Videos

I finally got these videos to load. This one is Catherine's squealy voice (if you're at work, check the volume on your computer before you play). It has nearly replaced her babbling in the last few days - she just squeals in various pitches and lengths when she's happy.



This one is actually kind of boring, but it is Catherine's earliest attempts at crawling (I think). When she's sitting up she will lean forward on her hands, usually reaching for something, then push up a tiny with with her legs and end up on all fours - hands and tip-toes. She has not managed to get any further than this position; she just flops back down on her belly after a minute or two.

Happy Squealy Baby

Yup, it was carrots for lunch today. We had a brief few weeks where eating with Catherine was actually a fairly clean experience because she had learned how to swallow the food properly and she was really only interested in eating it. Now however she is quite intrigued by how the food gets on the spoon, how the spoon gets into her mouth, and how the food gets off the spoon once there. You can see the results of all this experimenting quite clearly.

Well, I had 2 videos ready for you and bunches of commentary written on each of them, but after spending an hour trying to upload them only to have it tell me "Error" at about 99% loaded each time, I am giving up. Sorry - I'll try again later.

We Love Bath Time

Catherine has graduated to a toddler bath tub. She outgrew the first infant bath, and she would just be in a regular bath except we don't have one, so I had to get this slightly larger baby bath tub that she can sit up in. I put it in the shower because she loves to splash. Catherine really enjoys the bath - she spent a lot of time this evening trying to get the water out of the cup she was playing with. She made many attempts to reach in and get the water with her hand, which ultimately failed.



I think I've mentioned before that Catherine loves a good construction project, large or small. This morning she spent about half an hour sitting in her walker in front of the door staring at the backhoe and large dump truck working in the front yard across the street. She also spent a lot of time today rolling around on the floor and playing on her stomach, smiling at Daddy so he would let her walk around while holding his hands, and she even took two naps. Catherine is now strong enough to resist the lull of the stroller; a walk used to be a guaranteed nap, but now she can stay awake no matter how many miles we go. Catherine hasn't made any progress in her quest for forward motion, but she is getting pretty good at scooting backwards. Today she managed to inch herself all the way over to the potted plant behind the piano, and of course as soon as she got there she pushed herself up on her stomach as far as she could and flung one arm up over the top of the pot (it's a fairly tall pot) and I got to her just as she started flicking dirt around with her fingertips.

Here's a little play time video for you - it has some good fake-laughing in it:

Catherine is continuing to focus a lot of energy on becoming independently mobile. She has managed to push up onto her knees a couple times, although it is a short-lived success at this point; her legs immediately slide back out behind her and she belly-flops back onto the floor. Her favorite thing right now is to "walk" around holding Michael's or my hands - she laughs and squeals every time we help her stand. I can feel her getting a little stronger and finding her balance a little better because she pulls on my hands less than last week.

We had our church picnic today and Catherine entertained everyone for quite a while, rolling around, trying to eat grass, smiling and babbling, messily eating sweet potatoes for lunch, and even napping. She really enjoyed riding in the truck we drove out on the beach and sucking on watermelon.

I'm definitely spoiled by the fact that Catherine started sleeping through the night so early. These last few weeks of getting up 3 or 4 times a night, even just for 5 or 10 minutes each time, has been really exhausting. (Did I mention her second tooth on the bottom is coming in also? I think her teeth are waking her up and then once she's awake she realizes she's hungry and/or bored.) I think either Michael is becoming more sensitive or I'm starting to tune out Catherine's whining-but-don't-need-anything cries, because a few times now she has managed to wake him up before me. :)

I have to get to bed in case Catherine decides to get up at 4:30 again tomorrow, but here's a bunch of pictures for you (Catherine's favorite toys right now are bowls and spoons, and of course her blocks but those were being washed). You can see also that Catherine is back to her joyful self. She even did pretty well when I left for a couple hours to go to violin on Friday (she got to stay with Daddy so you would expect her to be fine, but that first day back after New Haven she wasn't even happy with him).

