Sharing and "into"

Kate is so sweet that she has started to share - more like "share and take back". She will take a toy and hand it to us. She'll wait a second or two and then reach for it back. This applies to Cheerios too! She loves to "feed" us a Cheerio, but will try to steal it back out of our mouth. She gets quite upset it we eat her offerings.

Kate's always enjoyed knocking over any blocks that we make into towers. We have cups that stack too, and she loves knocking them over. I barely get the tower started, and she's over to knock them down. If I can, I'll hide a little toy under one of the cups while I'm building the tower, and she likes finding them as she's demolishing the towers. This week, she made a developmental leap and put a toy "into" a cup.

Climbing

Kate is climbing on EVERYTHING lately. She started at the stairs, and has moved onto the playground. She likes climbing up all of those turning metal stairs, especially if she's chasing after another kid. At home, she's climbing up on stuff. What kind of stuff? This week, she moved a package of paper towels over to her exersaucer. She used it to climb onto her exersaucer! What a strong girl!

Yesterday, she decided that she's ready to move onto other things. Her old rocking chair is her new climbing adventure. She has to try several times to get her bottom up onto the chair. Once on the chair, she either sits on the chair sideways, or tries to climb over the top of the chair. I've had to move the chair against the couch or she'll tip the rocking chair over as she tries to climb over the top.

She doesn't know how to get down off of an item though. That's given us several scares. "Feet first!" hasn't even started to register. She wants to go head first off of the chair, stairs, couch, or anything else she's managed to climb.

But, boy do we get giggles when she sits on our bed. She sits up really tall, looks at us, then throws herself backwards and begins a fit of giggles! She'll do this over and over.

(Anyone think that these two skills don't go so well together? - yesterday, she climbed onto the couch, and tried to throw herself backwards off of the edge of the couch...but she was giggling, so it was cute...whew!)

Miss us?

We know that it's been a looong time since we posted last. Kate got sick just after the holidays, then Anissa and Tim got sick too. Soon after Kate became mobile...like don't take your eyes off of the baby for an instant! She's standing by pulling up on furniture, but not on her own yet. She's walking behind her walker (or stepstool, or anything else that slides across the floor), but she can't walk without holding onto something. We're finding it difficult to take pictures of her while chasing after her at the same time!

She's mastered the pincer grasp. At first, she was thrilled to get a speck of a rice puff in her mouth. Now she shovels Cheerios with both hands like it's going out of style!


Her Godparents and her Godcousin came out to visit over Danny's semester break for a couple of days. It was too short of a visit and we miss them terribly around here already. We went to Universal City Walk, where Danny challenged Tim and Mike to a race in the Nascar simulators. We went to Griffith Park to ride the train and to play at the playground. We went to Mountasia where Danny and Mike rode the gocarts for hours, but managed to take a break to play minigolf with the girls. And we truly enjoyed the great company and conversation.



Kate is still not interested in the TV, not even educational baby videos, but she loves working on the computer with her parents, especially if you go to animalplanet.com.

So much to See and Do

Katie is really getting around these days. So much so, she crawls right into the dishwasher. Daddy tried to see if she wanted to try a rinse cycle but Mommy decided it wasn't quite time yet. She's also very hungry and really wants to start exploring more food in the fridge.

Daddy worked a lot this week. Only two weeks left to finish the film, but Katie got to spend lunch with her old man at work while Mommy had her teeth cleaned. Still no teeth for Kate - just a lot of drool and chewing everything. She's learning to clap her hands, but at the moment she uses her fists. I think she wants drum sticks.


Thank goodness for good friends. Petra came up to entertain and Alison and Richard brought a great lamb stew and awesome lemon meringue pie. Katie tried to learn some new tricks from Petra. Now if she would just hold still so Katie can climb over her.

Happy New Year

OK, I know that it's way past the new year, but we've had a rough few days around the Pauer household. Kate caught a crouping cough on Tuesday night. She was having a hard time breathing and sounded like a barking seal when she coughed. Dr. Auntie Deb gave some suggestions on Weds and on Thursday Kate went to see a pediatrician just to be safe. She's doing much better now, but still is a touch raspy at night.

In the meantime, Tim got sick right around the same time as Kate (just a bad cold), and Anissa caught whatever Tim had by the end of the week. What a long week! (And Tim is working 6 day weeks until the movie finishes at the end of January.)

What's been going on otherwise? Let's see - Kate has started making some words out of all of that babbling that she's been doing. "Bababa" has become "Bob". No immediate family members are named Bob (unless those Valcos really made an impression!), so we're assuming that everything that doesn't have a name is "Bob" for now. "Mamama" is now usually a desperate cry for her mother (mostly while in her crib or in the hands of her father). "Dadada" is reserved for her dad. "Up", or something like it, may refer to her standing, or wanting to reach something up high. There is still an indescriminate babble that sounds like "that", but it could mean anything - we'll have to wait and see. "Nanana" is another sound she's playing with, but she didn't produce for Nana, so we can't assign it to her just yet.




















She can motor up a flight of stairs like nobody's business, but she does get tired of it pretty quickly, so we haven't had to put up the baby gate just yet. The stairs/platforms at the parks' playground equipment keep her occupied as well.








She can hold her sippy cup or water bottle on her own, now, and can manage to tip the bottle up so that she gets the water out of the bottle.








She is also quiet adept at pulling open drawers at her height or higher, so more babyproofing still needs to get done on that. And she likes opening and closing doors - just the motion of pulling the edge of a door, or pushing an edge of a door, makes her smile. Thankfully, she can't turn a doornob yet, but it's just a matter of time I fear!

Christmas tree and decorations are still up, but we'll need to put them away soon, or Kate will bring them to ground level for us!

Outside Fun

Kate has been enjoying all of the time she still gets to spend outside. We watched her play at a park where she climbed onto the play equipment all by herself! OK, it was a step up into the play area, but she managed to work her way up that step without any help from us!

We all went to the Los Angeles Zoo on Wednesday. It was pretty chilly, so we didn't stay long. She enjoyed watching the duikers jump and run in front of her (they are antelope that look a little like Bambi). The petting zoo area was closed because of the weather, so she only got to see animals from a distance. She was facinated by a reindeer chewing on its fence, but didn't see what all the excitement was about at the giraffe, elephant, and sea lion exhibits. She did LOVE watching all of the other little kids run and play, and so it was a good day.

Christmas

Merry Christmas Baby!

We all had a quiet morning of Christmas for Kate's first Christmas. Kate slept in until about 8am.

Our traditions this year:
A stocking was hung for Kate off of the new mantel.
Tim read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" as Kate's bedtime story on Christmas Eve.
We sang "O Christmas Tree" and "O Tannenbaum"
We made a hand-print ornament with Kate's hand and hung it from the tree.
We opened gifts on Christmas morning, instead of Christmas Eve.

We received so many gifts for Kate this year, and a big thanks to all of you who thought of us this year. We feel so blessed to have Kate in our lives, and it's a wonder to see her change every day and to learn new things. We certainly missed all of the family, and yet, in its own way, it was nice to have our little family of three Christmas together.

Alison, Richard and Petra came to visit in the afternoon, so we did have company, too. They made a lovely lamb stew that was absolutely delicious, and we always enjoy their company. It's fun to see Petra and Kate interact as they grow. Kate still looks up to Petra (physically, too). As Kate learns to walk, I'm not sure that Petra will still be able to get away from her so easily.