Category Archives: Babies ‘n Stuff

put that kid on a leash

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A couple of nights ago, I had a nightmare that I lost Cate in the airport. I’m sure it’s probably just general anxiety about moving that’s manifesting itself in my brain, but it really upset me, and it made me decide to go invest in a toddler harness, so it’s one less thing for me to worry about. (Note to Cat: I remembered that e-baby had the monkey version, and since our girls already have so much other gear in common, I intentionally got the dog so we’ll always know whose is whose.)

We’ve tried out the harness a couple of times for walks around the neighborhood, just to get Cate used to idea of wearing it, so she doesn’t wig out over it in the airport. And she really seems to like it. She likes the doggy a lot, and she plays with him even when she isn’t wearing him. She’s given him a few kisses on the nose, it’s very cute.

flower girl

The weird thing is that since I bought the harness, it’s like it’s suddenly clicked in her head that she’s supposed to walk next to me instead of just running around wherever. The couple of times that we’ve gone for walks without it, she’s actually held my hand (something she would never do before, I always assumed because it messed with her sense of balance), and she patiently walked beside me for ages. It was kind of awesome. And of course, the irony here is that I’m pretty sure I swore that I’d never own a toddler harness before I had kids, but I totally get it now.

Oh, and today we took Cate to get a for-real haircut. The kids’ salon is still closed for renovations (they were supposed to re-open 2 weeks ago!), so we went to one of those super-cheap, chain barber shops instead.

post-haircut

They just did her bangs because she was squirming and crying the whole time (even though she was in my lap). It pretty much sucked for everyone involved. But I think this is good enough for now. At least I can stop constantly brushing her hair out of her eyes.

rough day (and it's only just started)

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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.

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

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.

more language stuff

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I don’t know if I’m boring y’all with this, but I want some way to keep track of these new language developments, and well, this blog is it.

So, here are Cate’s latest and greatest:
* ‘Side (or sometimes “shide”) means outside. And she now refers to herself as either Baby Cate or Baby Catie, since that’s what all the kids at daycare call her. So last night, when we went out for our walk, she said, “Baby Cate shide!” Yes, sweetie, Baby Cate is indeed outside.

* We stopped at one of the neighbors’ houses to talk to their horse. The horse eventually got bored with us and walked away. Cate screamed, “Baaack heeeeere!!!!” This might indicate something about how often we tell her to “come back here.” For the record, the horse was not impressed, and he did not come back. We went down the road to talk to the cows instead.

* Not a sentence, but a new word: “stah-bee” for strawberry. Yum.

* When we were leaving the house to go to Patsy’s this morning: “We go bye.”

Actually, “bye” seems to be one of her favorite words. If she gets mad at me, she’ll say “BYE!!” and stomp away. Like, dude, I am sooo done with you. She’s done it to both Dave and Patsy too, it’s not just me. But man, if you tick her off, she’ll let you know.

Now, if someone could please tell me what “oppy-boppy” means, I’d really appreciate it, because she says it ALL the time, and Dave and I can’t figure it out. I think it’s just a nonsense word that she likes the sound of, but… yeah. I don’t have the foggiest idea on that one.

and it never gets old

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Want to know how Dave and I entertain Cate almost every evening?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx2oMj4FMSs

I got the camera out after we’d already been playing for a while, which is why she seems to be winding down toward the end. Her laugh is a lot more maniacal when I don’t have the camera shoved in her face too.

I love when she decides to tackle me for kisses. That’s my favorite part.

Oh, and yesterday? She had pooped, so I said, “let’s go upstairs to change your diaper.” She said “dah-puh” and started crawling up the stairs without me. I was right behind her, so it wasn’t a safety issue. But when we got to the top of the stairs, she went straight to her room to get changed (normally she heads for our room to find a cat or to take apart the bathroom cabinets).

Afterward, she started to go after Teenie (which Teenie hates), and so to distract her I said, “Ok, let’s go downstairs.” Crawling up and down the stairs by herself is her new favorite activity, so she said to Teenie, “Bye, baby! We go down!” It was pretty awesome.

happy Father's Day

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This weekend has been pretty fun. First of all, I think we might’ve found a place to live in Raleigh; we’re still waiting to find out for sure, and I really hope it works out because there aren’t any other houses that Cat saw on Friday that would really work for us, and I’d hate to ask her to go house-hunting twice. (But I know she will if I ask, because she loves me, and she’s quite possibly as excited as I am about this move.)

Saturday morning was sort of hectic, since we had plumbers and garage door repairmen here (ah, home repairs, how I won’t miss you when we’re renting). But Cate was in a fantastic mood and we had a great time playing; then she took a three-hour nap, and woke up just as I was leaving to go to my book club with my girlfriends. The book club was awesome. A few girls cancelled, so it ended up being me and three girls who are all engaged. (Linda’s getting married next month, Erin’s getting married in August, and Kris is getting married next March.) So there was all kinds of wedding talk, which was pretty hilarious, and it made me so glad that I’m not in the middle of planning a wedding because hoo boy, that was a stressful period in my life.

Oh, and for the record? Coming home to your husband bathing your 16 month-old toddler and seeing them having their own little conversation and splashing and laughing? That is heart-meltingly awesome.