The Mysteries of Spatial Relations

Catherine Macrina turned seven months old today. Despite not sleeping too well last night (she even managed to wake Daddy up at 4 am - I was actually kind of proud of her) Catherine was very active today. Although the walker was the source of many good times these last few months, Catherine has decided that 7-month-olds should not be held back by the limiting bulk of the walker; if she holds on to Mommy's or Daddy's hands to walk, she can go just about anywhere. I believe the fact that this is highly inconvenient for us is just an added bonus to her (I base this on the way she occasionally looks up at whomever is holding her hands and gives a mischievous little grin).

Catherine has also recently made some amazing discoveries concerning the facts of space and matter. It used to be that when I put her blocks in their bucket, they were just gone. Poof! No more blocks. Now she has figured out that I am no talented magician after all, that the blocks are inside the bucket, and that she can reach in and find them. Oh the things we take for granted.

Catherine had a bit of a cranky spell this afternoon, throwing an absolute fit every time I put her down. I desperately needed to dust and vacuum (it's ridiculous how fast things disintegrate - after little more than 2 weeks of being away from the house I thought I was going to leave footprints in the dust on the floor when I got back), but Catherine is too heavy now to carry around much in the front carrier, especially for vacuuming which requires a bit of bending forward. So I broke out the baby backpack and Catherine seemed pretty pleased with the situation. Michael was pleased too, or at least I think he was by the way he burst out laughing when he first saw us and chuckled every time we passed through his field of vision while we were vacuuming.



I know how much you all enjoy a picture series, and you know this blog's for you:








Also, I forgot to put this jumping video up the other day. It's pretty similar to the first jumping video, but that doesn't make it any less likely to brighten your day:

Happy, Healthy & HOME

Ok, so Catherine doesn't really look happy in these pictures (it's a little difficult to get a happy picture of a teething baby who was stuck in a car all day and is convinced her mom is going to leave every time she blinks), but we are healthy and home. After a lengthy trip back from New Haven this afternoon, Catherine seemed glad to be home, but just being here apparently is not enough to convince her that I am not going to leave for hours (or forever) every time I put on my shoes, pick up the car seat, or put her down on the floor to play. I don't think she's permanently traumatized or anything, but Catherine's couple days with the baby sitter definitely confirmed in her mind her initial "separation anxiety" instincts, at least temporarily. I am going to try to find some other moms and babies to hang out with on a regular basis - maybe that will help a little. Catherine was intrigued by the 22-month-old son of her babysitter, and was interested in playing with him (at least while I was there as well), so I think she's at the point where she might like interacting with some other little people.
(side note: I just completely destroyed a grilled cheese sandwich, and possibly a skillet, by attempting to blog and cook at the same time.)

Catherine's first little tooth has progressed from a point to a pointy line in her gums. I know some of you thinking, "I wish we had a picture," but seriously, a picture of a faint jagged line about a millimeter long inside a baby's mouth? You think too highly of my photography and baby-wrangling skills, and you're probably spending a little too much time on this blog :) (Did you know the people who help photographers get good pictures of babies by jumping around and acting foolish are called "baby wranglers"?) Anyway, when there's an entire tooth to show off, I guarantee a picture in all its pearly glory.

More Bark & More Bite

Sorry we've been MIA the last few days. I would tell you about our weekend, but I have been sitting here thinking about it for a few minutes and I can't remember anything about it. Catherine and I drove to New Haven Sunday evening because I had to work in the office Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. She slept about 3 of the 4 hours it took us to get to New Haven, so when we got into the hotel around 9 pm she was super happy and wanted to play. It didn't last long, and she actually slept super well Sunday night, especially for being in a hotel.

Monday Catherine was supposed to spend the day with her babysitter while I worked. She did spend most of the day at the baby sitter's, but so did I. Catherine did ok for about 30 minutes after I left, and the rest of the day she cried. That is not an exaggeration. She actually cried every single minute I was not there (blessings on a very calm and patient babysitter). I ended up going back four times between 10 and 4 to calm her down. The babysitter was very impressed with her tenacity and ability to maintain the highest possible intensity level with her crying for a such a long time. The good thing is that the trauma didn't last - every time I stepped through the door she immediately calmed down and started smiling and talking and playing like normal. Needless to say, I ended up doing quite a bit of work from the hotel after she went to bed.

