Little sisters

Meg: "Kate, you're in the way!"
"Have you finished your soup?" I asked Meg.
"No. And Kate's peering at it!" Meg said.
I turned to Kate. "Are you peering at Meg's soup?"
She grinned. "Yeah!"

Kate talks!

Kate's vocabulary is just taking off. I think today is the first time she's been able to say the names of our whole family, and she also keeps coming out with new words. We were looking at pictures on my computer and she named "froggie" and "river." She also saw a lot of "baby."

Her favorite words right now are "yeah," "no" (I love that she can actually answer a yes or no question!), "syoo" for shoe, "me" for her lambie pacifier, "dog," and "juice."

Moving week

We're moving this week. I thought I'd liveblog.


10:11: It's barely ten in the morning, and I want to quit. Can I go back to bed?

11:00: Taking down our bedroom curtains. The only thing left on the walls are the miniblinds, which stay with the house, and a starburst clock. My walls are lonely and I do not approve.

11:15: Start the girls making birthday cards for Grandma. We are all about colored pencils and stickers today. I regret that I packed her present instead of mailing it back in June, but it's gone now. Quickly, while the girls are preoccupied, I toss or pack the baby silverware that they totally don't need to use.

11:30: Encouraging email from friend, and more emails, also potentially encouraging but which require decisions on my part. I put off answering them because I don't know the answers.

12:09: "Why are there Cleopatra and dinosaurs?" I ask. Meg answers, "The dinosaurs are the audience." True enough, and Cleopatra is part of the band. This is apparently completely normal for Peg+Cat world. I go back to fixing grilled cheese.

12:45: I explain to Meg that she can't use "stupid" because it's a word that carries a cloud of other meanings around with it, and she can't use it properly until she's old enough to understand all the other meanings too. I add there are other words like that too. Like "dang it," she asks? Yes. Exactly like "dang it."

1:31: Have a deep urge to gold-leaf the top ring on all my terra cotta flower pots. I resist, not least because I don't have any gold leaf. I put Kate down for her nap instead.

1:43 While sorting laundry and rummaging for lip gloss, I found my long-lost good tweezers. That's exciting.

2:18 I went downstairs to put in a load of laundry and found myself dusting and sweeping the back half of the basement.

3:44 Fell down a Pinterest rabbit hole, devised a scheme for reupholstering four ottomans in pink tweed with gold nail-head trim, changed out the laundry, and finished sweeping the basement. It's ready for mopping. Meanwhile, I'm going to start the packing and cleaning list for Thursday.

4:28: Finished the cleaning list, got Kate up from her nap, and got Meg out from her bath. Put on oldies and started doing dishes.

6:15: Discovered tomorrow is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A, so made two sets of cow ears out of construction paper.

6:58: Dinner.

7:30, sharp: Kate to bed.

8:30: Kate up, requiring fresh linens and stories.

8:45: I finally begin my after dinner work. 

Kate's pizza

While Meg and I were crafting at the table, Kate wandered along and pulled out the felt pizza with its zillion felt pieces. She chattered to herself as she arranged the slices, and I think I heard the word "cheese." I glanced at her mess; that was fine. We'd pick it up later.

I looked again and she had put all the pizza back in the box.

She's not even two yet. !!!

Meg and Kate updates

Meg is five years and one month old, and she can read on her own. She knew letters and sounds at two, so I was confident it would come eventually, and for the past year or more she has been putting the sounds together laboriously. I am pleased to report the skill is here. No printed matter is safe - she'll sound out chalkboards, packaging, web pages, yarn labels. "What does that say? Wool----spun."  She can follow along the song overheads at church, which coincidentally makes her more likely to sing and less wiggly. (YES!) She is reading the species names on all her animal puzzles and books. (Yes!) She reads the Dick and Jane books to herself, because she likes them and I don't. (Yay!) She reads board books to Kate. (Yahoo!) So basically this development is thrilling to me.

Jonathan read Meg the first chapter of The Phantom Tollbooth and distressed her by shutting it without putting in a bookmark. She was astonished when he opened it right back to the correct place.
"Daddy, how did you do that? Are you MAGICAL?"

