Category Archives: Cate

(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.

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.

dull dream post

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I try not to write about my dreams too often, because I figure it’s probably really boring for other people to read. And honestly, I have no idea if anyone is going to think that this is funny other than me. But here goes.

Sunday afternoon, Cate and I took a nap together in my bed. (Dave is totally going to call me out for saying “my bed” instead of “our bed,” because I say “my” in reference to lots of things that technically belong to both of us. But he wasn’t there, so in this case, use of the word “our” makes it sound like the bed belongs to Cate and me, and it’s just confusing. Whatever. We were in the king-size bed in the master bedroom. Sufficiently overexplained? I thought so.)

In the dream, we lived in this enormous old mansion. It was at least four stories tall, and had all sorts of weird hidden staircases and rooms in strange places. Sort of like the Winchester Mystery House, I guess. I knew it was haunted, but I knew where the haunted areas were, so we just stayed out of those parts of the house, and figured we were ok.

Oh, random aside: Dave wasn’t Dave in the dream. The guy playing the role of my husband looked familiar, and I knew his voice, but I couldn’t place him. Finally it clicked and I said (in the dream), “Oh hey, look, I’m married to movie star Keanu Reeves!” Not just Keanu Reeves, but Movie Star Keanu Reeves. Like his middle name is Keanu. It was just kinda funny, is all I’m saying.

Anyway, at some point I had to go into one of the haunted parts of the house. No reason why, just dream logic, I guess. I left Cate with my brother and sister because my husband Keanu was off doing lord-knows-what. I walked into the haunted room, and suddenly I felt something pressing against my back and I felt a hand grab ahold of my hair. I had a split-second of absolute terror, where I was convinced that the ghosts had gotten me…

Then I woke up. And I realized that what I felt in my back were Cate’s feet, and she was the one pulling my hair, trying to wake me up. Yeah, it’s weird, I know. It was just funny/strange to go from feeling completely petrified to waking up and realizing that, in fact, the “ghost” is your 11 month-old child who has declared that naptime is officially over.

Oh, and while we’re talking about dreams, I also keep having lots of childbirth dreams lately, but I think that’s because Cate’s first birthday is coming up later this month. You know, big milestone thing, the brain starts thinking about what was going on this time last year, etc. Still, I wish that my subconscious would knock it off, because they’re kinda freaking me out.

baby boogie

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I don’t normally post twice in one day, but here’s a short (less than 2 minutes) video of Cate doing her full-body happy dance to the theme song from “My Friends Tigger & Pooh.” My sister filmed this at my parents’ house on Christmas Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmEdF5BmVTs

My favorite part is the clapping and the head-shaking, but there’s also one part where she kind of sits up and does this spasm of joy thing that just absolutely slays me every time I see it.

(Oh, and if you look carefully, you can see my new pajama pants pass in the background during the first two seconds.)

pre-Civil War homes and alcohol, what could be better?

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Guess how Dave and I spent our first night away from the baby? Go on, guess!

We had a lot of fun. We toured a couple of the old antebellum houses, checked out downtown Natchez, ate some great food, stayed in a nice hotel. And oh yeah, the cocktails. It was pretty awesome.

And I only cried about being away from Cate once, so I think I did pretty well. According to my sister, she was an absolute angel the entire time we were gone. She has totally bonded with my sister – Tracy makes a funny face or talks to her, and Cate just cracks up. I think she has already established her Cool Aunt status. I imagine they’re going to be inseparable when Cate is a little bit older.

We got up this morning, toured one more house (for the locals: Longwood, the big unfinished octagonal house that is totally haunted). Dave and I both got carsick on the way home – kind of strange since I was driving, and I don’t usually get motion sickness, but it hit me both on the drive down and on the way back. Blah. So we’ve been all dopey on Dramamine since we got back.

And as much fun as our little getaway trip was, I absolutely could not wait to get home to this little face.

I mean, seriously, can you blame me?