pretty tired, so we powered through our meals, got takeout and went home.

Sunday was equally eventful. We took her on a long walk in the morning and sent her to bed. To our surprise, she slept almost 3 hours! We were very late to the Mariners game – and arrived halfway thru the game. We met up with some friends from college/work and saw the Mariners beat the Orioles. Katherine had a great time even with the crowds and noise. She said hello to the people behind her, tried to pickup the popcorn from the ground, watched the game and people cheering around her. After the game, we stopped by Larry’s for groceries and went to a friends house for BBQ. Through all of this Katherine stayed alert – we finally got home and Katherine to sleep by 8:30. She went almost 7 hours without an afternoon nap! Our guess is that she has been trying to stay up as late as possible in the morning so she can drop her afternoon nap.

Of course, Katherine blew our theory today. We discovered that it’s only a short walk from our house to a nearby development and….a latte stand! We took Katherine and Bisco on a nice 2 hour walk, meandering thru the trails between our developments and checking out the new development. Katherine was very stoic, wrapped up by Steve in 3 layers of clothing (it was chilly this morning), and sucked on her binky. She fell asleep on our way home, but slept only 45 minutes. We then headed out to Bellevue Square to catchup on shopping, get new 12 month onesies from Nordstrom and gifts for upcoming birthdays. After her nap, we stayed at home, playing with her toys, cooking dinner and getting ready for the week.

Katherine continues to develop at a rapid pace. She readily waves (at herself sometimes) and babbles. She will take mushy foods from our plates (for instance noodles at Zoopas) and grasp them with her pointer and thumb. She’s almost mastered the pincer grasp, with maybe a 30% success rate at getting food in her mouth. ๐Ÿ™‚ She’s also becoming a proficient page turner. She especially likes books that have thick pages that she can turn. We bought a new book today that she seems to love, partially because it’s a touch and feel book and also because the pages are easily turn-able (unlike many board books). We spent a few minutes tonight just flipping different pages back and forth and touching the different textures in the book.

Spending three days with Katherine was a very fulfilling experience. We loved seeing her interact with her environment. I suspect that she enjoyed the weekend too, as she fought to stay awake to spend time with us.

Katherine’s 9 Month Checkup

Patty, Steve and I attended Katherine’s 9.75 month checkup today. Best way to describe her…. tall, skinny girl with a big head. ๐Ÿ™‚ She measured 28″ long (75%), 18.3 lbs (25-50%) and 45 cm head circumference (75-90%).

Katherine showed Dr. Claudson and her nurse that she is indeed a very active girl. She sat up on the scale when the nice nurse weighed her. She also spent much of her checkup in her diaper crawling around the floor and having us walk her around the room.

Perhaps the hardest part of the checkup was her polio booster and her hematocrit test. I held Katherine in the lab chair while the shot nurse swabbed her big toe and pricked it with one of those mini razor things. Katherine howled as the nurse squeezed her toe to get the blood out (iron is a little low, but still acceptable). The icing on the cake was when the nurse then took out the big needle and quickly gave her a shot in the thigh. Even with the baby Tylenol we gave her beforehand, Katherine was very unhappy. We took her home and she took her afternoon nap.

Katherine’s Falling Adventures

As Dr. Claudson said, the biggest development from 9-12 months is increased mobility. He likened babies to a Space Needle that isn’t attached to the ground. Katherine’s been falling over a lot lately. Last Thursday, she fell into her toy bookcase and got a quarter sized bruise on her left check. The following Saturday, Katherine squirmed off her changing table (despite the fact that I had a hand on her), did a half spin and ended up in her dresser drawer before I could catch her. Then….the next day…I helped Katherine stand up and hold on a kitchen chair with both hands. I turned around to get a spoon and as I walked back, she let go with one hand, fell on the kitchen carpet and bonked her cheek on the table leg in the process. By the time Sunday afternoon came around, she had a bruise and a weal on one cheek and has been looking a little worse for the wear this week. We’ve had to keep a very close eye on her and stay close just in case she tries to stand up and loses her balance again.

Finger Food Rules

Katherine is expressing a strong preference for finger food. She would rather eat little chunks of cheese, bread, fruit instead of eating her lentils, vegetables or yogurt. Feeding her can be a bit of struggle, because she will just sit in her high chair and scream if she doesn’t like what she’s eating. We’ve tried not to give in and keep giving her different foods when she screams. But, its very hard on the ears to listen to her protestations.

She’s also eating at least 2 cubes of food at a sitting plus finger food. Yesterday for dinner she ate two cubes of lentils, a third of a container of baby yogurt, little bits of cheddar cheese, toasted whole wheat bread crusts and baked potato. She would have eaten more potato, but we figured that she had eaten quite enough for one meal!

Mom’s View from Behind the Chariot

I spent the bike trip last Saturday behind Katherine and Steve. Katherine was a total trooper and didn’t complain until 7 or so miles down the Burke Gilman trail. Steve claims that Katherine doesn’t like to travel at “high speeds.” Whenever he went faster than 15 mph, she would complain (imagine a whahhhaaa sound coming from the chariot). Also, the helmet still needs a bit more adjustment. By the time we finished the ride, she was slumped in her Chariot with the bike helmet over one eye. She was looking around with her other eye and sucking her thumb. We’ll likely try this again this weekend, hopefully with better results.