This morning, since it’s Father’s Day, we let Dave sleep in. Well, I tried to let him sleep, but Cate had other ideas. We had to come upstairs a couple of times to change her diaper or get dressed or whatever, and every time she’d tear down the hall to our room shrieking, “Daddy!!” So, eh, what can you do? After he got up, I let him keep Cate entertained for a while and I went outside to mow the lawn. All two acres. By myself. Because I’m a good wife like that. Also because it’s a beautiful day, so it was no big hardship on me to spend two hours outside.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father’s Day to Dave and all the other amazing dads out there who read this. (And to my own dad too, who doesn’t read this site, but I guess I ought to throw it out there just in case he ever does.)

over-overwhelmed

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I have about five or six pieces of paper floating around with various to-do lists written on them, so today I decided to get all organized and type up everything in a Word document. And can I just say? Holy crap, I have a lot that I need to do. I don’t know if the word “overwhelmed” even begins to cover how I’m feeling right now.

I feel like I’ve either been on the phone or meeting with various contractors all week for the ridiculous number of things we have to do to fix this place up (per the inspection report), and I’m wiped out. Oh, and something is blooming right now that is causing me some major allergy issues. So I’m trying to negotiate with contractors while on massive amounts of antihistamines. Good times.

So hey, should I lighten the mood away from my current state of anxiety and panic, and give you some fun baby updates? Sure, why not!
* Cate’s getting really good with names. She knows all the kids at daycare, and yesterday when we were leaving, I told her to say bye-bye to Patsy. She said, “Bass-y, bye!!” (That “P” sound eludes her sometimes. Oh well, we know what she means.)

* She figured how to go down the stairs. It sort of freaked me out at first, but now I let her do it for practice, as long as I’m right there to catch her in case she slips. But she basically lies on her stomach and backs down the steps, the same way that she goes up. Smart girl.

* The food texture issues seem to be starting to let up a little bit. The other day she actually touched a slice of banana and fed it to herself. Y’all probably don’t know how huge this is, but trust me, it’s big. She’s always been totally grossed out by anything with a vaguely squishy texture. She might eat it, but only if you put it in her mouth for her. So the fact that she’s decided that maybe she can stand to touch a non-crunchy food item is a pretty major milestone for us.

Oh, one other happy thing: while I was typing this, I got a phone call from Cat, and I think we might’ve found a house in Raleigh. Keep your fingers crossed. Yay!

ode to Patsy

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I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I absolutely love Cate’s daycare. I feel like we were really blessed to find Patsy. I was so worried about starting back to work and leaving my pweshus widdle baybeee with someone else, and I had all of the stereotypical Mommy Guilt issues about abandoning my child and all of that. But Patsy just made it so easy for us. Don’t get me wrong, Cate took a while to warm up to her, like she does with everyone. She’s a very cautious little girl who takes her time in adjusting to new situations. Leaving her at daycare the first few times was awful. She would scream and cry, and I would have to leave, because staying to comfort her would’ve only made it worse. Patsy was great, she’d call me five or ten minutes later so I could hear Cate laughing and having fun, and I’d know that she was fine.

As time went on, the adjustment got even easier. Cate now reaches for Patsy to take her out of my arms as soon as we get there. And half the time, if she’s busy playing when I arrive to pick her up, she ignores me and keeps on playing. (Although there are days when she’s obviously had enough and is ready to go home. That happens when I arrive and she starts saying “bye” to everyone before I even get her shoes on her feet.)

But also, I just really love Patsy. She’s had this in-home daycare business since her son was two years old (he just graduated from college), so she’s seen it all. I’d be willing to bet that she knows more than practically every childcare book combined. If Cate is showing some weird behavior patterns that I can’t figure out, I can usually bounce it off Patsy and she can give me some ideas on what it is or how to handle it. She’s so easy to talk to, she’s so non-judgmental, and I’ve never heard her raise her voice to the kids, ever. She’s just awesome.

Yesterday when I went to pick Cate up from daycare, Patsy told me that she had met with a parent that day, and that she already has a new baby lined up to take Cate’s spot after we move. I almost burst into tears on the spot.

Logically, I know that there are a lot of really great daycare providers out there, I just worry that I won’t find anyone in Raleigh that I’m as comfortable with, or who Cate and I both just flat-out adore as much as Patsy.

This move is mostly a really happy thing for us, and we’re really excited about it. But I have to be honest and say that there’s a heck of a lot of fear mixed in too. What if we don’t like it there? What if only one of us likes it and the other one doesn’t? What if it doesn’t turn out to be the financial life raft that we think it’s going to be?

And perhaps most of all, how will Cate adjust? She’ll be 18 months old when we get there, and I imagine that throwing her into a new daycare situation will be a lot harder than it was when she was only 8 months old. The last thing in the world I want to do is be like, “Ok, kiddo, I know we just up-ended your world completely, but here’s another new and totally unfamiliar environment. Mama’s gotta go now, see you later!” I think that would traumatize her.

I’ve decided that after we move, I’m going to keep Cate home with me as long as it’s feasible (assuming I’m not in the middle of a work project, but right now there’s nothing on my calendar for the rest of the summer, so that shouldn’t be a huge issue). I might hire a baby-sitter to come to our house for just a few hours here and there to help us get by, and that will give me time to explore other options. Hopefully, if I give us a nice big window of time to adjust, we’ll be able to find a daycare that we love almost as much as Patsy. Fingers crossed.