Cate’s decided in the past week or so to go ahead and sprout up those molars that have been threatening to appear for the past several months. She now has three (3!!) molars that have made an appearance of some sort. But that’s the thing, we have just one or two corners of the tooth that’s popped up, while the rest of the tooth is still working its way up through her gums. It hurts me just to look at her mouth, I cannot imagine the discomfort she’s in right now.

I’m guessing it’s mostly due to the teeth, but her sleeping patterns have gone wonky in a totally different direction now. She’s had several days where she’s taken almost no nap at all – maybe 15-20 minutes in the car, but that’s all – and she’s crashed out for the night by 7 p.m. The problem with that is that she typically will wake up once in the middle of the night, but after a diaper change and a cup of milk, she’ll go back to bed pretty quickly and sleep until 8 in the morning or so.

So… I don’t really know what’s going on with her, but I’m trying to just roll with it and help her to stay as comfortable as possible. Baby Motrin, letting her chew on my car keys, whatever. But it’s definitely wearing me out.

On the up side, she’s recently decided that playing with the neighborhood kids is like the greatest thing ever. Yesterday we spent over two hours outside, while she ran around and tried to keep up with the “big kids” (who are all very sweet about involving her, so it’s fine). She’ll run right into the middle of the boys’ soccer game, which makes me panic because I worry that she’s going to get a ball to the face, but they’re very considerate about watching out for her. One boy (who is the first boy that Cate has noticed and genuinely seems to like) will stop occasionally and offer her the ball to let her throw it. It’s so sweet.

Yesterday there were about four 7 year-old girls next door, and they decided to make “magic soup,” which was essentially a bucket full of water with some leaves, flower petals, pine straw and other random stuff thrown in there. The girls all ran around grabbing things to throw in the bucket, and there was Cate with a giant stick, helping them stir their magic soup. I wish I had taken a picture.

Meredith (the mom next door) and I were chatting while this was going on, and we noticed that the girls looked like witches around a cauldron. Meredith said, “yeah, with a little witch-in-training,” pointing at Cate. That sounds about right.