pipandsqueak.com

Katherine is starting to hide things. Yesterday she went to the cabinet in the kitchen that she is allowed to open and yelled with delight. Why, well, earlier in the day she had hidden her Fisher Price Little People parrot and bunny. She played with them for awhile as I cooked dinner and then put them back. They are still there.

Today she “hid” more toys in our shower. It is really cute as long as she is only hiding her toys and she remembers where she put them. I will really be mad when she starts hiding my car keys or shoes and cannot tell me where they are.

Tonight I was working on the computer while Sam got Katherine ready for bed. When he was done, she walked over to me, saying “Mamma” I might add which is sooooo cute. I was not really paying attention until Sam said, “what do you think that means?” Well, Katherine had picked up the Boppy from the couch and had carried it over to me. I think that means she wants to nurse. She has never done this before though she has gone to my diaper bag, found the nursing cover and brought it to me.

It was cute, it shows that she is very smart and it is a little weird.

This weekend we went to White Rock Lake on both Saturday and Sunday because the weather was just perfect. We love to walk around the lake. On Saturday there was a lot of wildlife out. We saw a ton of ducks, cranes and the coolest caterpillars. Sadly, I did not have the camera on Saturday.

Sunday I took the camera so that I could work on an assignment for my photography class. This week we were to work on taking photos of moving objects. One photo was supposed to use a panning technique where you follow the moving object resulting inthe object being clear and the background blurry. Then i did one with the camera on a tripod so that the background was clear and the object was blurred. One ended up with both blurry but I thought it looked cool anyway.

Today we went to the Dallas Zoo with Tess and Louis, Meg and Hannah. It was a perfect day for it. The weather was not too hot and not too cool. It was sunny. A welcome day after storms on and off for the past few weeks. I decided to buy a membership so I will be returning to the Zoo many more times this year.

It was a really fun group because the three kids were born within one month. They were all walking, but not running so they were equally curious and able to explore. I think their favorite part was playing in the dirt and rocks though they really enjoyed looking at the animals too. I think the chimps were the most fun because they moved a lot.

 We did not see many four-legged creatures like lions and tigers today but I wondered at what age Katherine will really be able to distinguish between all of the different animals. If you think about it, many animals are really are quite similar in that they walk on four legs, have a tail and sharp teeth. How really do you explain the difference between a dog and a cat to a kid? We read tons of books with animals but at what point does she take a 2-D animal from a book and apply it to a 3-D animal at the zoo? Hmmmm…just some thoughts. Regardless of knowing the animals, Katherine had fun and we would tell the kids the names of the animals (even those we had to look at the signs to know).

It’s funny, we spend aver three hours looking at all of the animals, but most of my pictures were of the kids.

 

Fun, you are so much fun! You always make us laugh!

At 14 months you are so curious. You are walking all over the place, no longer crawling. It is so cute as you sometimes get going a little too fast and stumble around. It brings you a new sense of freedom. With that freedom, you are able to explore things. Monday while I was in the shower and you were in the bathroom, it got really quiet. I looked out and half of the toilet paper roll was on the floor. You did it again on Wednesday. You would think that I would learn to move the tp somewhere else.

Your curiosity also takes you to the fridge. When you see one of us open it, you come as fast as you can. Your favorite items are the mustard bottles in the door. You like to take them out, put them back, sit on the ledge as you try to open them. Sometimes I let you sit there, but that is certainly not very energy efficient.

We went with Jen and Evie to go feed the ducks and you kept trying to walk closer to them - which was closer to the water and later we discovered - Poison Ivy! I am so glad you did not get into that.

You have fallen in love with your dog. Your first word was dog and now your first phrase was “Hi doggy” when you saw Hooligan right after waking up in the morning. You have started to understand and enjoy petting Hooligan and when Hooligan tries to lick you, you push her away. It is so cute when you pet her and talk to her.

You are finally becoming a better sleeper. You take a consistant nap now. I still wish it was longer but at least you are taking one. You are now easy to put to bed at night which is a huge blessing and welcome change. Daddy really enjoys the time with you in the evening when he gets you ready for bed, reads with you and say your prayers.

Your eating has its ups and downs. Some days you eat a ton and other days you want nothing. I am hoping to take you to Dr. H this week to weigh you. I think you have gained weight. You are still nursing. You are nursing less, about 3-4 times a day. I am starting to be more scheduled about it and beginning a weaning process. My goal is to at least cut back to just 2 times a day, after waking up and before bed.

You are getting a sense of humor and that is fun to watch. You will get your snack and hold it out to me like you want me to eat it. Then when I try to eat it, you will pull it away and laugh as you put it in your mouth. You enjoy playing hide and seek. When I hide, you hear my voice and I can hear you looking for me. When you find me you are so excited.

