Friends

Katherine Likes Her Potty – Was it an Accident?

Patty has started to change Katherine in the bathroom with practice potty right nearby. Katherine has taken to reading on her potty, which is very sweet. Anyway, we had a fun evening (without Dad – who is on yet another business trip), and I made a slight error in judgement. I filled one of her juice cups with highly diluted juice. She sucked down about 4 oz of water and wouldn’t let me take the juice cup away from her. Needless to say, after I stripped her for her bath, she headed for the potty with reading material. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her jump up for bubbles and then head back to the potty. By the time the bath was full, she had peed on the potty. Because the potty is so deep and made for older toddlers, she sits on the edge of the potty. I guess we need to find a smaller one, because I ended up having to disinfect the potty, the linoleum afterwards and everything around it.

Farm Animals

Katherine may not be saying much but she understands what we’re saying. I asked her tonight to point to a sheep and she stuck her little pointer right on the sheep in her bus book. She maybe got half of the animals. I’d ask her for her lion and get a hippo – but then she got the lion.

Yesterday, I was chatting with her over dinner and talking about the local farm animal park. I mentioned that we would bring Bisco next time, and I got vehement nodding as if to say we should take Bisco on our next field trip. She also understands that Bisco needs his antibiotics, because she kept pointing at them until I got out the cream cheese and fed her.

Katherine and Mom

Well, now Mom (I) can claim that Katherine teethes when Steve leaves town. In this case, he’s been traveling almost every week this year (grumble), so it’s not all that hard for that to happen. Katherine and I have been spending lots of quality time together these past two weeks. On Monday night, Katherine was inconsolable. She did a lot of “ah ahhing” even as we pushed around the kitchen in a cardboard box. She didn’t want to eat dinner and was just really unhappy. Finally, I asked Steve to stick his clean finger in her mouth, and he said “there something coming out.” I did the same later that night. Katherine cried and I felt her second molar breaking thru her gums (right above her first molar). As a matter of fact, my finger had blood on it, so it must have really been hurting her terribly. We played with her and finally I went downstairs to get a teether from the freezer. Well, Steve tried to give Katherine her baby Advil and it didn’t go so well. I came upstairs to see Katherine streaking by in a blur of pink around her mouth and all down her PJs. Needless to say, she’s learned to spit out the baby Advil. 🙂

Tuesday didn’t go much better for Patty and Katherine. At 4PM, Patty called to let me know that Katherine was cranky and hadn’t slept all day. I suggested some baby Advil to dull the pain and she finally took an hour nap. Katherine and I went to our toddler group class that night and she did pretty well. She clutched her lamb for the first 20 minutes of class, but was fine afterwards. After class, we went home, played and went to bed.

Wednesday night got dicier. I met Patty and Katherine for her haircut after work. Katherine’s hair had been getting very long, and we wanted her first hairdresser to trim her hair. I got to the store to find Katherine zipping a shopping cart around the store and tearing around. She wasn’t too excited about sitting for her haircut, but I supplied dried apple which kept her busy. Good news is that her haircut looks much better than the last, and she is very presentable. We stopped by Hallmark to get Dad’s V-day card. Katherine grabbed a couple cards, and I chased her around so I wouldn’t have to buy them all. Finally, after Katherine screamed for a few minutes in my arms, I selected a card and we escaped the store. Luckily, the other women shopping at the store were very understanding.

Last night was extremely trying. Katherine has definitely learned when Dad is home and when he isn’t. When he’s home, she sleeps thru the night. When he’s not, she wakes at least once and insists on sleeping in our bed. Not only did she get up at 1AM last night, she woke up at 3AM crying very hard. I walked her around and finally calmed her down by rocking her in her chair. I asked her “do you want to sleep in mommy’s bed” – she shook her head hard. I then asked “do you want to sleep in your crib?” and got more shaking. Finally, I asked “do you want milk” and got a “huh” so we went downstairs and drank milk. She finally fell asleep at 4AM.

Tonight confirmed that Katherine truly understands what I’m saying and that she’s talking to me. She picked up her sticker box and handed it to me. She said something that sounded like sticker and then “pwea” which sounded a lot like “please”!! I almost fell over!

We then went upstairs and Katherine decided she wanted toys out of her closet. I explained as usual that she would have to put one of her toys in the closet to get one out (the room is packed with toys). I asked her “do you want to put your phone in the closet?” She walked directly to her phone, picked it up and handed it to me. After a few more minutes of playing with her new toy (a bus), she went back to the closet. I asked “do you want mommy to put one of your toys away” and she shook her head. Wow!

