Category Archives: Cate

21 months

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I realized that I never wrote a monthly update for Cate last month because she was sick on her 20-month “birthday,” so instead I was writing about her asthma treatments and all kinds of depressing medical stuff. Blah. As for my girl’s milestones over the past TWO months:

1) Her social development is out of this world. She loves-loves-LOVES the older kids in the neighborhood, and runs to give them hugs when she sees them. Oddly, this doesn’t seem to apply to kids who are closer to her own age. Like when e-baby tries to give her a hug, she just sort of looks at me like, “the hell?” It doesn’t upset her, she just seems confused. And yesterday a little girl down the street (who isn’t much bigger than Cate herself) tried to pick her up and carry her around. Cate was NOT having it, she squirmed away and when the little girl insistently grabbed her hand to lead her in a certain direction, Cate threw herself on the ground and screamed at her. I mean, not crying, just a full-on, angry “AAAHHH!!” at the little girl. I had to turn around so neither one of them could see me laughing. So, older kids who understand a certain degree of social boundaries? A-OK in her book. Kids her own age who have no concept of personal space? Not so much.

Jillian and Cate

2) I really cannot get over how much she can talk and sign. She’s learning colors, she’s making full sentences, and every day she seems to come out with at least two or three new words. It boggles my mind. She’s evolved from a simple little “bye-bye” to, “Bye! See you! We go now!” And she’s gone from “hi” to, “Hi, [insert name]! What are you doin’?” She slays me.

One of my favorite new phrases happened two nights ago: after her bath, I picked her up and she was saying hi to the baby in the mirror like she does every night. Then she pointed at the mirror and said, “It’s raining!” Um, what? She said it again. It took me a minute, but I finally realized that all of the little specks on the mirror sort of look like it’s raining. So, clearly she’s a genius, and I should maybe think about breaking out the Windex more often.

3) She’s starting to let up on the super-clingy stuff, which has made life so much easier for everyone. She’s gone back to thinking that her Daddy is the Coolest Guy Ever – I knew she’d come around eventually, but MAN it’s nice to have a break from the “all-mommy-all-the-time” stuff. She often sneaks up the stairs when I’m not paying attention to go “see Daddy!” in his office. She’s totally stealthy about it, I don’t hear her on the stairs and it’s not until I hear a distant, “hi, Daddy! What are you doin’?” that I realize where she is and have to go retrieve her.

I have to say, the first couple of months in North Carolina was really hard on me because I wasn’t used to having Cate home with me all day, and my job didn’t have any projects for me (hence no daycare). The whole “full-time stay-at-home mom” thing felt totally alien to me, and I really hated it at first. I felt housebound and stir-crazy. I’m looking for additional freelance work – and I’m still on the roster at my Seattle job, whenever things pick up there – but I’ve kind of gotten into the swing of the full-time mommy thing and I’m starting to really enjoy it. I know it’s temporary and I’ll have to put her back in daycare, at least part-time, when I start working again, but right now we are having an absolute blast.

dancing in the driveway

Toddlers are a freaking riot.

pigtail cuteness

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We interrupt your Saturday to bring you this unbelievable cuteness overload.

Catie in pigtails

My mom & sister managed to get Cate’s hair in pigtails back in July, but she hated it so much that it was really a three-person job, and I never had the nerve to try it by myself. Her hair has grown a lot since then, so I thought I’d try it today, and she didn’t freak out nearly as much as I expected. I think this might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

Now I just have to get her bangs trimmed. They’re starting to hang into those beautiful blue eyes of hers, and I can’t have that.

"I Made Freedom Count"

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Guess what I did yesterday?

hooray for early voting
I like that caption, “I Made Freedom Count.” Made me laugh when they gave me the sticker.

North Carolina has early voting, which is pretty cool. I headed over while Cate was napping, since Dave was working from home. I had read all kinds of nightmare stories about long waits, screwy voting machines, whatever, so I went into it with great hesitancy. And really, it was totally undramatic. The wait was about 20 minutes, which was nothing (I had brought a book with me, so it went by quickly). North Carolina uses paper ballots, so no worries about computer glitches. And… yeah. That was it. Nothing to it, really. But it felt really good to fill in that bubble next to “Obama/Biden.”

