I guess the lesson I learned from this whole NaBloPoMo experiment is that I can, in fact, come up with something to write (most of the time) when I feel like I have nothing to say. I just need to sit in front of a blank entry page and see what comes out. I don’t know if I’ll stick with this whole thing of posting more frequently, but I’d like to. Not every day, but more than I was before.

Oh, and I know I just did this three days ago, but I have a couple more baby milestones:
* Cate stood up! On her own! No holding anything! This just happened for the first time about an hour ago. We were playing around and she was standing up holding on to Dave, and then she just let go and kept on standing. She held it for a few seconds before she fell on her butt, but she did it again, so I think this is going to be her new favorite trick.

Question: what’s the approximate time gap between independent standing and walking? I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?

* The past two days, when I’ve gone to pick her up at daycare, she took one look at me and said, “Mama!” So I think she might actually know what it means, which is pretty exciting. Earlier tonight, she was in the living room and I wandered into the kitchen for a minute. From the next room, I heard her say, “Mama?” with a definite question mark on the end. It could’ve just been babbling (since she does that non-stop), but it sounded intentional. I said, “Here I am!” And a few seconds later, she came crawling in to the kitchen. So who knows?

* Also, when I drop her off at daycare now, not only does she not cry anymore, she actually reaches for Patsy. So I think we’ve found a pretty happy arrangement there. Happy baby, no guilt for mommy, everybody wins.

Oh, and have I mentioned the teeth? They’re hyooooge!

Last night I had a dream that Cate was in bed with us, which is not a stretch, since she’s usually in our bed from around 4-8 a.m. everyday. (She stopped sleeping through the night when she got sick back in October.) But in the dream I could hear her babbling, so it seemed very real. Then I woke up, and she wasn’t there, and I panicked. We prop open the baby gate at the top of the stairs at night so the cats can come & go (and so Dave and I don’t bump into it in the dark), and I just thought, “Ok, I heard her, but she’s not in the bed. Oh god, she’s crawling around and the gate is open, and she’s going to fall down the stairs!” I bolted to the top of the stairs, and since I heard Dave watching TV, I yelled downstairs, “Is she with you???” He was like, “Uh, is who with me?” That’s when I woke up the rest of the way and realized that I am, in fact, one of those obsessively anxious new moms that you always hear about. Way to go, me.