More Words…

The Playdate

Katherine had an amazing playdate today. It started with Steve and Katherine visiting the Fialas while I had my workout. They dropped in, said hi and caught up. Apparently, Mandy their golden retriever brought Katherine her leash – once attached, they walked around the house.

They picked me up at the Pro Club and we headed off to the LeVines. Katherine played with her friend Sid and her older friends Adam and Derek. Playing consisted of staring at each other, playing with Sid’s toys and only occasionally vying for the same items. We had a couple very cute moments. Katherine took a real hankering to Suzi’s straw hat from Cuba. Our daughter looked very adorable in the big straw hat! She also played with Maggie, their poodle who really wanted to lick Katherine’s face and hands. Katherine probably spent 10 minutes on Eric’s lap squealing as Maggie licked her hands. They’re now fast friends.

After this busy morning, Katherine was beat. She fell asleep on the car ride home and woke up a couple hours later. We all rolled around and headed down the hill to the local toy store where we loaded up on blocks and birthday toys. Katherine was on a tear at the store, she kept running and grabbing Hello Kitty merchandise (oh please) and anything within reach. So, finally, I took her out to the sidewalk and Steve bought a ton of stuff.

We went to a party for Ian and India – who were turning 3 and 1. They had a couple Step 2 plastic outdoor structures in their new house (intended for outdoor use), and the kids had an amazing time. Katherine in particular loved the Storybook house with the plastic phone and patio chair. She would stand on the patio chair, grab the phone and walk around. She seemed a bit overwhelmed at times by the other kids screaming around the house and running thru the plastic house. On the whole though, Katherine played very well with the other kids and we had no major mishaps. She also loved their slide. Apparently, she walked up the stairs and even turned around once and slid down the slide backwards!! I missed this of course, but Steve swears it happens. After the party, we went to Coho to have dinner with Audrey and her parents. We ordered her chicken nuggets for dinner. It came with fries and grapes. She wolfed down the grapes first, then 6 or 7 fries that we left on her plate (we took a bunch off her plate). She jammed 2 or 3 in her mouth. Only after she was done did she stuff down pieces of the nuggets.

Overall, Katherine had quite a day. We went home, played with the PlayDoh and other party favors, had a quick bath, drank a cup of milk. Katherine passed out without a protest or cry tonight. I expect that she’ll sleep through the night.

More Words…

Katherine continues to become more verbal and it’s just so much fun to hear her talk. She now says “daw” for dog and “hei” for hi and “up” pretty regularly. We stopped by our local cider house. She spied their small dogs and sad “hei” and motioned for down. I put her down and she immediately put her hands out to touch the dogs. I confirmed that the dogs are friendly, and the teeny dog barked, wagged and jumped on Katherine. Well, she just loved it. Last night, she said “apble.” We were so proud and said “yes, apple apple apple”

She totally understands everything we say. I asked her to find Toby Bear and she’ll pick him out of her assortment of bears. She follows instruction very well – from helping to put on her coat to going to the front door to help with Bisco (and handing us his towel). She understands our routines and looks forward to participating.

Sense of humor

Now that Katherine understands what’s going on, she gets the biggest kick out of the smallest things. For instance, she kept pointing up to helium filled balloons at the party. Of course, I couldn’t reach them because they were up on the ceiling and the string were out of reach. So, i had to jump to get them. Katherine chuckled at that. She also brought toby bear in the car with her for our ride today. She would clutch him and then drop him at some point, making um umming sounds to get our attention. I would reach around, grab the bear and push it up and she would grab him out of my hands. She really liked toby peeking around the front car seat to say hi and seeing him moving around the car (courtesy of mom).

I jinxed us by saying that she would sleep thru the night. she just woke up with a big blowout. I think she had too many grapes today – or maybe it was the fries. Anyway, she’s pretty unhappy – better go manage the situation.

Painting a couple weeks ago

I just found pictures from Katherine’s first finger-painting exercise back on January 24th. Steve, Katherine and I went to a teachers store and got an easel, finger paints, bowls and finger painting paper. I had also purchased a plastic vest to theoretically keep her clean. We setup shop on the hardwood floor with newspaper underneath. Katherine was a bit puzzled initially and watched me paint. She caught on, dipped her finger in a bowl, and then put finger to paper. After a few minutes, we had a nice picture – courtesy of the whole family. We had to put Bisco behind the gate, or he would have contributed too.

