Ever have one of those days where your toddler wakes you up almost two hours earlier than usual for no discernible reason, and your house is completely trashed because you’ve let the housekeeping slide since you’ve sold and haven’t had to show the place, and the house also smells vaguely of baby poop because you really should’ve emptied the diaper pail last night, and then when you pull in the driveway after dropping your kid off at daycare, you see a big white utility van sitting there waiting and you remember that oh yeah, this was the day that the electrician was supposed to come?

No? Just me? Ok then!

So yeah, today has not been good so far. Cate woke up at 5:45 this morning, cheerful as a lark and totally wiiiide awake. She’s been getting up progressively earlier and earlier, and it’s driving me insane. I’m not sure if it’s because the sun is coming up earlier, or if it’s because she isn’t eating enough at night so she’s waking up because she’s hungry. (She has been eating less at dinner time, and when I go get her in the morning, she starts signing “milk” before I even get her out of her crib, so the hunger issue seems plausible.) And the food thing is the one issue that I might be able to work on, so I’m going to try to get her to eat more in the evening to see if that helps.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she was still going to bed at a reasonable time, but lately she’s been staying up until almost 10:00 every night. She’s not grouchy, she’s just a whirling dervish of energy and we don’t know how to calm her down other than to let her run around until she collapses from exhaustion.

Ok, cute baby video time! Last night we went out for a walk and I brought the video camera in case we saw the new baby horse down the street (sadly, he & his mama were in one of the back pastures where I couldn’t get a good shot of them). As we passed one of the little gravel side roads, these two dogs behind a fence started going berserk, barking and growling at us, and basically sounding like they wanted to eat us for lunch. Cate screamed “doggy!” and ran toward them.

They were a little scary, but she didn’t seem to notice. She does the sign for “dog” in this, or close to it – for those unfamiliar with baby sign language, you’re supposed to pat your hip like you’re calling a dog to you, and Cate pats her belly. But it was close enough, I knew what she meant. She also screams “Patsy!” after she signs “dog,” I guess because Patsy is the only person she knows who has dogs.

I love when she says “hi, baby” and waves at them.

P.S. She has two new words since yesterday, both used appropriately: “ball” and “book”. Right on.