Meanwhile, while Meg reads everything that will hold still, Kate has started moving. All. the. time. She goes everywhere, grabs everything. She pushes dolls around in the doll stroller (she loves dolls), pulls all the books off shelves (she loves books), drags things off tabletops (Mommy's toys are so interesting, and is that coffee?). She climbed up onto the couch by herself (she loves the couch!). She brought me a whole pile of craft paper (because paper is so cool), having located the drawer, opened it, and helped herself. She's learned to wipe her nose with a Kleenex and trot over to throw the dirty one in the trash, which is adorable, and also I keep the Kleenex up high now.

This afternoon Kate mysteriously appeared all wet, and we thought perhaps she'd gotten Meg's water bottle? The dampness just smelled like water, so we weren't too worried until I went to take off her wet things and discovered squelchy toilet paper and splashed water all around the toilet. The toilet had not been flushed. It was disgusting. That girl got a bath so fast she didn't know what was happening and everyone, especially Meg, has been informed that the toilet MUST be flushed, I'm not even kidding, and also SHUT THE BATHROOM DOOR. ALWAYS. The Nodwick blogger, about three years ago, ran a post about the sirens who live in dishwashers and toilets, and sing a song only toddlers can hear. We don't have a dishwasher, but apparently we have an especially alluring cadre of them in our toilet.

In the "just cute" file...

Me to Kate: "Can I interest you in a mouse and a maraca?"
Kate took them and started shaking both.

Kate's journey

Kate really wanted to climb on the couch, but she couldn't quite get her foot up on it. Her parents were cruel and didn't lift her up.

She tried the kid-sized rocker. That was better, but it tricked her because she got her foot into the seat and then her rear end was not properly placed to sit. Bother! So she lay down on the floor and lamented  the injustice of the world.

But she was not done! Next Kate went to the large box full of DVDs by the TV. That was really promising, and she had one foot all the way in, when her parents inexplicably intervened. It looked comfortable, like a dragon's bed of treasure. But sadly, no DVD bed for Kate.

 Back to the couch. Meg hauled her up! Hurray! Kate perched proudly on the arm, just in time for Daddy to come dashing over and set her down again. How could he be so unreasonable?

Oh well. Kate found a good doll and carried her around by the hair. Dolly could sit in the rocking chair like a big girl, so it all turned out all right.

How musical

As you may know, Meg has her birthday right after Christmas, so this tends to be a toy-intensive time of year. (I really don't mind.) This year, apparently we were all on a wavelength, because independently the grandmas and I got the girls:

a xylophone
a battery-powered keyboard
a drum and sticks
castanets
maracas
a tambourine
and a recorder.

There's been a lot of music around here.

We only got around to putting the batteries in the keyboard this morning, though, and it didn't work. Nothing happened when we turned it on and pushed buttons. I fiddled with it, Jonathan fiddled with it, and Meg bemoaned its fate loudly. Since it continued to do nothing, and we don't have particularly long attention spans, we all wandered off.

Kate, in very Kateish form, happened quietly along and picked it up. She pushed a couple buttons and threw it on the floor.

Would you believe THE KEYBOARD STARTED WORKING? And it's been fine ever since.

My pretty mantel, and how decorating is going

Oh, Christmas decorations.

I found a really cute printable Christmas village on Pinterest and I actually printed it out and set it on the mantel. I arranged it with my little wooden snowmen, a rose, and the origami tree made out of a book, and I have been experimenting with a few candles because they are glowy and warm. And because nothing goes better with paper than fire? Apparently. It turned out darling. Also, despite the free printables, nobody will have one like it! But it is a mantel, and well out of reach of curious fingers, so I think I can get away with the candles.

I'm operating this whole Christmas season, as far as I can, on the principle that if it helps us celebrate, awesome, and if it's a burden, we aren't going do it. Isn't there a saying about not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good? Christmas is too good to ruin with perfectionism. For instance, right here, the photo quality is not that great because my camera is not talking to my computer these days. I'd like to have beautifully lit and styled pictures for my blog, because I do actually know what well-done is like, but I would probably have to download the camera to Jonathan's computer and transfer them over on a flash drive, and then actually edit them, which all is obviously not going to happen, so until further notice you get cell phone pictures.

We were able to show hospitality with our Christmas tree this year, which I thought was incredibly cool. Meg had friends over, aged three and four, and she was so excited about CHRISTMAS that they and she and I put our tree up then and there. When we decorated it, I left half our ornaments in the box, because Kate is one and her favorite thing to do is pull everything off the tree. When we had other friends over today, the toddler inspected what was within reach and the older kids all pulled the bells off the tree and rang them to a very loud version of Jingle Bells. I could have a perfect tree, possibly, or I can think indestructible thoughts and include the littles in our celebration. There's precedent for that.