As I explained to Steve, I learned two valuable lessons. One, put newspaper over the carpet in the kitchen. Two, wear clothes that I don’t mind getting paint on. The good news is that this is very much washable paint.

Flying Katherine

Katherine was on a tear this week. We bought her a medium Patrick the Puppy from Zany Brainy last weekend, during their going out of business sale. We’d been eyeing Patrick for years and decided now was the time to buy since this was likely our last chance. Katherine loves Patrick. She hugs him regularly, laying her little cheek next to him. She also learned that she can fall into him, so she now flings herself onto Patrick. Literally, she’ll walk towards him and fall straight into him. As Steve said, Bisco is now even further down in the food chain, after Patrick and Spanish-speaking Elmo. 🙂

She and Steve play hide and seek now with each other. Steve hides in the nursery and she’ll walk as fast as she can after him. It’s very cute. When she sees him, we say Hurray and raise our arms. She raised her arms sometimes too.

Katherine has moved two naps a day to one pretty regularly now. This past week she would fall asleep around 11:30A to 12:30P for an hour and a half. To make up for this, she sleeps a bit longer and doesn’t wake up anymore at 6:30A in the morning.

No Longer the Screamer – Just Peas Please

We braved the local mall salad restaurant yesterday. Unlike our previous experience, Katherine was virtually sedate by comparison. She sat relatively quietly in her high chair, occasionally chirping at us. No screaming at all. That said, she did manage to make a mess still (sigh), which we tried to clean up before we left. She ate a few foods like Mac and Cheese, plain pasta, white beans and green peas. She ate probably a third of a cup of green peas. I put a few down and noticed that Katherine picked them out and then would stuff them into her mouth as quickly as possible. Steve and I went back to the salad bar twice more to get peas before she was full.

I bought and defrosted some peas last night to see if it was a fluke – nope. She ate even more peas, delicately picking them up with her pincer grasp and putting them in her mouth. Wow!

Fascination with Crayons

We went to a holiday tea yesterday afternoon, and Katherine got to watch her older friends play with PlayDoh and draw with Crayons. I think Katherine managed to ingest both. Thankfully, both are non-toxic. Steven and I took turns watching her, and Katherine went everywhere. She would wander down the hallway, check out the holiday boxes and walk after her friend Audrey on her trike. The kids watched a Rudolph video, and Katherine stayed on the sofa for maybe a minute. While the kids were watching, she shook the crayon container, picked them up and carried crayons all over the room. She had such a wonderful time that I took out our crayons at home. She seemed to get the concept of drawing, but she was more interested in eating the crayons. We’ll try again next month.

Tickle Katherine

Katherine and I have a new game. We play this little piggy, and when we get to the last toe, I tickle her tummy. She loves it, and has started to play with her other toes when I recite the rhyme. Patty and I have been reading “where’s baby’s belly button” and showing her nose, etc. for the last several months. I ask her periodically to point to her nose. We’re still not there yet, but maybe it will happen soon.

Christmas Shopping

Katherine was very patient with us this weekend. We probably shopped 6 or 7 hours for gifts. She would sit in the shopping cart and look around. Every once in while, we’d let her walk around for a bit if things weren’t too crazy. She really enjoyed exploring a local children’s bookstore in Issaquah. The play area with the Christmas tree, cushions and stuffed animals were soooo interesting. She spent quite a bit of time investigating while I talked with the owner. Thankfully, she didn’t cause any damage. 🙂 We have two more gifts to buy and then we’re DONE! This was also an exciting weekend for shopping, because we turned Katherine’s car seat forwards. Funny enough our first or second trip out she fell asleep!

Quality Weekend with Katherine

We had a wonderful weekend with Katherine. We got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday. Katherine’s been getting up earlier and earlier these days. We suspect that she’s trying to spend more time with us before we go to work in the mornings. 🙂 Anyway, at 5:45AM she managed to wake me up. Steve took duty until I got around a bit later, and we had a nice time playing until I headed off to the gym. Katherine took over a 2 hour nap! Afterwards, we did a variety of errands from getting dog food, people food, a new shower part and generally catching up from last week. Katherine finally dozed off in the car, we made dinner, got Katherine to bed and watched a fun movie – the Italian Job.