You decided that Hooligan’s food bowl would make a great hat and I agree. What a pretty shiny bowl. Luckily you decided this when it was empty.

One of your new favorite toys would be any bag. You carry around your purse, my purse, your diaper bag or any bag of stuff. You enjoy putting things in the bag, taking them out and carrying it around. You get really frustrated when the bag is too heavy to carry.

You are learning how a lot of your toys work. You can put puzzle pieces in the right place, stack things and sort things. You love to knock over towers and buildings that I build with your blocks. You LOVE your books. You like to pull them all off the shelf and then read them. You have learned which way to hold the book and notice when it is upside down.

Sometimes you get frustrated when you can’t do something. You squeal and shriek when you are frustrated. I do not really like that but until you have more words, you don’t know how to express your frustration. It makes me realize that I need to be more intentional with our sign language so that you can express yourself.

We are still doing lots of fun things. You just finished your Tiny Tots and Tunes class which was a lot of fun. Next week you will start Gym Dandies. We get together with friends a lot too.

This is the number of hours between daytime nursings today-an all time record for me and Katherine. I went to the women’s retreat at my church only I did not spend the night at the hotel because of Katherine and nursing. But, I left the house at 8 am and returned at 4:30. Only when I got home, Katherine, Sam and Hooligan were all gone. I called Sam and they had gone to White Rock for a walk. So, I went and joined them. It was a beautiful day. I was really wishing I had my camera. We saw all kinds if interesting wildlife - ducks, cranes and the coolest ever caterpillars. Katherine fell asleep on the way home and slept for over 2 and a half hours! She woke up at 8:30 and I fed her a regular dinner and we played for awhile before she finally wanted to nurse.

Today showed me that we are a lot closer to weaning than I thought - if I want to be. I have mixed thoughts as I enjoyed my day of freedom but kind of had my feelings hurt when she did not need me. (kind of silly I know) I thought that as soon as she saw me she would start to cry. I was glad to see that she was so happy with her daddy all day.

Last weekend was my Nana’s birthday. Nana and Pops picked me up from the church nursery and took me to their house while mommy and daddy worked in the nursery. Mommy wanted me to be able to eat lunch and take a nap. When Mommy and Daddy got to Nana and Pop’s house, I was in fact taking a nap. I did not want to miss out on lunch though so I woke up before they were done.

Nana opened her presents. I gave her three books that had sweaters, hats and ponchos to crochet for Sophia and me.

Mommy and Daddy had a meeting to go to so I stayed and played with Nana and Pops. We read stories and played with my fish. It is so fun. I stick the fishing pole in the fishing bowl and then the fish stick to the pole when I pull it out. Nana is teaching me the colors of all of the fish.

Please let us go outside!

I love my playgroup. Every other week they come over to play. This week Hannah, Evie, Caedmon, Robert and Sammy came to play. It is so fun now that most of us are walking around (not Evie, she is only 4 months old). Today the big hit was my bagel. Everyone wanted some. We played outside because the weather was so pretty. We ran on the grass, played in my igloo tent and swang. I wish I had playgroup everyday.

Sophia is catching up!

Sophia had her 2 month appointment today and Aunt Jaime tells me that she weighs 11 pounds, 7 oz (64th %) and is 24.25 inches (97th %). In comparison, at 2 months Katherine weighed 9 pounds, 9.5 oz (15%) and was 22 inches (45%). Right now at 14 months I am guessing Katherine weighs about 17.5 pounds.

So, watch out Katherine, Sophia is gaining on you, and fast!

Here is a cute picture of Sophia and Uncle Will at Lake Tahoe for her first snow.

It has been quite a struggle getting Katherine to eat. There have been days that I have been in tears at the end of a meal. It does not help that I put pressure on myself bcause I know she needs to eat more to gain weight.

This week she has been doing much better and today was a great eating day. For breakfast she finished off one jar of Earth’s Best Apple Oatmeal Yogurt, 1/4 of a bagel and 1/4 of a banana. She went to Mother’s Day Out today. I usually send twice as much food as I think she will eat so that they have a lot of options if she is being picky. When I picked her up, they said that she ate every single thing I sent. This included a large jar of Chicken Vegetable Soup, a jar of peas, applesauce, peaches, and 1/4 bagel. When we got home, she had the rest of her banana from lunch. For dinner she ate a full serving of homemade casserole consisting of carrot, onion, tomato, cheese and lentil, cottage cheese, cheese toast and peaches. This is the first time I have been able to get her to eat cheese! When I was eating dinner she had another snack of whole grain crackers and some of my pancake.

Let’s hope that this was not just an odd day, but a start of a huge growth spurt! Now, I need to keep working on her drinking milk. She still would rather play with her sippy cup than drink out of it.