Author Archives: Cindy

another video

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My dad had requested some more baby videos, so I filmed this for him last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9DKECV20_I

Cate loves her little stacking ring toy, and she can get them in the right order most of the time. This video also features a Special Guest Appearance from Beaumont, so if you have a thing for babies and pets (hi, Angie!), this is for you.

It’s funny, you’ll see him walk right in front of her and wait for her to sit up and pound on him. Which she always does. He loves it, and purrs like a maniac the whole time. Such a bizarre kitty. I have a theory that when she’s a little older and sleeping in a big-girl bed, Beaumont is probably going to be her sleeping companion. The two of them are totally buddies.

Side note: the audio is totally crap, because I filmed this with my regular camera instead of my camcorder. I think that’s probably my fault. I don’t know where the microphone is located on the camera, so it’s entirely likely that I had my finger over it the whole time.

(really) young love

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Work is picking up the pace, and things are about to get super hectic for the next few weeks. This is a good thing, since I’m generally enjoying what I do, and the Home Improvement Fund needs some serious donations so we can get this house ready to go on the market by spring.

I’ve already arranged for Cate to start going to daycare every weekday to accomodate the new crazy schedule. It’s funny, I used to think how I would hate to have her in daycare five days a week, and now I don’t even bat an eye. I think it’s mostly because she loves Patsy so much, she has so much fun there with the other kids, and she almost always comes home in a great mood. Sort of kills the Mommy Guilt right there, you know?

Oh, also, I think Cate might already have found her first boyfriend. There’s a new little boy going to daycare at Patsy’s house. His name is Mason, he’s 18 months old, and he’s just about the cutest little boy I’ve ever seen. (Except yours, of course, if you have one.) Patsy said that the other day, Cate was playing with a toy, and Mason walked over and stroked Cate’s hair. She smiled and seemed to like it. Then Mason noticed that Patsy was watching, so he got embarassed and walked away. How adorable is that?

Yesterday at pick-up time, Patsy showed me a picture she had taken of Mason and Cate playing together. There was going to be some sort of preschool/childcare fair at one of the churches here, and she wanted my permission to use the picture on her booth to help her drum up some business. I told her it was fine, of course. Heck, I think I might have to sneak my camera in there someday to try to get a picture of them together too.

In other news: four days from now, my baby is going to be one year old. I cannot begin to tell you how weird that feels. I could almost swear that we just got her home from the hospital few weeks ago.

Should've bought stock in Puffs Plus with lotion

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I’m slightly wigging out over the fact that Cate seems to be developing yet another cold. Because, you know, January is a whole new month, and apparently she has to have at least one for each month of winter. We’ve already had colds in both November and December.

So far, her only symptom is a runny nose, but it hasn’t seemed to affect her mood at all. She’s still generally cheerful and not acting like a sick baby. And (pardon me if this is gross/TMI) her nose is more watery than booger-y. So my hope is that maybe this isn’t another cold, maybe it’s just related to teething? Does anyone know if that’s even possible, or did I just make that up out of thin air?

She’s been working on those top two teeth for ages. One of them even broke through at some point, but then her gums swelled up and it went back in. Poor baby, that’s gotta hurt.

The other possible cause for the runny nose (other than a normal cold) is that it could be allergies, since the one-year mark is generally when kids could start developing them. I’m just crossing my fingers that she isn’t allergic to cats, because we’re all in big trouble if she is.

photo entry

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I’m just now getting around to uploading a whole slew of pictures that have been on my computer for a while.

First, Lizard (plus her hubby and her own baby Catie) stopped by for a visit. She has more pictures than I do over on her site.

Liz, me and our two Baby Caties

Also, there are a few that I’ve taken recently of Cate (the “Month 12” set is here, such as it is – more pics will be added later). I love this one of her standing up on her own, even though she’s decided that she doesn’t like the flash on the camera so she won’t look at me when I’m trying to take her picture. But seriously, how cute is that outfit?

standing! not holding onto anything!

Finally, back in November, we went to the Sears Portrait Studio and had some professional photos taken of Cate (and a couple of family shots too). If you got a Christmas card from me this year, you’ve already seen a couple of them.

family picture 1

portrait 1

Originally I wanted to set up a photo session with Starr, who did our wedding photos and who I just adore. We ran into her at Scott and Cara’s wedding last summer and talked about how great it would be to do some baby pictures with her. But when we tried to set it up, we just couldn’t make it work with our schedules. I do want to get her to take some pictures of Cate at some point, probably this spring when everything is blooming again. (She does amazing outdoor photos.)

