Singing in the Rain

well, kind of.

We had some heavy rains this weekend, and Kate would not give up the urgent request at 10am for "outside". Tim and I could imagine what 2pm was going to feel like, and Tim relented. We dressed her up in her best rain/snow gear - rain coat, winter boots. Tim costumed himself in army boots and a floppy hat and out the front door they went. Kate made it into the flow of water that is rushing in front of our house. The water was deep enough to almost make it above the top of her boots. She loved it...until she turned in a way the rain was falling on her face. Not so much fun after that. It was a quick 10 minutes outside, but made for a much happier homebody.


Last week, Kate started to sing to her dollies in her crib. I was singing her a lullaby "Toora Loora Loora” and she joined in!

Since she didn't know the words, she sang "momma dadda momma......(poop)". She gave me that look to see if I'd noticed that she said "poop". So cute for the singing, but I'm hoping that the reaction to poop was nominal enough for her not to continue THAT part of the song.

Speaking of poop, Kate has taken to carrying around her baby Minnie doll. Baby Minnie needs holding, singing to, and mostly, having her diaper changed.. a lot! I guess we know that Kate thinks that we change her diaper too often.

More words this week: The toddler trio have emerged "No", "Mine" and "Why" have sprouted up with regularity. The way she says "No" is killer, though. She sounds like a southern bell with a long drawl. "Why" is just being tested out for now. She also says "Pack" for her backpack of animals, "Back" for "I'll be right back. You wait right here please", and her morning routine now includes some cute babbling from her crib that includes, "momma", "dadda", and "up".

Daycare Debbie has been making great strides in the eating variety of foods category. Debbie has gotten Kate to eat turkey, grilled cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (3 different sandwiches, not 1). She's also gotten her to eat mac and cheese, peas and carrots. The new addition is slices of apples. Whoo Hoo! Now if we could continue the trend at home. Stay tuned.

Too Bright!

We bought a new car in January. It's a Mazda5 Minivan. Kate likes her new seat, but she complains loudly over the non-tinted windows. "Bight! Bight!" She hides her face in her shoulder like a vampire. So we got her a pair of her own sunglasses, which help a little. But she doesn't keep them on, preferring to slide them onto the top of her head like Mommy does.

She's also a very active little girl. She loves the park and the slides and can go up the stairs and down the slide on her own if someone is around to catch her at the bottom (not that she's waiting or anything). She still loves the swings too and is trying to learn how to move her legs like the big kids do.

At home she's a bundle of energy too. She loves dancing around when she thinks no one is watching and she loves to stomp her feet when we say "wiggle wiggle". She may be ready for a gymnastics class since her new fun activity is to throw herself into the air and land in a sitting position on the couch or her chair or the bed.

She like to push around her dolly and bear in the stroller and she tries to put shoes on them too. She plays hide and seek with her parents and can open any door in the house. Those doorknob covers were no match for her at all! And if she can't push her toy stroller around, then it's the swiffer mop that holds her attention and interest! She's also gotten into the cutest habit of playing while on her belly. She reads, draws and watches TV while laying on her stomach with her feet in the air.

She's been getting up really early again, but is sleeping through the night. She's up around 5:30 most mornings, and her parents don't need to be up until after 6am. She's also outgrowing some of her clothes again due to some vertical stretching that's been going on. Many of her pants have become "floods" that are still too big in the waist. Maybe if she'd only eat some more vegetables! Her teeth are catching up with the growth spurt too! She's got 4 teeth on top in the front and two on the bottom. Three of her molars are in too with the fourth on its way and one or two others finally working their way in.

We're amazed that she's recognizing letters of the alphabet already! She says "ahh" whenever she sees the letter A. She also says "ahh" if she sees a word with an A in it. I couldn't figure out why she was yelling at me at an intersection near the house everyday until I saw that she was pointing at a street sign with the letter A in it.
She seems to also know the letter U -"ooh" and will remember B (baby), D (dada), K (Kate), and M (mama) for brief periods of time. I can't believe we're already into all of this stuff at 21 months!