Today (Tuesday) we decided that we would give Catherine one chance in the morning to see if she could hold herself together, and if not then it probably wasn't going to get better and I didn't want to just leave her to cry all day. So I dropped her off at 9 with plans to come back at 10:30 unless I got a call, and she actually made it to 10:30! It wasn't pretty - she cried pretty ferociously off and on, but during the "off" times she actually played a little. She was crying when I came back at 10:30, but settled down right away and was ok when I left. She cried off an on again between 11 and 1 (the next time I went back), but she also took a nap, which she was not able to do Monday. So Tuesday was definitely better - she wasn't exactly pleased with the situation, but she also wasn't screaming in a blind terror the whole day.

The "bite" part of our last couple days: The First Tooth!! I can't see it yet, but earlier today Catherine was gumming my fingers like normal and I was surprised to feel a little razor point in there instead of just gums! I don't know how long it takes for the whole tooth to appear after the first little point pokes through, but I assume I will soon be posting a picture of a one-tooth smile. (ps - sorry there's no pictures - I forgot to bring my camera cable with me).

Other news: Catherine is against peaches. I tried to feed her peaches and cereal for lunch today, and she actually refused a food for the first time. I mixed in a little milk and coaxed her into eating a few bites (the pediatrician says at this point we can convince her that she likes anything by offering it to her a bunch of times). However, about an hour later she had an episode of peach-spit-up, and she really doesn't spit up much at all anymore. This makes me recall the last time I gave her peaches a couple weeks ago and she threw up a LOT (into a clean basket of laundry, by the way). So perhaps peaches really don't agree with her.

I'm off to see if letting Catherine sleep in the bed next to me will help her sleep at all - she's having a rough time of it tonight. I'm guessing it has something to do with the emerging tooth, since every times she wakes up she furiously gnaws on her fist or sleeve. We're headed home tomorrow - hooray!

Lickety Split

Since none of us died of shock when our plane was more than an hour late, we all arrived safely in Boston and are now back home (I'm currently taking a break from unpacking). We all breathed a sigh of relief when we went outside in Boston and it was about 75 degrees with a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. We and everyone else on our flight were once again blessed to be travelling with A Very Happy Catherine - she slept, ate, smiled, grabbed Daddy's eyeballs, inspected the plane window, and otherwise harmlessly amused herself for our 2 hour 8 minute flight. I think there was a point when she was considering taking the hat off the guy in front of her, but then the flight attendants came by with drinks and we distracted her with apple juice and cereal eating. Now Catherine is sleeping soundly in her own bed. I really hope she gets a good night's sleep tonight, because the last couple nights she slept very poorly - she even managed to wake Michael up 3 or 4 times each night, so you know she was loud.

I forgot to post a picture of Catherine's party dress last time:


For some reason this is the only picture I have of her in her dress - hopefully the photographer got a better one but we won't see those for a month or so.

Grandma Kim took Catherine for her first swim at the neighbor's house. Catherine seemed to enjoy splashing about in the water, which is not too surprising given she really enjoys splashing around in the bath.
Let's see, that was Tuesday after we got back from Tulsa, then Wednesday we spent most of the day hanging out with Grandma Debi and Grandpa Tim, then we had dinner with Aunt Kristin who was meeting Catherine for the first time. Kristin and I look quite a bit alike, which may partially explain why Catherine bypassed her customary inspection period - they went straight to playing. If I remember correctly, Kristin did not eat anything during dinner; she just played with Catherine. Thursday Grandpa Steve worked from home. We did what we could to distract him by sending Catherine squeals and giggles down the stairs towards his desk, but he is amazingly skilled at focusing on work. We settled for a quick lunch break (at the Lion's Choice, of course). Catherine likes going out to restaurants even more now that she is big enough to sit up at the table in a high chair. As soon as we sit her down in the chair and pull it up to the table, she steaks out her table real estate by leaning down and making big swipes across the table with her arms, like "if I can touch it, it belongs to me." This is actually quite helpful for us, since we now know exactly how far away we have to move everything. After lunch we went and hung out with Aunt Melanie in her new apartment. Catherine really liked rolling around on the new carpet. The rest of us really liked the dinner Melanie made for us, and watching Catherine roll around on the new carpet.