As it turned out, the Sears pictures weren’t nearly as cheesy as we thought they’d be. And I made a little photo album out of them, which was a nice Christmas gift for all of the grandparents. You can see the rest of the set here, if you’d like.

32

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Today is my birthday.

It’s weird that it’s been kind of a non-event on my mental radar. I’m really excited about Cate’s first birthday in a couple of weeks, so I kind of keep forgetting about mine. Strange how that works, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like 32 is some big landmark number.

Looking back at my blog entries from last year, I see that I forgot about my birthday last year as well. Of course, that was because I was so preoccupied with feeling miserable and wanting my pregnancy to be over and done with.

I do have a couple of nice birthday things going on, though. I went shopping yesterday and got myself some jeans, thanks to my sister. I’m getting a massage and a facial, courtesy of my parents and Dave, respectively. And tomorrow night, I’m having dinner with Kris. So it’s definitely a lot better than last year – if nothing else, I’m at least going to get out of the house.

Plus, Cate is at daycare today and I don’t have any major pressing deadlines going on at work (at least not right now), so I can kind of enjoy some Mommy Downtime. I think I might take a bubble bath and a nap. Happy birthday to me, indeed.

thank you, vh1

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I haven’t been excited about that much on TV lately. I mean, I’m really happy that the Daily Show & Colbert Report are back on, and I’m looking forward to “Lost” starting later this month, but otherwise… eh. Not that much is on my DVR schedule. Even my beloved “Project Runway” hasn’t been as exciting to me this year as previous seasons, although I’m not sure why that is. Maybe because no one is quite as obviously evil or mentally unstable this time around.

All that changed tonight, though. Because the second season of “Rock of Love” premiered. Oh. My. God. Did you see it? Did you see the poor girl who was so drunk that she slept through the elimination round? And the crazy French woman who listed off all of the various plastic surgeries she’s had, and then later said that “beauty is only skin deep.” HA!

The new season of Scott Baio’s show premiered too! And he’s still a weirdly angry, neurotic, middle-aged man! Only now he’s having a baby! Oh lord, I am in heaven.

And did anyone else see the first episode of “Celebrity Rehab”? I think my mouth was hanging open for the entire episode. I used to have a little bit of a crush on Jeff Conaway (when he was Kenickie in “Grease”), and seeing him all befuddled and incoherent and in a wheelchair because he was too wasted to walk or sit upright was kind of upsetting. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to watch the entire series, but it’s sort of fascinating. In the same way that you know you shouldn’t look at the scene of a car accident as you’re driving past it, but you do anyway. Eek.

Miss Scarlett

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There’s a little girl at daycare named Scarlett, who, besides being really adorable, is also quite the drama queen. She’s 2 1/2 years old, so I suppose it goes with the age, I don’t know. (I’ll find out myself soon enough.) When Cate first started going to daycare, Scarlett often cried more at drop-off time than Cate did. I’m pretty sure she was feeling displaced as the baby of the group, so it was a normal adjustment phase.

Once, when I was picking Cate up, Scarlett started to put her shoes on too (no reason why, her mom wasn’t coming for another couple of hours). So I jokingly said to her, “Oh, do you want to come home with me? That’ll be fun!” This caused her to throw herself on the floor crying. Oops. Patsy explained to her that I was just teasing, she wasn’t going to come home with me, her mom would be there soon, etc. And she was fine. See: drama.

Recently, Scarlett has suddenly gotten a LOT chattier. When I drop Cate off in the morning, I usually hear her inside as we’re walking up to the front door, shrieking “Paaaatsy!! Baby Catie is here!!!” Then she quizzes me for a status report on her mood. “Is the baby happy? Is the baby going to cry?” She’s pretty funny, actually.

(I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I always write her name as Cate, but I call her Catie in real life. I have no reason for this discrepancy, but there you go. Anyway, she’s Baby Catie at daycare to differentiate her from an older girl there, also named Katie.)

This morning, Patsy told me that last night Scarlett decided to pretend that she was Cate. She demanded that her parents and older brother address her as “Baby Catie.” Patsy asked Scarlett if she was a sad Baby Catie or a happy Baby Catie, and Scarlett said, “Happy!!” Oooo-kay.

Patsy thinks this is because Scarlett is sort of caught in between being a baby (i.e., still wearing diapers) and being a big girl (she recently moved out of her crib into a big-girl bed). I’ve heard of toddlers acting like babies, and that it’s supposed to be a normal developmental phase. I just didn’t know that they acted like a particular baby. In this case, mine. It’s a little odd, but it cracked me up.