I really meant to do a proper Advent devotional, with cute illustrations and Bible readings, and that just didn't happen this year. I had the craft all ready. I never even managed to buy chocolate Advent calendars. Now that's sad. But I'm pretty sure the Bible never commands us to observe Advent calendars, chocolate or otherwise. Jesus is pleased to have us, squashed candle holders and salt-dough dinosaur ornaments and all.  Isn't that encouraging? And so we are looking back and forward to His coming.

Our young apprentice

Tonight Jonathan's spoon was making lightsaber noises.

"Vmmmm..... vmmmmm....bzzt! vmmm.... vmmm... vrrrrmmmm."

Kate thought this was hilarious and started helping her spoon make lightsaber noises too.

"La! Laaa! Laa!" whack, whack, whack.

Jonathan told her, "Obi-Wan has taught you well. But he did not teach you everything. No, no, wait, that was Shi-Fu. Shi-Fu has taught you well!"

Star Wars, Kung Fu Panda. We know the greats.

Kate update

Kate just added another skill to her repertoire. She started walking unsupported. She's still mostly at that step-step-tumble stage, but on Tuesday she took four or five steps in a row in the Anthropologie dressing room. I'm really kindly disposed toward Reston these days -- Meg prayed for the first time at Trader Joe's in Reston and now Kate has walked there. Good associations.

Back to baby news... we're at thirteen months and Kate has pushed out seven teeth, five on top and two on the bottom. She now expresses her feelings more firmly. She's still happy, in general, but I can no longer assume when she starts crying that it's because someone trampled on her. They might just be refusing to hand over an Octonaut -- oh the horror!

She's up to something

I've taken to putting up a baby gate at the doorway to Meg's room. We had been keeping the door closed to keep Kate out of Meg's decidedly non-baby-approved toys, but then that room didn't get any air circulation. But gate or no gate, those Barbie shoes are so attractive and Kate knows they're in there. So when I need to chase Kate away from the baby gate, I usually say something like, "No, no, sweetie. Not for you."

Meg has a more direct approach. "NO! You'll never get away with your evil plan, Kate!" or, possibly, "Be off, creature!"

What we did in August

We just got back from spending most of August with my family. We had lots of fun! Kate turned eleven months old while we were out there and didn't so much achieve milestones as speed-crawl past them. She sprouted two upper teeth, went from slow-crawling to the aforementioned speed-crawl, and started pulling up. And cruising on objects. And walking with assistance. She also smiled at everyone and blinked her huge blue eyes at them. She made lots of friends.

Meg, meanwhile, reveled in all those outdoorsy New Mexican things to do. We hunted shell fossils in the mountains, played in mountain streams, dug up dinosaur bones out of my sister's yard, camped and roasted marshmallows in my parents' backyard, observed the recent flood damage at Bandelier, picked and identified wildflowers for our flower prints, and went to the museum and archaeological site where they dig up Clovis points. In between times she played with grandparents and cousins, amused herself in the wading pool, and arranged dinosaurs on otherwise normal tablescapes. A good time was had by all, I think.

Kate is great: nine month update

Today is Kate's actual three-quarters of a birthday! She's a cheerful,* friendly, social baby, who likes to charm everybody who passes by.

She also likes to eat. She's at that funny stage where she'll be playing happily and discover suddenly that she'd quite like a snack, and just up and start screaming. Exciting. Her favorite food, bar none, is sauteed onions. She likes them alone, with bell pepper for fajitas, on or with pretty much anything, and last night she ate onions, asparagus, and beets, roasted with balsamic vinegar. I nearly fell over. She likes beef (cut up small), and she likes enchiladas (green chile and all), and she devours pretty much any fruit. She does not care for baby food purees, considering them beneath her time and dignity. But any food on my plate is a matter of deep interest.

She hasn't figured out rolling yet. She has a squirm that's almost a roll, but it's unpredictable. She crawls backwards nimbly, and she's developing this awkward over-the-leg scoot for forward motion. She can go from sitting to stomach, but it's harder to get up once she's down. She's just started trying to pull up on things, which doesn't do her much good since she refuses to try standing up. Sitting is so useful. She's so good at it. She likes sitting. Standing is unnecessary.