Catherine's fun new activity in the last few days is arm waving - she does it all the time now. It's much funnier to watch than to try and explain it:



All in all I think Catherine did pretty well for her first extended trip away from home. It took a couple weeks, but I think the grandparents at least have made it onto Catherine's short-list of approved acquaintances. We'll see if meeting everyone in St. Louis will help at all with our next trip to New Haven (the land of the BabySitter). Catherine only has one day to feel settled in again, then we leave on Sunday evening for 3 days in New Haven. Given how she acted with the babysitter last time, I figure the only way to go is up, and Catherine is undoubtedly better with people now than she was two months ago...

It's off to bed for me - I need to try and use the weekend to recover from vacation so I can get back to work on Monday!

Congratulations!

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but first thing's first: Congratulations to Uncle Tommy and Officially Aunt Jena!!


Now to catch you up a bit.

Play Day
We got into St. Louis last Monday evening and spent Tuesday showing off Catherine to various people around St. Louis, Catherine of course gathering a crowd wherever we went. We stopped by Grandpa's office where Catherine shut down all production temporarily and decided she could sit in Grandpa's chair any day. Then we had lunch with some friends, and Catherine had a very good time grabbing people's noses, eyeballs and hair. After a bit of shopping, Catherine and I had dinner with Aunt Melanie and Grandma Akey (you grandmas and grandpas need to pick names so I can differentiate here). Catherine is almost always very good in restaurants - she likes staring at everyone and playing with spoons, and Grandma showed her how fun it is to drink water from a spoon.

Shopping Day
Wednesday we went out to the mall to get Catherine an outfit to wear for the family photo, but Catherine kept pointing out to Grandma and Great Grandma lots of cute outfits and she ended up with a whole new summer wardrobe. She didn't seem to mind. Wednesday evening Catherine had a good time trying to eat all the crinkly stuff that the Grandmas were using to wrap baskets for the wedding. I think Catherine likes crafts.

Travel Day
Thursday after packing the cars to capacity we headed down to Springfield. Catherine liked Uncle Tommy's house, but she did not like when he played Smashing Pumpkins - she's much more into mellow music. She also was not very happy when the house filled up with boys. She doesn't trust boys, and she especially doesn't trust loud boys. Lucky for her, all the boys took off on their own bachelor adventures (after we had meat-on-a-stick for dinner) and we had a quiet evening at the hotel with Grandma.

Picture Day
I think by Friday Catherine was starting to become concerned by the masses of people taking specific interest in her. She did pretty well for the family photo, although I don't think she flashed any real smiles in the face of that huge black camera. She was also pretty calm at the rehearsal, and even agreed to hang out with some of Jena's family for a while, but she was a little frazzled by the rehearsal dinner. We paced around the room for a good part of the evening and she wasn't really interested in playing with anyone.

The Big Day
Even though Catherine had been sleeping pretty well all week, I think by Saturday she was starting to get a bit overwhelmed by our schedule. She was off-and-on cranky most of the morning, then threw a big fit when it was time to start getting ready for pictures. We went to the church around 3 so the photographer could take a picture of her, but she was in no mood for making memories so we went back to the B&B until it was closer to the ceremony time at 5. After those couple hours of quiet time Catherine managed to pull herself together pretty well for the wedding. She was clearly awed by Aunt Jena's exquisite dress (as were we all) and she only squawked once or twice during the ceremony, but I'm pretty sure it was a squawk of approval. I think the photographer did manage to get a good shot of Catherine after the ceremony, which is good because by the time we made it over to the reception I think she was pretty much done for the day. Between the general din, a couple random loud noises, and 200 people shuffling about, she was having some trouble getting her bearings. I explained to her that it wasn't the best evening to get extremely clingy seeing as so many of her adoring fans were meeting her for the first time and all they wanted was a little love, but she wouldn't even let Michael hold her most of the evening, let alone anyone she wasn't used to. Apparently this level of reasoning is above a 6-month-old, even one as smart as Catherine. I'm pretty sure her reasoning went something like "Crowd: Scary. Mom: Safe." She's a baby, she does what she wants. We left the reception pretty early so Catherine could get to bed, but I did have time to enjoy the dinner and toasts and make it around the room once with Catherine.


