Walking

(That toy in her hand is what's making the magical sounds. It's not merely the magic of a baby's early steps)

Hallelulah

Kate has finally slept through the night!

Ahhhhhhh! It feels like the dawn ...

of a new era in our house. (a pretty sunrise earlier this week)

I can feel my brain coming slightly unfuzzed. We're just four days from her birthday. It has been almost A YEAR since I had a full night's sleep. I was just hitting a wall where I couldn't fall asleep at 2 a.m. after nursing Kate. Thank goodness she seemed to hit a wall, too, where she would lie in bed crying after nursing and if we even went into her room she got hysterical. It was clearly the right moment to let her work some stuff out on her own. And she did!!!!

What a happy, well-rested almost-1-year-old we have in our house now.

We've been staying at Molly's school on Wednesday mornings to make Waldorf dolls with some other moms in the parent-child classroom. Here's Kate playing with the toys.

Here she is telling Molly how glad she is that sister's home from school. All Molly wanted to do was relax with a Highlights magazine, some water and hair twirling. Kate was patting her back, tipping her head onto Molly's shoulder, giving her open-mouth baby kisses and just generally hanging in her space. It was very kind of Molly to tolerate it all. :)

Molly already has her suitcase packed for Rochester. She's extremely excited about this trip, especially for playing with Lucy and riding in the Gator and visiting family. We're pretty excited, too. :)

Summer?

Well, it's about 80 degrees here and we're having a really nice time.

Some scenes from the week...

Molly's been climbing our little maple tree in the backyard. (And having me lift her up, as in this shot).

Kate's latest favorite toy? Empty cardboard box. She pushed it across the bathroom the other night and used it to climb onto the toilet and then almost onto the counter. Yikes!

Molly climbing the tree herself yesterday.

And with a little help from me.

Everybody pile on Daddy!

These are from today ...

Molly talked me into getting her basketball hoop out from the basement while Kate was napping. She counted up our points. Last I knew she was ahead, 10-8. :)

Kate had an exciting afternoon, too. We put up the baby swing and Molly pushed her!

First step

Kate took her first step this morning!

She took my magazine out of my hands and was holding onto it. I don't think she realized what she was holding onto wasn't attached to anything. She picked up her right foot a tiny bit and lowered it just a bit ahead of where it was. I wasn't even sure it really was a step, but she did it again a few minutes later.

Molly was at school, Jim at work. The only other person around was the dishwasher repair guy. He didn't seem at all interested in the baby so I decided not to share -- just kept the excitement between Kate and me.

I don't have a picture of the magic moment, obviously, but I do have this video from a couple days ago that shows how Kate's been practicing her walking.

Snow

The snow was perfect last weekend for finally getting out Molly's birthday toys from Kim ...

The snow brick maker

The snow ball maker

And also for making a snow man.

It was so nice out that we got Kate outside a little, too.

Then the temperatures hit 68 in Boston Wednesday but we still had snow. That's when it really got fun. I let Molly linger at preschool to play outside on the elephant with the other kids. Some of the boys were covered in mud from playing where the water was dripping off the roof and making mud puddles. Molly stayed relatively clean. :)

When we got home we went straight outside.

I even took off my shoes and socks, so of course Molly wanted to, too. Gotta love bare feet in the snow!

On a less fun note, a couple kids at Molly's preschool had lice so the school is in crazy lice-prevention mode. They want us all to treat (non-chemically, of course) our kids even without symptoms just to make sure nobody brings bugs into school. We got a blizzard of e-mails about checking hair, putting things in the dryer, using preventive herbal sprays, and pulling back long hair for school. It makes me itch just thinking about it. Here's Molly ready for school Tuesday with freshly inspected hair, sprayed with water and tea tree oil and pulled back.

She's been a very good sport about it. I think this might just be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I am so tired from nearly a year of interrupted sleep and so burned out trying to get Kate healthy (tracking her eating, making purees, remembering antibiotics and vitamins with and without iron on alternating days, taking her to appointments, rocking her to sleep, doing everything one-handed because she won't be set down, ahhhhhh!)

The good news is Kate seems to be gaining weight. I hadn't noticed until the doctor pointed it out that she weighs only about a pound more now than she did at 6 months old! Turns out I'm actually supposed to be FEEDING her, ha ha ha, not just letting her nibble bits of my dinner when she's in the mood. We're now finally, finally on a schedule for snacks in our house, in part because Kate eats more when she's offered formal snacks but honestly it's mostly because Molly's in a growth spurt and is in the kitchen non-stop all day asking me to cut things and make things and open things. It's exhausting.

Good thing the girls are so silly! Here they are playing with the "poofy pile" (aka the down comforter we got out earlier this week when my mom was visiting).

First tooth

Kate finally has her first tooth! It's her top middle tooth on her left. I noticed a little whiteness a couple days ago and now it's clearly tooth-like. She's even using it to bite stuff!!

In other firsts, we switched Kate from her infant car seat to a regular one. Now we can't snap her into a stroller frame and wheel her around while she's still  sleeping. Oh, well. She's almost a year old!!! In my mind she's still about 6 months, I think. :)

We're having our first good snow since October today. Molly went out to play in it while I unloaded groceries. I love glancing out the window and seeing her engrossed in play. This is a what she was doing today (blurry photo because it was taken through the window).

She wasn't making a snow angel or anything, just walking around the yard and lying down in various places. She also shoveled the front walk (you can see her path in that photo) and part of the steps, just because she felt like it. :)

Doctor visits

I finally got Kate to the doctor this week and we're quickly tracking down what the heck is wrong with her.
We got blood test results last night and it seems she's low on iron -- not anemic, but low enough that it could be making her overly vulnerable to infections.

Fortunately some vitamins should boost her levels back up. In the meantime she's on antibiotics because she seems to have some sort of bacterial infection up in her head somewhere. Her runny nose has slowed down a bit and it's quite a relief. She still sounds a lot like Darth Vader being devoured by gremlins, though. Poor little girl.

We're so used to being sick at this point that it's not slowing us down. Oma and Grandpa visited last weekend. They played with the kids while Jim and I ducked out for shopping and lunch. Grandpa got Molly some boondoggle, which both girls are still enjoying. Oma helped her sew a leather pouch.

 

We went down to see Jeff's new house Monday and met Jim for lunch at work Wednesday.  I took the girls up to Vermont yesterday for some February vacation fun with Lex and Eve. What great little travelers they are!! Molly was awake the entire four hours of driving and Kate didn't sleep at all on the way home, yet there was zero whining or crying. They just chattered and did I-don't-know-what to occupy themselves. It was quite a pleasant surprise. In some ways it was actually one of the easier days of the week because I got four hours to just do my own thing (even if it was driving) and not have to think much about the kids. Or maybe it was the hours of talking to an adult while the children happily occupied each other that made it such a nice day. :)

We're finishing up vacation week with some bowling with our quiet little neighbor friend Rhys, then on to a slow weekend before (health willing) Molly goes back to school. She hasn't been to school in two weeks because she was out sick the entire week before break. The names of her classmates are coming up in her pretend play pretty often today. I think she's eager to go back.

Some other scenes from our week.

Molly so engrossed in drawing that she got right up on the table.

Molly was playing outside a few days ago when she called me because she found a flower. She was right. Here's our first crocus of spring ... in February!

Little girl snuggled up, feeling not so healthy.

Kate playing with a construction paper crown Molly made.