She loves books. She likes to wave the pages back and forth. She really learned how to scoot forward to get those grown-up hardbacks we tend to leave just out of reach, and yesterday she was showing me and Jonathan this really cool thing: a book cover opens and shuts! Watch this!


*Unless she's hungry. She gets this from me.

Big sister

"I'll be an efficient taker-carer of Kate by putting a unicorn in front of her face!" Meg

Top Ten Activities that Don't Involve Cleaning

I spend a lot... a lot... of time cleaning, but that's not very interesting to blog about. So, in lieu of fascinating tales about scrubbing, I thought you might be mildly entertained by some of Meg's and my other activities.

1. Put glitter on shoes. She had a pair of worn-out Sunday shoes, so I painted them with turquoise craft paint and turquoise glitter glue, with silver glitter glue for the touches. It turned out surprisingly well, though the craft paint cracked in a couple places, so I touched those up with turquoise nail polish. Then, I had a pair of hot pink flats in dismal shape, so I touched them up with permanent marker (red, since I didn't have hot pink) and kraft glue and pink glitter. They aren't done yet, due to a severe glitter shortage.

2. Put glitter glue on dinosaur coloring pages. Using glitter glue is not to be confused with putting glue and glitter on things, an activity to be undertaken only with great care and trepidation, because if you put glue and glitter on anything, it'll be on everything. Meg wasn't even in the room when I glue-and-glittered the pink shoes and she got glitter all over her face. Though, small girls may just have a magnetic attraction to glitter. Glitter glue, on the other hand, comes in little squirt bottles and is almost tidy.

3. Tickle Kate. You might have trouble with this if you don't have a Kate, but it's so satisfying. She grins and giggles and generally sparkles brighter than glitter, which is saying a lot.

4. Do something with the semi-forbidden drinking straws, the pretty much forbidden yarn, the theoretically controlled scotch tape, the kid scissors, and rubber bands.

5. Build a bow and arrows. Today, for instance, we built a bow out of a paper towel tube and a belt. It only shot invisible arrows and somehow wasn't all that satisfying. Then we made a better bow out of her inflatable horse, a rubber band, and the rarely permitted straws. I fletched straws and they were pretty awesome.

6. Make up your own words to whatever you're singing. Today Meg rejiggered the "Timmy Time" theme song to become a Franklin the Turtle theme song.

7. Line up toys. We've been doing this for about three and a half years now and it never gets old. We have some new variations. Now we like to line up Little People animals for Kate to grab, line Imaginexts up just out of her reach for her not to grab, and line dinosaurs up precariously dangling off of things.

8. Embellish a boring shirt. I recommend sparkly fabric paint (see glitter glue, above, but you have to use the kind intended for fabric). I also recommend fabric, lace, and the cunning use of scissors - though maybe not all at once. Today I cut off the ugly neckline ribbing off a t-shirt and it not only looked better without ugly ribbing, but somewhat astonishingly, it actually fit better. The only trouble with this activity is that soon you run out of boring shirts.

9. String beads. The trick to this is to only have awesome beads in your stash, and then the creations will turn out gorgeous and look high-end and quite wearable and possibly even giftable. Plastic pony beads always look like plastic pony beads, which is why I let Meg use my nicer beads. Sometimes. She made me a rather cool necklace the other day out of brass wire and big pink beads that looked like it might have come from Anthropologie.

10. Hang out while Jonathan computes. You never know what might turn up.

Me: Why are there people yelling in Spanish?
Jonathan: It's Italian. I don't know. And one of them is waving a sea bass. ::reading the news story:: "He was eventually ejected by Deputy House Speaker Luigi Di Maio after failed attempts to make him stop waving the fish."

My daughter can lick your daughter

And I mean that in the most literal sense. Kate is currently deeply interested in everything and everyone that crosses her path, and the best way to find out about it is mouth-first. So many textures! So many flavors! So many delicious friends! Cold marble countertops feel wonderful on the gums and wooden blocks get slightly softer when they're all wet. When you lick Mommy's shirt or jeans, she often makes interesting noises and jumps.

A couple of days ago I accidentally dropped a bat, the stuffed animal kind, onto her head. She leaned over in a spirit of inquiry and -- what else? -- gently licked it.

