I have this theory that Cate can say a lot more than we think she can. She says so many things with obvious intent, the only problem is that Dave and I don’t understand her, so a lot of times we chalk it up to babble, when I think she actually is trying to tell us something.

Last night, I was chopping zucchini for dinner and she came in to the kitchen with her little beach ball and threw it to me. Since I was in the middle of making dinner, I couldn’t stop to play with her, so I tried to gently kick the ball toward her. And of course, since I have zero coordination, I missed totally and the ball rolled right past her, several feet away.

Cate turned around and ran after the ball, yelling clear as a bell, “I GO GET IT!!”

And my head exploded. The end.

She did it again this morning. She has another ball that’s really small (about tennis-ball size, but very soft and bouncy), and she threw it to me. I rolled it back to her, and she grabbed it and proudly announced, “I GOT IT!”

I told Patsy about this, and she said this is because Cate and her little daycare friend Mason play with balls in her backyard all the time, and I guess she learned it from him. Still, I am impressed.

Also, my theory that she understands a heck of a lot for someone who doesn’t talk that much? Yeah. Two examples to prove my point:

A. Yesterday evening, we were going to take her outside to play for a while, and Dave was trying to get Cate’s shoes on. He sat down in the dining room chair with her shoes, and she ran away from him to follow me into the next room. I said to her, “Go back to Daddy so he can put your shoes on and we can go outside.” Before you could even blink, she was in Dave’s lap getting her sneakers velcro’ed.

B. We were in the front yard, and she headed for the street to go see the neighbor’s horse. And that’s fine, but some safety issues are non-negotiable, so as we got close to the end of the driveway, I told her she had to hold my hand to cross the street. Normally this isn’t a problem; she definitely understands “hold my hand” and usually doesn’t mind doing it. But on this particular occasion, she was in a mood, so she proceeded to have a huge meltdown and threw herself onto the ground. I sat on the driveway next to her and said, “ok, you need to calm down, or we’re going to go back inside.” A few more gratuitous sniffles and she was fine. Huh. Whaddya know, even threats are starting to work at this age.

So yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Now I just have to figure out what the other 95% of the stuff she says means.

Friday was probably the worst day for my cold, but yesterday and today have definitely been better. I still have a nasty cough that wakes me up at night, but my voice is back and I don’t feel like death. So you know, progress.

Since I was feeling better, this morning Cate and I went outside to play for a while. One of our neighbors has gone on vacation for two weeks, and she said she was telling everyone in the neighborhood that we’re welcome to raid her garden for fruits and veggies, as long as we water the plants while we’re there. I thought that sounded reasonable enough, so we grabbed some tupperware, the stroller, and set off for their house.

Cate was very sad that their dog was gone, but we made the best of it. I set up the sprinkler in a far part of the garden (this neighbor’s garden is huuuge) and then went to check out the strawberry patch. As it turned out, the strawberries were tiny and not really worth the trouble. (Did you know strawberries grow really close to the ground? And that the gravity of leaning over is not your friend when you’re congested? Right.) But Cate saw them and got all excited and kept trying to grab them (always picking the ones that were half-rotted, of course), so I found a few decent ones, washed them in the hose water, pulled off the stems and let her eat them. I didn’t pick any extras to bring home, though. Maybe when I’m feeling better.

The 13 year-old girl who lives at the house had left her basketball out on the driveway, so Cate and I played catch with it for a little while. (“Ball” is one of the words she says really clearly, and she loves to play with them.) Then, since it was so hot, I carried her over to the sprinkler and let the water hit us a few times. Cate thought it was hilarious. We both came home soaking wet, and she conked out for her nap almost immediately. As my dad would say, she wore herself slap out.

It was a good morning.

1. Cate is doing really, really well. Last night was by far the easiest night we’ve had since Dave went out of town. The only tears that were shed was when she bonked her head on the coffee table, and that was over with pretty fast. And today she’s been super-happy, running around, dancing, singing, etc. Basically, she appears to be totally back to her normal self.

2. I am sick as a dog. I can’t breathe, I keep having these coughing spasms that make my sternum ache, and I just generally feel like hell. My head, throat and chest all hurt. It’s been awful.

3. Dave just got home. Praise the saints above.

Hope y’all have a good weekend.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty awful. Poor Cate was miserable, non-stop coughing and nothing seemed to give her much relief. She didn’t want to play, she didn’t want to walk around, she wouldn’t even talk; she just lay with her head in my lap and occasionally cried when the coughing started to hurt. I couldn’t get her to eat anything, but occasionally she’d drink a little milk or water. And we learned that she likes popsicles, since the cold seemed to help her throat. (Otter Pops, for what it’s worth. No worrying about choking on a popsicle stick.)

Then last night, just out of desperation, I put some Vicks VapoRub on her chest after her bath, and since I’d heard an old wives’ tale that it helps if you put it on the soles of your feet (crazy, I know), I slathered some on her feet too, and then put some socks on so she wouldn’t go slipping and sliding all over the place.

She went down around 9:00, and coughed a lot off and on for the first hour. Then… nothing. I didn’t hear a peep from her until 7 this morning. A chorus of angels sang a joyful hymn, and it was glorious. I have no idea if it was the VapoRub or not, but you can bet your sweet patootie that I’ll be using that trick every time she has a cold from here on out.

This morning, she had a couple of coughing fits, although nothing like yesterday. I decided to take her to the pediatrician anyway, just to be safe. Her doctor said that her lungs are totally clear (yay!), but she now has an ear infection (boo!). Oh well, we caught it early enough that it shouldn’t be causing her any discomfort yet, so we’ve got the antibiotics lined up and we’ll hopefully nip this in the bud before it becomes a problem.

On a different note: back in November when my mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer, she made my dad get a cell phone. (How he managed to survive in the world without one for so long, I have no idea.) My mom was worried that she might have some emergency and not be able to get in touch with him. So he has a cell phone now, but he complains about the fact that no one ever calls him on it. So today, as we were leaving the pediatrician’s office, I made a point to call him on his cell (while he was at the golf course, naturally) to give him the latest update on Cate. I knew he was worried about her (my dad is a Grade A, heavyweight champion Worrywart with a capital W), and I figured it was better to let him know right away, rather than wait until he got home this afternoon. It was so funny, something that small – our conversation lasted less than two minutes – and it totally made his day. Parents are funny.