More Travel Days
Since we were halfway there already, we went down to Tulsa on Sunday to spend a couple days with some friends. Catherine seems to be much more inclined to accept new people when it's just a couple at a time and everything else is pretty normal. The 108 degree temperature in Tulsa really made us appreciate the cool even 100 back in St. Louis when we got back last night. Catherine slept about 5 of the 6 hours it took to drive home, so when we got there around 11 pm she decided she had slept enough and threw a monster fit when I put her to bed. I think she just wanted to make sure Grandma and Grandpa knew she was home.

Back to Today
This morning we took Catherine down to Grandma's office and then to Lion's Choice for lunch (you can't visit St. Louis without eating a roast beef sandwich at Lioin's Choice), and tonight we're having dinner with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Rennier for their birthdays.

You can visit the Daily Moose for more photos, and if anyone else also has good ones of Catherine or anyone during wedding week I would be delighted if you wanted to send them to me!

Arrived (Where's our Red Carpet?)

No pics or anything - just wanted to let you all know that we arrived in St. Louis safe and sound (although, when the pilot mentioned it was 97 degrees at 8 pm, I did consider telling them to just turn around and take me back to the Cape). Catherine was a gem today even though we had a very long day of travelling. She really seems to enjoy the airport - lots of people to stare at. Our plane was a little more than an hour late, but once we took off the flight was a breeze. Catherine slept about 2 hours of the 2.5 hour flight, and the other half hour she was eating. It was way past her bed time by the time we got back to the house, met the dog, had dinner, and sufficiently entertained the grandparents, so between being over tired and being in a new house Catherine had a bit of tough time settling down for bed, but she's sleeping soundly now, which means I am off to bed as well. See you all soon!

Ready to Fly

I'm hoping two Sundays in a row is not the beginning of a trend - Catherine babbled, giggled, fake-coughed and squealed her way through church again today. No one seems to mind really, but clearly it is distracting. We spent most of the rest of the day doing laundry and making lists - getting ready to head out tomorrow. Since Catherine is in bed now and I can actually get a few things accomplished (like eating dinner), I'm going to make this short. Can't wait to see everyone!!!

Bath Time Fun

Well, the posting hiatus of the last few days was not on purpose - I've just been spending every spare minute trying to finish up a couple work projects before we leave for STL (and of course getting ready for the trip as well). Also the house is a bit of a sauna so we've been spending a lot of time out on walks and at the beach. Don't worry, you didn't miss any big milestones or anything. Catherine still just has little bumps under her gums that we assume will show themselves some day as teeth, and there's nothing to report in the way of crawling. Catherine seems like she has a ways to go before she figures that out; on the rare occasions when she chances to get her knees up under her a tiny bit, she just ends up pushing with her arms and scooting backwards a couple inches as she falls back down to her stomach.

A couple weeks ago Catherine figured out that water is drinkable. After many failed attempts at trying to grab the water coming out of the sprayer so she could put the water in her mouth, she had a bit of a revelation and realized she could just move her mouth to the water. Now she spends most of every bath trying to get her mouth under the spray of water, although I think she spits out way more than she drinks.

Daddy's Home!

Hooray! Daddy came home this afternoon and Catherine and I were definitely glad to see him! When I was done with work we went to the beach for an hour or so - Michael and Catherine played down by the water and I took a nap. Catherine has figured out that hats are not part of her head and therefore can be removed, but she likes Daddy's hat better.



Not much to post today and I'm tired, so you'll have to entertain yourselves with another Player Piano video clip: