Mary had her nine-month checkup at the pediatrician today. She was very pleased to be able to walk around the office in her diaper for a while and smiled at everyone, even the nurse who gave her a shot (not while she was getting the shot, but about 10 seconds later, which is pretty good). Mary is 29 inches tall (the 95th percentile or so) and 18.2 pounds (around the 45th percentile). The doctor said it's normal for babies to slim down around this age, so no worries, and it explains why all her 12-month size pants are about the right length but fall off when she walks. She's also working on two or three teeth, which is making her want to chew on her fingers a lot, but is not motivating her to chew on any new foods. I guess plenty of people live on cheerios and yogurt.
Here are some videos of what Mary is up to.
I think Mary stands up about 12 hours a day. Here she is showing off how she can stand up without holding on.
Mary is picking up lots of new sounds. You'll notice it is quiet in the background - she only manages to be heard when Catherine is out of the house!
Mary is very pleased with her new-found ability to make kissing noises.
PS - Did anyone notice that I try to keep some of your favorite videos in the quick links list to the right so you don't have to sift through back posts to find them? I'm happy to take requests if there is something you want over there...
It was uncharacteristically warm here today (in the mid seventies) so after churches we and some friends went to a nearby "farm" with the kids. Bray Farm has two Scottish Highland cows, two miniature donkeys, some sheep, some goats, some chickens, and some blueberry bushes. And some tractors. The kids love it! Catherine's favorite part was definitely the chicken coop, because it is ok to pick grass and feed it to the chickens through the fence. This was a big hit, as were the large grassy fields where she and Morgan could run until they were both quite red in the face.
Here is a rather boring video of feeding the chickens:
Farmer Catherine
Mary enjoying the "cock-a-doodle-doo"s
Our super-cutie friend Tristan (we might have informally betrothed Mary to him at this point...)
I forgot about this video since it was on my camera and I've only loaded things from Grandma's camera for the past week. After the dance party, Catherine challenged Uncle Tommy to a stroller/shopping cart race. Just try running while bent over like this sometime and you will be surprised at how tiring it is. (Sorry it's so dark again - I have to figure out how to fix that on my camera.)
Mary is getting almost that fast in her walker, and now when she runs in it she almost always runs with her hands up in the air - I find this hilarious every time I see it.
And, as promised, a video of Catherine doing the Hokey Pokey:
Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Tommy and Aunt Jena have all returned to their homes and lives sans crazy Catherine and merry Mary. Catherine does very well with the good-byes, yelling Bye-Bye and blowing kisses and giving very energetic waves, but it's always when she wakes up the next morning that the farewell sinks in. Thursday morning she woke up and told me she was going to be quiet because Grandma was still sleeping, and of course I reminded her how we had said goodbye to everyone the day before and they had taken their big planes back home so they weren't sleeping in the basement anymore, and she started crying "But I need to see people!" It makes sense that she misses them already. Grandpa was always ready with early morning story hours, wagon rides, and outings with the tricycle. Grandma braved several trips to the park, let Catherine help her with her makeup, and lead at least one expedition to the mall. And Aunt Jena and Uncle Tommy not only tasted ALL of the meals Catherine cooked for them (repeatedly), but they were willing participants in Catherine's dance parties, and that can be hard to come by (most people have a limit on the number of times they can endure the hokie-pokie).
(Sorry, videos of the hokie-pokie were vetoed.)
Catherine apparently has fond memories of the 5K and marathon in Boston as well. For the last two mornings when we have been out on our walks, every time Catherine hears a motorcycle she tells me "Here come the runners..." because the motorcycle policemen always preceded the runners in the marathon (and we thought she was just playing in the dirt the whole time).
Luckily the beautiful weather is distracting all of us. In addition to our morning walks (which are possible again since it is actually light when we wake up and usually above 40) we took an afternoon trip to the park with Robert yesterday and then did some digging in the garden when we got home. Maybe I'll actually get my plants in the garden before Memorial Day this year! And the weekend is supposed to be even warmer - our first trip to the beach might be in our near future...
Meanwhile Mary has turned nine months. It is slightly terrifying to think that when Catherine was nine months I was pregnant with Mary. (Don't get your hopes up - that was simply an observation and not a preface to any big announcements.) Mary still has walking on the top of her "to-do" list. She routinely pulls herself up to standing with the table, chairs, doll house, and book shelves, and has even tried to attempt it using Catherine. She also will let go of things and stand on her own for a few seconds at a time. The problem with all of this is that she is absolutely terrible at falling down. Whether she falls sideways, backwards, forwards, or anywhere in between, it looks like a tree being felled. She does not bend at all, but just tips over like a log and lands on her head. So we still have to hover around behind her when she decides it is time to stand up, which is always.
Here are some remaining photos of last week (courtesy of Grandma, of course).