[/end political talk]
Back to the toddler updates: we seem to have entered the Age of Elmo. I knew it was coming eventually – it seems to hit every toddler at some point – but it officially started yesterday. We were playing with Jillian, the little girl next door, and she had various Sesame Street characters on her sweatshirt. Cate pointed at Elmo and said, “MELMO!” Later when I was changing her diaper, she noticed Elmo on her diaper and said “Melmo, melmo, melmo!” It’s kind of weird since she only watches Sesame Street maybe once or twice a week at the most, but I’ve heard stories about how Elmo has sort of a magical gravitational pull on kids this age, so I’m not really surprised.

Today I took Cate with me to Target, and she started to have a total meltdown about halfway through the store. She wouldn’t ride in the cart, she wouldn’t walk, she didn’t want the Cookie Bribe, she didn’t want her sippy cup, she just wanted me to carry her, but when I did, she kept squirming because I wasn’t holding her at exactly the angle she wanted to be held. (Have you ever tried to hold a 28-pound toddler while pushing an overloaded shopping cart with one hand? It’s challenging.) Finally as I was making my way past the toy section, I spotted some Sesame Street toys. I grabbed a small Elmo doll, showed it to her, and it was like someone magically replaced my child with a new, happier model. For the rest of our trip, she walked happily through the store, holding onto “Melmo” and talking to him. I was thinking that I would just use the doll to distract her until we were done shopping, but I ended up buying it for her. Elmo only cost $5, and I figured it was worth it since he made her so happy.

Also: I really have to start bringing my camera outside with me more often. Cate is completely enamored with the older girls in the neighborhood, and the feeling is obviously mutual. Yesterday there were three girls serenading Cate with “Row Row Row Your Boat” over and over again to make her dance. And she did. For ages. They try to invent little games with her – they’ll say “ready, set,” which Cate knows is her cue to scream “GO!” and then they all fall down. It is seriously, seriously funny.

A few minutes ago, two of the girls, Rebecca and McKenzie (both of them are in the third grade, so they’re about 8-ish, I think?) knocked on the door to see if Cate could come out to play. I told them that she’s napping, but I’ll bring her out as soon as she wakes up.

enjoying autumn

In case I haven’t said it already: I love it here. I’m so happy that we moved when we did. I love this neighborhood, I love this house, I love that there’s a Super Target only a couple of miles from us, and I absolutely adore that there are so many kids around for my girl to play with. We are having so. much. fun.

ok, moving on

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Hey, does anyone want to lighten the mood with a chorus of “Row Row Row Your Boat”? Yes? I thought so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCGxM2TrTvw

Apologies for my singing.

She kind of spaced out near the end because she saw the kids next door playing outside and she wanted to go join them. Still, I love when she throws in her own little “row row row”s. She did it for my parents on the phone last night and cracked them up. I’m starting to really enjoy this age.

(Btw, anyone else’s kids want to wear their coats ALL the time, even when inside? Just mine? I don’t get it, she isn’t cold, I think she just likes the color and the way it feels.)

molars will be the death of me

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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.

Signing Time!

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We’ve had a really fun weekend. Yesterday, Cate and I met up with Cat, Tony and e-baby for the Raleigh airport’s “open house” for their new terminal. I know, it’s kind of weird to go to the airport just for fun, but there was free food! And a guy wearing a Curious George costume! And… uh, I don’t remember what else, but the girls had lots of fun running around.

That afternoon, I chatted with my next-door neighbor while Cate played with some of the neighborhood kids. The older kids asked if they could rake the leaves in my yard. Um, YEAH! They only wanted to do it so they could jump in the leaf pile, but hey whatever, free labor, right? Cate kind of stayed out of their way to avoid getting trampled during all of the action, but after they were done, they raked the leaves out to the street for me, which was nice. And as soon as they all left to go home for dinner, Cate plopped herself down in the pile of leaves and then pulled them onto her lap in order to thoroughly bury herself.

Cate in the leaf pile

She had a great time and threw a huge fit when I dragged her inside twenty minutes later. (It was getting dark!)