Along with Katherine and Patty, Steve’s been fighting a bad cold. He’s been hacking away and we were determined to stay home today and get some rest. This is especially critical since he’s got yet another business trip this week. So, we stayed indoors (windy, rainy day!), played, baked cookies and had some friends over in the afternoon. Katherine played with her older buddies, Derek and Adam, and had a good dinner. She’s now snoozing away, and I expect that she’ll be back up for a snack in a couple hours.

Katherine and Bisco

They are becoming fast friends. Katherine regularly visits the bag by the door to get Bisco’s leash. She loves it when we put the leash on Bisco. She will then stand or sit next to him and sometimes pet him as well. Before dinner, I also caught Katherine giving Bisco a piece of bread that was supposed to tide her over to dinner. I gave her a small piece; she wobbled around the corner to the family room, extended her arm to Bisco giving him the bread! She also realizes that he loves her orange ball. Steve would give her the ball, and she would walk to the couch and hand Bisco the ball!

Sesame Street

To date, Katherine has shown no interest in TV whatsoever, including the Baby Blah series. This afternoon while she played in the TV room, we popped in a Sesame Street DVD with Ernie teaching the 123’s with lots of music and dancing (think Elmo in metallic pants). Katherine was entranced for 5 whole minutes. She sat on Steve’s lap and watched the DVD until she got bored and headed back to her toys. While we’re pretty happy that she’s not too attached to TV, it’s good to know that she has an attention span when she wants to focus on something.

Eating Everyday Food

Katherine is getting accustomed to eating the same food that Steve and I eat. She ate a couple wontons last night – stuffing and peel. Tonight, we made her tofu and spinach in soup stock and she wolfed it down. We also gave her egg whites for the first time today in the form of scrambled egg. She tentatively ate the first bite. I then spread the egg on her tray and she two fisted it a lot of it into her mouth. No allergic reactions so far.

Tanks!

Katherine now loves to give things to me or Steve. It may be a book, or a Lego or her Little People or whatever. We say “Thanks” and I think it’s finally taking hold. Derek played with Katherine, following her around and picking up her bowls and handing them back to her. I would ask Katherine “what do you say?” and she would say “Tanks.”

Little People

Katherine loves the Little People she got for her birthday. Quick explanation: it’s a line of Fisher Price toys with people who fit in buses, go to zoos (along with Little People Animals) and go to the amusement park. She carries this yellow plastic bus all over the family room. If it’s not the bus, she’s got an animal or person in her hand…What’s pretty exciting is that she’s finally got the hang of cleanup or putting toys in something. So, she puts almost anything in her bus and her Lego bin, whether it fits or not. 🙂

I also played with her today and showed her how to roll her Little Person wheelchair seat into the back of the bus thru the rear door. She imitated me. How cool is that?

Katherine Talking and Walking

Katherine is officially mobile. When we left for our biking trip, Katherine could walk 4 or 5 steps between me and Steve. When we came home, after much practicing, she could walk 8 to 9 steps. Now she can easily wobble in Frankenstein fashion 14 or 15 steps. We play a game of “go to mommy” and “go to daddy” where she will beam and walk between us. Not only is she mobile, she can now squat and then stand back up again. For instance, if we duck behind the coffee table, she will grasp the table with one hand, squat down, peer at us from under the table and laugh at us. Tonight, I caught her walking to Bisco who was lying on the floor. She leaned down, grabbed his head, ears and then nose – at different times. I tried to explain that she needs to be gentle, but that didn’t work out too well. It’s fortunate that Bisco is very patient. He just stayed on the floor looking very resigned.

Katherine is also expanding her vocabulary. Today, I came home and Patty informed me that Katherine says “Up.” She confirmed this by lifting her arms up, looking up at me and saying “Uph.” It was very sweet. So, I spent the rest of the evening saying Up and Down. And we’re continuing to say Thanks (which I’ve heard a couple times as “Tanks”) and we think she is trying to say Bisco as “Bith.” She babbles a lot now, talking to herself as she plays with her toys and walks around.

Everyone Sings in Our House!

With Steve out of town this week, I’ve taken the opportunity to practice my violin warming up for a few minutes each night with some nursery songs and a few scales. For some reason, Bisco has real issues with the violin. He simply purses his muzzle and howls “AWHOOOO” non-stop. Even when I play simple songs, he’ll hop on the couch and moan.