I was going to let Grandpa have this one for his blog, but they are just too cute.
Grandma's Girls:
(Mary with her tongue sticking out, like usual): Catherine modeling her Easter hat and purse:
As you can tell, we've been spending a lot of time at the park. Mary really likes the slides, and Catherine's favorite I think is still the swings, although she is pretty interested in climbing things as well.
Catherine is making great strides with her tricycle riding. Yesterday she actually steered and pedalled at the same time! She admits that is it "very tricky" but she is practicing a lot.
We're getting packed up right now for a weekend in Boston - sightseeing, a 5K, a marathon and some quality time with Aunt Jena and Uncle Tommy. Luckily Mary is very tired and will probably sleep most of the drive, and Catherine is very good at car trips. We took a very short drive to the store the other day and on the way back I told her we were almost home and she said she just wanted to drive and drive and drive...
Yeah!!! Grandma Kim and Grandpa Steve arrived yesterday, and brought with them hugs and kisses and trips to the park and movies and cake balls and...Lila! Lila is Catherine's pink tricycle with flowers and butterflies and pink and white streamers and of course a squeaky horn. I am quite surprised and impressed with how well Catherine is understanding the concept of pedalling. She does much much better on the slight downhill than the slight uphill, and prefers to move the furniture out of the way rather than steer around it inside, but for a two-year-old that has ridden a tricycle twice now, I think she is doing very well.
I love the giant helmet - apparently Catherine has a 5-year-old's head on a 2-year-old's body (or maybe more like a 3-year-old's body) because they tried on smaller helmets at the store and ended up getting an "Age 5+" to fit her.
Mary is checking off milestones at a rapid rate as well. Yesterday I saw her sit up from lying down for the first time, and today she used the coffee table to pull up to standing for the first time! We finally have her sleeping all night in her crib, although this is largely credit to Catherine, who has not woken up a single time even though Mary is screaming five feet away from her at least once or twice each night. Mary is also taking little steps towards a normal diet. She is pretty interested in things she can feed to herself (cheerios, veggie puffs, little soft veggies) and is even allowing us to feed her small amounts with a spoon, especially yogurt, which she loves. She still will not eat anything green - if I try to give her a bite of baby food peas or green beans, she gets rather angry and refuses to eat anything else, even if I switch to a different food.
Both girls are delighted that Grandma and Grandpa are here. And of course Grandma brought her super cool camera with an even cooler new lens so you get lots of amazing pictures. Grandma might try to claim them for her blog, but I'm going to try and beat her to them. :)
Mary's absolute favorite favorite thing right now is to practice standing and walking. I think she has made it a life goal to walk by the time she is nine months, so it's time to break out the "old man walker" again. She can almost make it from one end of the house to the other now, although you still have to hover behind her because she often lets her feet slip out from under her and would hit her face on the walker (which she has already done) or fall over backwards and pull the walker on top of her (a couple close calls).
Catherine's favorite thing (or one of her favorite things) is singing. She sings almost everything. She made up a song about chicken nuggets as she was waiting for lunch. Somehow Pinnochio is involved as well.
Happy Easter Everybody! Daddy's Easter morning started with a 6:30am sunrise service on the beach. It was maybe 35 degrees with a steady 20 mph wind blowing off the ocean - needless to say the girls and I stayed home, but nearly 30 other people were brave (read "crazy") enough to show up. Michael stopped at home long enough for his ears to thaw out and then we headed to service #1. The girls and I were playing in the church library when someone started playing a trumpet and Catherine's head popped up and she said, "What that noise?!" We had to go stand in the doorway of the sanctuary and watch until the trumpet song was over, then we went back to our books and blocks.
Catherine spent a lot of time standing up in front of the two churches yesterday. I sang a couple times in the first church, and she always stands with me and holds onto my leg, then we sang a song with the children's church. At church #2 I played a violin song with Monica during which Catherine sat in Daddy's chair up in the very front. At least there were no loud piano interruptions this time.
We had a little Easter egg hunt on the front lawn after church. At first Catherine just thought "What fun! We get to run around in the grass carrying baskets!" I tried to tell her to pick up the eggs, and then Michael had to point a few out to her. Once she saw Morgan zooming around picking them up at record speed, she got the idea. We mostly "hid" the Easter eggs by just dropping them all over the lawn for the younger kids, so when Morgan came out and realized the extreme accessability of all the eggs, she was overjoyed. I saw her running out into the middle of the lawn, hair and bucket flying, yelling, "This is the best Easter egg hunt ever!" Robert didn't get nearly so many eggs, but he was toddling around and laughing just as much. All I know is that the parents at least had a very fun time.
Of course, after the hunt you get the reward. Here are the kids taking stock of their treasures.
After church I made a significant effort to get a good picture of both girls in their Easter dresses. For the most part I failed - it was too bright, too cold, and getting a good shot of two babies is exponentially more difficult than getting a good shot of one baby. At least you can enjoy proof of our efforts:
Then we had to get ready for Easter Feast Celebration: dinner at our house with 12 friends. Here was our menu:
Roasted Garlic Leg of Lamb with Lamb Jus Maple-Thyme Glazed Sweet Potatoes Fresh Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter Sauce Green Salad with All The Veggies Assorted Dinner Rolls Roast Chicken with Rice Stuffing and Veggies (for those who don't eat lamb) Cocunut Cream Cake for dessert
We all had a wonderful time and enjoyed a nice dinner together, except Catherine who finds it utterly impossible to eat during parties. She ended up muching on some Easter bread and hard-boiled eggs that Athena brought.
Catherine woke up this morning and asked me if it was still Easter time. I guess she had fun!
PS: To Grandma and Grandpa - I told Catherine you were coming to visit tomorrow and this was her response: "They bring me a car to drive, and a schoolbus, and a tricycle, and a helmet, and a rocking horse!" Just thought I'd warn you...
It took two whole days (that's why we started early) but I finally got Catherine to admit she wanted to tell Aunt Jena happy birthday on the camera. There's no singing, but given that her usual response to me picking up the camera lately is "No take pictures of me! Can you please no take pictures of me?" I think this is pretty good.
Mary woke up with an awesome mohawk this morning and surprisingly it has lasted all day.
Here's Mary's mohawk with Mary's mad-face. I think it's a mad-face. Actually I'm not really sure what she's thinking. Captions welcome:
And the two sisters. I think they are looking more and more alike every day. Maybe it's the hair.
Here's a video from a week or so ago that I forgot to put up. Catherine was using her Easter card as accompaniment to sing to Mary.
That Spring is in our future! We had two nice days this weekend and were able to spend quite a bit of time outside both days. Saturday Catherine helped Daddy pick up all the sticks and pine cones in the side yard, and she actually picked up a lot and was very helpful. Then she did some relaxing with Mary.
Mary also got to take her first wagon ride which pleased her immensely. I sat her down in the foot well of the wagon instead of up on the seat because I'm pretty sure she would still tumble out if she was sitting up higher. She had a lovely time taking a tour of the neighborhood with Catherine at the helm. Eventually Catherine got tired and hopped in, so I had to push the wagon, and then they both nearly fell asleep sitting up! Nothing like the lull of the wagon wheels on a crisp Spring day.
Unfortunately we had lots of inside work to do on Saturday as well, so we couldn't just hang out outside all day. Luckily Catherine is quite skilled in coming up with ways to entertain herself. Much of Friday and Saturday's activity involved her new umbrella. Last Sunday Morgan had her very own umbrella at church and Catherine was totally smitten. By Friday she still had not stopped talking about it so on their way to the grocery store Michael stopped at another store so Catherine could pick out her very own umbrella. She carried it everywhere all day Friday and all day Saturday. She also made several phone calls in order to tell people about her new umbrella.
Sunday she took it in the car to church and for some reason known only to Catherine by the ride home from church she decided she did not like her umbrella anymore. She told me she needed to go to the store to get a different umbrella, and that Mary needed her current umbrella. She surprisingly has stuck to this conviction all day today. I guess Mary has a nice new umbrella and Catherine is going to get wet. I told Catherine this and she said she doesn't mind.
Mary's protest against sleeping in her own bed continues. However she is surprisingly good at maintaining a cheery attitude on remarkably little sleep, something I could learn from her I suppose. But despite her best efforts the lack of sleep does catch up with her occasionally. At one point on Saturday she was bouncing in her jumperoo and I could hear her getting a little fussy as I was finishing up some work in the kitchen, so I talked to her for a minute and when I turned around to go pick her up I found this:
It rained and poured and thunderstormed all day today - great for the lawn but not very accommodating to the opening days of baseball! Catherine chooses her own clothes now so there was no forcing her into baseball gear in celebration (today she chose her butterfly long-sleeve shirt with her Beatles t-shirt on top, insisting that the four people on the shirt are all Uncle Chris playing basketball). But Mary doesn't have an opinion about these things yet so she wore her Cardinals t-shirt today and has been wearing her pink Cardinals hat all weekend.
I do have to warn you though ("you" being everyone in or connected to St. Louis): both girls being born in Massachusetts, they are native citizens of Red Sox Nation, something that may not be easily disguised by a simple Cardinals beanie...
And finally a shout-out to Aunt Jena: Catherine wanted to tell you Happy Birthday, but she did not want to do it on the camera (she is anti-talking-to-the-camera lately), she only wanted to do it on the web-cam, and I just didn't have any time that I could sit at the web cam when I thought you all might have been home. But she did want to tell you happy birthday nonetheless, and she suggested maybe you could take a ride on your bike for your birthday (and eat some cake, obviously).
