Friday, March 30, 2012

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)

Thursday, March 29, 2012

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. :)

Monday, March 19, 2012

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!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

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.

Friday, March 9, 2012

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).


Thursday, March 1, 2012

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. :)