Meanwhile, Kate is great (an update)

Kate turned six months old at the end of last month (yikes!) and is doing great. She's growing like a crazy girl and I just retired her six-months size outfits. She likes eating, and she likes playing, and she likes people, and she's happy to sit and watch the commotion, and she's happy to be held, and really the only thing that she doesn't like is great big horrible diapers; as who would?

She feels that she should eat whatever we're eating, especially pizza, and does her best to intercept every bite while I do my best to outwit her, so yesterday I started her on solid food. If you can't beat 'em, invite 'em? It confused her - wait, Mom is letting me eat this stuff? Give me that spoon! She still tries to shove her mouthfuls forward with her tongue, but these things take practice.

She likes to sit up. She's getting pretty sturdy and wants to play while upright. She can pull herself back up when she leans forward, but she can't sit up if she falls backwards. She can't roll over yet, but if I put her on her tummy she can scootch round in random directions and backwards. She struggles with forward motion (we all struggle with forward motion), because there's nothing more aggravating than getting further away from the toy you're aiming for. Personally, I like having a daughter who stays where I put her, but I'm not getting too comfortable.

Chasing rabbits

Yesterday Kate discovered the bunny feet on her pajamas. She chased and chased them, but unfortunately when you really reach, your feet kick too, and those rabbits just kept hopping out of her grip. It was terrible. And adorable.

New Year resolutions

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely celebration and a good opening to the year. We all went to bed at the usual time, except Kate, who wanted to party throughout the night. I didn't have my party hat on, though, and kept putting her back down.

Today I started the new year right by drinking enough coffee to chase off my non-party-induced headache, tidying the living room, sweeping or vacuuming all the floors in the public areas, and rearranging the furniture, because that's what you do when the floor is clean enough to see. We had friends over for games - an old friend, a new friend (her husband), and a very new friend (their baby). It was so nice to spend time with them.

Apparently the new year is a good time to consider the past and determine what you can do better in the future. I never do, but it seems to be a thing.

This is my favorite list of resolutions. I think I can honestly subscribe to every one.

The Nester recommends making little changes to make it easier to do things you really want... like wear warm socks, so you won't be cold and grumpy.

Catherine Larson exhorts us not to fall into the Try Harder resolutions deathtrap.

Patricia Wrede talks about year-end clean-up for one's writing life. She named her cat Karma, in case you're wondering.


Honestly, 2013 was a lousy year, and I'm mostly grateful it's over. You know what? I never have to live through that year again. Best of 2013: Baby Kate.

But my doctor did tell me to take calcium with vitamin D. I feel old.

The Kate update

Kate is a little more than two months old now; call it two and a half. She's getting strong and will hold her head up, and can do push-ups to hold her torso up, and has a truly impressive grip with that little bitty hand. I can put her in the Bumbo seat for a few minutes; not for a long time, but long enough to get a quick task done.

Last night I balanced Kate on her stomach over a boppy pillow. She decided she didn't like it and started squirming. She actually propelled herself forward far enough to unbalance herself and landed face-first on the couch. I was curious whether it was just a fluke or if she'd do it again - and also it was hilarious to watch - so I re-balanced her, and yes, she managed to scootch forward again and go plop. It was pretty funny the second time too.

When full and clean and nobody's putting her in undignified positions, and Mommy hasn't eaten any veggies on the Not Cool list, Kate's such a happy baby. She smiles and chatters with you. This afternoon I was holding her and thought she was asleep, and she giggled for me out of the blue. So charming.

Since she was born we've been giving her a wubba-nub pacifier, which is a pacifier with a stuffed animal attached. She has two frogs, Rana and Rajah, and a lamb, currently known as Lambie. (Original.) We like them because they give the pacifiers ballast and heft so they stay in the baby's mouth better, and also they give her something to grab onto. Kate, in the course of discovering her hands, has started to figure out how to hold the frog and adjust her pacifier in or out.

This evening, though, the wubba-nubs all went into hiding and we had to give her a plain pacifier. Ordinary. Frog-free. NOT AS GOOD. When it fell out, she grabbed her bib and tugged and tugged, and the pacifier DIDN'T GO BACK IN. Also, something was pulling on her neck. It was extremely frustrating.

Meg helped me set up our Christmas tree this evening and decorate it. While I've been writing this post, Kate's been beside me, sucking on one of the frogs and looking at the Christmas lights. She's just drifting off. Sparkly lights and gentle dishwasher noises make for pretty good lullabies.