All in all, it was a successful trip though. Our friend James was in town visiting, and helped us get our bikes back into serviceable shape. This involved changing a lot of inner tubes, dusting off two years of dirt, etc. I had forgotten how much fun it is to cruise around on our road bikes, even if it was on a flat trail. ๐Ÿ™‚

PEPs

Christine, Katherine and I went to our semi-monthly PEPs get together last Saturday (yes, I’m a bit late posting). It was great to see all of the kids starting to play together. Christine and I have really enjoyed our PEPs group and we’ve really bonded with the other parents. It’s fun to watch your kids grow up together and swap stories, best practices, and just watch the kids :).

One of Katherine’s pals is Francesca. She and Katherine are about the same age and mobility. This was the first time we watched Katherine play with another baby. They shared a beach ball and the Leap Frog learning table. Occasionally, we had to intervene with Katherine would grab her eyes and mouth. The funniest moment was when Katherine spotted Francesca’s pacifier from across the room, power crawled over to Francesca, and proceeded to yack the pacifier from her mouth. It was very cute!

Microsoft Learning Table

Christine and I found a Microsoft Learning Table on sale at K Bee toys. Katherine loves her Leap Frog table so we thought she’d love the Microsoft version built with “Smart Technology”. Katherine enjoys spinning the top of the table and walking between the Microsoft and Leap Frog tables.

Katherine’s New Chariot

The big purchase for last weekend was the Chariot. A Chariot is a convertible bike, stroller, and jogger. Christine and I have signed up for a Butterfield and Robinson biking vacation around Santa Barbara in the fall. We’re afraid of getting smoked by people twice our age so we’ve decided to train for the trip. We wanted to take Katherine with us when we train so we bought the Chariot. Being safety conscious we also bought a bicycle helmet for Katherine.

Fitting a bicycle helmet on a 9 1/2 month old baby is quite a challenge. The first challenge is finding a small enough helmet. We bought a Giro infant helmet. The second challenge is adjusting it for her. The final challenge is making sure the seat doesn’t push the helmet back over her face. Through all of this Katherine was a real trooper. Occasionally, I’d look back and the helmet had slipped over her face. She didn’t seem to mind too much.

Katherine says her first words!

Today, Katherine reached a real milestone with her verbal skills. As we bathed and put her in her jammies, she said “babababa” repeatedly. Steve started to say “dadada” until I informed him that “ba ba” means Dad in Madarin. Wouldn’t you know that her first word would be in Chinese! Anyway, she practiced “ba ba” all the way to bed, which was just great.

She’s also been saying “wah ah wah ah” with her hands clutched together in front of her mouth. She moves her hands back and forth to make a different sound. She’s been experimenting with her hands and all sorts of toys to create new sounds.

Getting Katherine to Sleep

We re-introduced Katherine to the Farber method starting this Saturday after a several week break. She cried hard Saturday night for a few minutes, but since then has settled to bed with barely a peep. I have to say that this method works really, really well. Steve also lowered her crib all the way to the bottom, which hasn’t made much of any difference in her ability to stand up and clutch the railings. ๐Ÿ™‚

I think Katherine may be going through a growth spurt. She’s been sleeping more regularly during the day, about 2.5 to 3 hours a day. On Sunday, she napped 4 hours! Hopefully, this phase sticks for a while and we have fewer issues getting her to nap during the day.

Brunch at the LeVines

On Saturday, Katherine, Christine and I trekked across the Lake to have brunch at the LeVines. Katherine loved playing with Sidney and his toys. It was fun to see them play together and attempt to “share” toys. Sharing means bonking each other with their toys. ๐Ÿ™‚

On the way back from the LeVines, we stopped by Zanny Brainy to pick up a tricycle. Christine and I researched tricycles and found this one to be the safest and most versatile: http://www.mytoybox.com/product/KETT88521000.html. We selected the Brummi model which is only sold through Zany Brainy. I just discovered that it’s for a 3-6 year old. Hmm… Maybe another trip to the toy store is required…

Katherine loves her tricycle though her feet don’t quite touch the pedals. She loves being pushed around in the tricycle and watching the effects of steering the handle bars. After a demonstration by dad and a little bit of practice, she was able to turn the handle bars. I wouldn’t say she could steer the tricycle but she realized moving the handle bars altered the course of the tricycle.

In downtown Redmond there is a cool park, Anderson Park. It has a great jungle gym with plenty of things to play on. Katherine loves to watch the other kids play. It’s almost like she’s studying them to see if she can do what they do. Sometimes, I think she’s just willing herself to grow up so she can go play with the other kids.

On Sunday evening, the Fialas, Ramsays, Olbrights, and BushChangs got together for dinner at Cucina, Cucina. It was a fun time to talk about the newest members of the family and to swap stories.