Fuzzy Phone Pics

Still no camera, so here are some poorly lit, fuzzy phone pictures of our day. Much of the day revolved around bright bow barrettes.



Bright bow barrettes can be rather exhausting.

Potato Heads

Well, I ordered a new charger for my camera battery, but until it arrives you'll have to settle for unillustrated anecdotes and some old pictures I forgot to post.

Our neighbors cleaned out their garage yesterday (different neighbors than the ones who cleaned out their garage a couple weeks ago and found decades-old Mountain Dew). These neighbors have growing children and bestowed upon us a slew of outgrown toys, including a large set of Mr. Potato Heads. The girls are in love. Catherine found a Carrot Head (like Mr. Potato Head, but shaped like a carrot instead of a potato) and dressed it up in glasses and pink shoes and decided it was her. Catherine Carrot Head. Now any time Mary touches Catherine Carrot Head, Catherine gets very upset, saying things like: "Mary no touch me!" and "Mary, no pull my carrot head arms off!" and "Ooooohhhh, Maaarrrry! You got my ears!" I have been laughing out loud all morning.

And now for some July pictures I neglected to post.

All the rain in June and July, and a corresponding tiny amount of sun, has resulted in a very meager bounty from the garden. This was a whole day's pick. Last year a day's pick of tomatoes and raspberries would have required a bucket. Oh well, those sunsugar tomatoes taste so good they're worth their weight in gold to me.


Here's Mary chillin in her chair. I think she spends several hours in these chairs every day. She grabs a book and curls up in there, just like Daddy.


My cell phone is going to be the next thing to go missing, because Mary is obsessed with phones. She can scope it out anywhere.


This is where I found Catherine one day. She took the tray off Mary's high chair, climbed up into it, and buckled herself in. Then she yelled "Mom! Can you put my tray on and get me some food?"


Note: she can now buckle and unbuckle almost any safety buckle by herself. And she can climb anything. She has also taken to using the drawer handles in the bathroom to climb up onto the counter so she can wash her hands by herself.

Team Rennier

I can't figure out how this picture has not shown up yet on Ramblings by Steve, but I can't wait - it is too cute and I like it too much.

Tour de France, here comes Team Rennier:

Swimsuit Edition

If there is anything cuter than baby girls in frilly swimsuits, I have not seen it.






Except maybe baby girls with their dads.

The Check-Ups

Catherine and Mary both went to the pediatrician yesterday and things went surprisingly smoothly. Mary is 30.5 inches tall and 19 pounds 3 ounces, which translates to super tall and a skinny-minny. However now that we have introduced her to cake this might not be the case for long. She thought the lead test, where they poke your toe and spend about 5 minutes shaking your foot around to collect some blood in a tube, was hilarious. She toddled around and babbled to the doctor, although she positively refused to open her mouth to show him her molar. She had two shots at the end but they barely phased her.

Catherine is 37.5 inches tall and weighs 33 pounds, which translates to big. The nurses were very impressed with the speed with which she could undress herself, and the doctor was very impressed to discover she speaks in full paragraphs when he asked if she speaks in full sentences. He was also happy that she found a light instrument hidden in a drawer that the office had been missing for several weeks.

Catherine had one shot, which was a little interesting because this is the first time getting a shot that she understood that what the nurse was doing was hurting and that it was at least partly my idea. And she could articulate it. But after a brief look of surprise and a "hey that hurts" she was fine. And apparently the shot is not what stuck in her mind about the appointment, because later in the day she looked at me and asked, "Do you go to the doctor and take your clothes off too?"

I think Catherine just read, or at least recognized, her first word. She looked at a piece of paper Mary had been coloring on, and on which I had written Mary's name, and she said, "What she made? M? Y? She made her name?" I'm impressed.

There can't be a post without pictures so here is a little sequence of what happens when you give Mary a bowl of cereal to hold for herself. In case there is any question, I am long long past any concern about children eating off the floor/ground.

Everything starts out looking pretty good.


But blink, and...


No problem, they're just as good as before.


And while the ones on the ground are good, the ones stuck to the bottom of your feet...


Delectable.


Standing up still takes a little focus, but did you notice that Cheerio stuck under her left foot...


Mary did - but she just can't seem locate it...


Ah, this method works better.


Success!

Happy Birthday Mary!

A Brief Pictoral History of Merry Mary...

Birth Day

About a week

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

One Year!

Fever AND Teeth, Oh My

If you haven't already, check out "Ramblings by Steve" for some hilarious videos of the last week, as I'll try not to duplicate too much here.

Catherine has without a doubt had a wonderful week with her grandparents. She is just starting to wrap her brain around the idea of saying goodbye for different lengths of time, so tomorrow morning's farewell could be worse than those previous - we'll just have to see. Mary would have had a much better week had she not been sick for the last four or five days. She started with a low fever I think Thursday, and had that with some extreme tiredness until yesterday, when her fever went down but she broke out in a rash, and the whole time she has been very unsteady on her feet and breaking out in seemingly unprovoked screams, which I assume were prompted by some pain. The doctor said the fever-followed-by-rash is a normal chain of events when young kids pick up a virus, so other than a little bit of a red throat she is fine. She was picking up some energy again today and was much happier this afternoon, so although the timing was bad, it was nothing serious. And I figured out that the seemingly unprovoked screams were actually quite provoked, because on top of her sickness Mary randomly cut through a molar in the back of her mouth. And a birthday party in the midst of it all - she is seriously a trooper.

Mary did have a very well timed spurt of energy during her party (it might have been cupcake-induced, which is fine) so we got some good pictures and people enjoyed themselves. The ice cream sundae bar was a big hit (it turns out a surprising number of people don't really like cake) and it was a beautiful day.

Although she doesn't feel like eating much else, every time we walk past the cake now Mary tries to dive on it.





She also gave a giggle for alphabet-singing Elmo.


And took a spin in her new ride-on toy. Look at sweet Uncle Chris taking care of his niece...



And I do have to repost the sleeping on the floor picture, because what is cuter than a kid conked out on the floor after a party? She slept here for at least three hours.


Everyone else enjoyed lots of ice cream and some croquette outside. Until Catherine ran away with all the balls.




Stay tuned to Ramblings by Steve because I hear there is a post in the works about the morning they all spent learning to sail...