Oh also, my next-door neighbor loaned me a couple of Halloween costumes that her kids have worn in the past, so I wouldn’t have to go buy Cate one. It was really sweet of her. I love this “101 Dalmatians” costume, but Cate seems to feel otherwise about it.

unhappy puppy

Luckily the other costume is totally adorable and she doesn’t seem to mind it, so I think that’s the one we’re going with. And I’m not telling you what it is or taking pictures yet, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Then the absolute best, best, BEST part of this weekend: today we went to our local Down’s Syndrome Association’s “Buddy Walk” fundraiser, and we got to meet Rachel, Alex and Leah from Signing Time!

OMG it's the Signing Time people!!

I don’t think Cate recognized them from the DVD’s at all. At the next booth over, she saw the Signing Time DVD’s on display and she got all excited, saying “sign, sign.” I said, I know, see? I pointed back over to the actual Signing Time people (who were taking pics with other people and totally ignoring us) and I sang the theme song from the DVD to try to get her to put the two together. She looked sort of confused, I honestly don’t know if she got it or not.

Anyway, Rachel was super-nice, and I told her she’s basically the Mick Jagger of our house, like the ultimate rock star. She clapped and said, “woo! I love it!” It was pretty awesome, my hands even shook because I was so excited to meet her. I know, I am a total geek. But it was a great day.

licensed to drive (barely)

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I got a North Carolina driver’s license yesterday, and oh lord, it was awful. I now have to give it up for Washington’s DMV, because I never knew just how good I had it before. Washington’s DMV has a website where you can look up your branch and see how long the wait time is, so you know whether or not it’s a good idea to head over. And it’s one of those “take a number and sit down” environments. I’ve never, ever waited more than 20 minutes at the DMV in Washington.

And yesterday? Oy. There is no place to sit, so I had to stand in line. For an hour and a half. It felt like it was about 90 degrees in there with everybody packed in like sardines. (Get all nice & sweaty for your photo – cute!) Then about halfway through it, I found out that you must have either cash or an in-state check. No plastic, and of course, my checks still have my old Washington address on them. So I asked the girl behind me to hold my place in line (she did, God bless her) while I literally ran across the street to the ATM. Oh! And I had to take a written driving test, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I barely passed, I made a couple of lucky guesses, and that’s the only way I got through it. And it turned out that this place was for driver’s licenses only, so I couldn’t even get our license plates while I was at it. I have to go to a different DMV location and stand in line all over again for that. So yeah. Annoying.

The one perk of all this is that I left Cate with Dave while I went to the DMV, and the whole thing screwed up her routine so much that she took a very shortened nap, only about an hour. So she went to bed last night at 11:00 instead of midnight, and I figured that hey, at least we’re moving in the right direction, yes?

She woke up at 8:30 this morning; usually it’s 9 or 9:30, so again, going in the right direction. After breakfast, she and I headed over to the gym. It was normally at the time of day when they’d have the toddlers outside on the playground, but it was raining, so instead they had part of the gym sectioned off for the kids. I walked/jogged on the track above the gym and kept an eye on Cate while I was working out. She didn’t really engage with the other kids at all. She found a little ride-on car, climbed on it, and then just sat there, looking down and kind of watching the other kids out of her peripheral vision. I was getting annoyed that none of the daycare teachers did anything to involve her, but I know they were busy keeping the other kids from killing each other. Finally Cate started to cry, and one of the ladies walked over and picked her up. It was kind of upsetting to watch it all from a distance. I wanted to go comfort her, but I know that this is just an adjustment and she needs to get used to it.

At noon, the toddlers went from the gym back into the nursery, and I went to do some crunches and lift some weights. (And incidentally? OUCH. I am so, so sore.) I finished my workout about 20 minutes later, and by the time I got to the nursery, she had fallen asleep in one of the ladies’ laps. She woke up when I picked her up, and because she got a 15-minute power nap, she’s all refreshed and perky now. It’s after 3:00 and she’s showing no signs of slowing down. I have a feeling she’s going to fall asleep on the living room floor around 5:00 this evening. Sigh.

running to grab the camera from me

She’s really lucky that she’s so darn cute.