Last night, I took my violin out for the first time in months. Katherine spied it and clung to my leg looking at the violin curiously. When I started to tune, Bisco rushed over and started to howl. Katherine really enjoyed the show – Bisco howling next to me as I tuned and played the violin. Tonight, I took out a harmonica that we got at Sid’s birthday party, and the same thing happened. I want to make sure that Katherine grows up with music (As they say at Tiny Tots “it’s a musical life!”), so hopefully she’ll develop a love for stringed instruments. I took her hand and let her touch my violin and bow, she was so curious!

Curious Katherine

We call her “Curious Katherine” because she wants to check everything out. Tonight, she wobbled behind one of our chairs and found the gymboree parachute that was collapsed. She picked it up (strong!) and dragged it from behind the chair as if telling me “Mom, I want to play with this!” I opened it up and she crawled through. After staring at it, she grabbed the tag and one end and started to roll the parachute back and forth watching it roll across the floor.

During our trip to the Bay Area, she investigated everything around her. On the plane, she would check out her roundabout seat (not that she doesn’t sit in it everyday!) and she would peer at the people around her. She even stood on Steve’s lap and giggled at the people behind her over his shoulder. At the hotel, she checked out all the rooms and found bath salts next to the bath tub. I moved them to a nearby table, thinking she couldn’t reach them. Not only did she reach them, but she also then dropped the bag scattering the bath salts everywhere. I turned around from filling the tub and saw her stick a salt granule in her mouth. Holy Cow! Yes, we managed to get it out of her mouth.

Katherine goes to her first wedding

My previous roomate from Tempe, Sueling, got married this past weekend, so we all headed down to Los Gatos on Friday and came home on Sunday. Katherine was a trooper on the plane rides and drank lots of water to relieve her ear pressure. I’m not sure how parents travel with children, because she only slept one hour on Friday. With all the new experiences, Katherine didn’t want to miss a minute and stayed alert thru the airport, flight and to San Jose. She did sleep to the hotel, but promptly woke up as we carried her to the room. Coincidentally, Steve’s parents were in town too for the Stanford homecoming weekend, so they visited Friday and saw Katherine’s new developments. For dinner, we went to the California Cafe in the old town shopping center, sat out on the patio with other families and then walked back to the hotel room to watch the last out of the World Series first game. It was a beautiful evening, and Los Gatos is a very “tony” town as Steve’s mother described it.

On Saturday, we had breakfast with Steve’s parents at a local, Southern establishment. We headed back and stopped at the first annual glass art pumpkin festival. Local glass artists sold all sizes, colors and types of glass pumpkins to help raise money for hosting schools. Since we were staying right across from the Los Gatos High School, we stopped by and found a large, colorful pumpkin created by a Stanford grad only several years ahead of us. Since they wouldn’t ship, Steve had to visit a local store to double box the pumpkin for delivery home (it arrived in one piece!). It’s about 18″ in diameter and while orange in color has all sorts of blobs of colors all over it. The artist, when she found out we were from Seattle said, “bringing glass back to Seattle…that’s like taking coal to Newcastle!” I’m not sure how many people can afford the glass art she was referring to! Also, when Steve and I were debating one largely orange pumpkin and the one we bought, another woman explained that the colorful one was better because we could display it all year and it would go with more stuff. Pretty good rationale, so we bought it.

We returned to the hotel. Katherine took a nap, and we headed off to Sueling’s wedding only 6 or 7 miles up highway 17. The wedding was held at a small and tucked away facility with english cabs, a train, play houses and a refurbished barn! The ceremony was beautiful and in front of a lake with fountain with us sitting amongst the trees. (Katherine and Steve stayed outside the ceremony area so she wouldn’t disturb anyone – although it turned out she was quiet throughout.) We ate appetizers, rode in the train, and talked with others at the wedding. For dinner, we partaked in a 9 course dinner; we were just stuffed and Katherine was bleary eyed, so we had to leave prior to the cake cutting for nap time. She slept for 45 minutes in the car, and then we headed later to Mountain View to synch up with old friends, James, Lily and Kristina. After a short visit, we drove back to the hotel and hit the sack.

On Sunday, we woke early and headed to Albany for a visit with family. We visited with my Uncle Richard, Aunt Susan, and cousins Henry and Ronald. It was good to see everyone, after 7 years! Katherine played or banged on their piano, walked around their house and we enjoyed catching up. Unfortunately, we had to leave after only an hour and a half to make it back to the San Jose airport in time for our flight.

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