Happy Opening Day

It certainly doesn't feel like April around here, but Opening Day, the fact that it doesn't get dark at 4:30, and Catherine's brightly colored jumper tell us Spring has arrived, believe it or not.


It was cold and rainy here today, so we were stuck inside all day which may have contributed to Catherine's excessive whining. She also decided she was hungry the entire day (another factor in the whininess) - listing everything she ate today would be a blog unto itself. In between eating Catherine did a lot of swiffering and playing with this purple ball that she stole from the neighbors (we were playing outside and some older kids were playing basketball and they gave her this ball so she would stop running after theirs; she threw such a fit when it was time to go inside that they told her to keep it until we are outside again). Daddy has been showing her how to throw and kick things so this ball is great fun, plus it's purple.


Sippy cups are for babies. Since Catherine is at least five, she thinks she should be able to drink out of a big-person cup. Actually, it turns out that she pretty much can. The other day Michael left a cup with some water in it on the table and she walked over, got the cup down, walked around drinking it for a while, then put it back on the table, all without spilling. Now whenever she sees us getting a drink she wants to drink out of our cups. This is a bad idea for two reasons. One, she spits at least half of what she "drinks" back into the cup; two, when she isn't actually thirsty she dumps the water out on the floor so she can play with it. And occasionally she just puts food in there for fun:



Despite the wide variety of music that is playing almost constantly in the house, Catherine's favorite song is "Head and Shoulder, Knees and Toes." She found the button on her music & lights singing mirror that changes the song, so she turns it on and then hits the button until the "Head and Shoulders" song comes on. The only motion she gets right by herself is "head" - she pretty much just points to her head during the entire song.

This video is basically nothing, but it is how Catherine spends a lot of her day, just pottering around.



I'm off to bed since I've done all I can in the basement for tonight (the mud seems to be taking forever to dry, which is really slowing me down, especially on the corners that can only be done half at a time). Hopefully Catherine ate enough today that she won't wake up at 5:10 again tomorrow morning (yikes).

The Vocabulary List

We had a nice and productive Saturday today. Catherine and I got up early (like always) and had applesauce pancakes for breakfast and played for a few hours until Daddy got up. Then Catherine and Daddy played until well into the afternoon while I worked on the basement (I'm thinking two more days and the drywall tape/mud will be done). We had to make a quick trip to the store because I ran out of joint compound and wanted to do some more work tonight. It looked really nice out, bright and sunny, so I thought we would go for a walk after we got back from the store, but changed my mind as soon as we stepped outside. It was very windy and therefore very cold - we're supposed to have a heat wave this week: it might get to 50 one day (while raining).

Catherine did some good playing today. She figured out how to tear apart the foam blocks that we use to build PainoForte, so now she loves separating the pieces until the whole thing collapses and then waiting for someone to build it back up again (she doesn't do that part yet). It's really funny when she makes growling sounds while destroying the structure.


We also did a lot of cleaning today. Catherine swiffered pretty much the entire house, and she helped Daddy do some dusting while I was in the basement. She also did some vacuuming with her toy vacuum - too bad it doesn't work for real.

I guess since it was too cold to go on a walk outside Catherine decided to take a little walk herself. She collected her purse and her dog and off she went to her room:



Catherine's spoken vocabulary is still pretty scant. She says "mamama" when she wants something really desperately, and she regularly uses "hi" and "ba-bye," almost always in the correct context. She also says "dog" to refer to dogs and pretty much all other animals and people, and now she says "shoes" to refer to shoes and lots of other inanimate objects. However she is definitely understanding a lot more than she says. When I tell her it's time to go out and she needs her shoes, she will run back to her room and get them out of her shoe box, and she even brings matching pairs. She'll do the same with "coat" and "hat." She will get one of her bowls out of her cupboard if we're making dinner and I tell her she needs a bowl, and when I tell her it's time for a bath she will go to her room and get her towel and bring it to the bathroom. And of course asking her if she's hungry or telling her it's time for a snack brings on a flood of "num-a-num-a-num." She also likes to say "mmmmmm" when she takes a bite of food. Tonight we had chicken tacos for dinner and I gave Catherine some of the chicken, and she would take a bite and say "mmmmmm" and then spit it out. I guess it's just fun to say. Catherine is also starting to learn some animals. One of her favorite things right now is to sit in front of her big book of animals; she points to them one at a time and waits for Michael or I to say what animal it is. Sometimes she will point to the correct picture if we ask her where one is (she's pretty good at "dog," "tiger," and "bear"). She'll also give a little growl if you point to the tiger and ask her what a tiger says.

This is a picture of Catherine's post-nap face. She always wakes up with super rosy cheeks after a nap.

All Better!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and call Catherine officially "all better." It's been a slow road, but the last 2 days she seems to be all the way back, playing most of the day, only taking one nap, and being unreasonably picky about eating (today she decided she no longer likes homemade macaroni and cheese or green beans, but she loves asparagus; plain oatmeal, which was a big part of her diet this past week, is totally out). She is also wholeheartedly back into the daily task of accessorising. She loves to put on and take off and make different combinations of these Mardi Gras necklaces, and a new hat that came in the mail from Grandma really completes any outfit. Side note - you can see one of her giant molars in this picture as well. Her forth one has been causing her a bit of trouble the past couple weeks.


We have had the pleasure of babysitting a friend's six-week-old son, Robert, for short periods the last couple days. Catherine is entirely intrigued. She likes to point at him, show me his hands and toes, give him his pacifier, read to him, and play peek-a-boo with him by opening and closing the sun shade on his car seat. Today she was very preoccupied by the fact that his hands kept slipping into his sleeves (she hates when her sleeves cover her hands). She kept pushing his sleeves back every three seconds until I finally rolled them up a little bit.






A big milestone for Catherine: she has finally figured out how to get off the couch feet-first instead of head-first! The couch is low enough that she can get down by herself; she has the right idea getting down off the bed, but it's a bit taller so she has some trouble with the drop still. Of course, if she has just woken up from a nap she's still apt to roll off the couch in a sleepy daze, but she no longer uses the nose-dive as her plan for getting down. We haven't tested any stairs recently to see if she will use the same method to crawl down safely - most of the time she just holds out her hand for us so she can walk down stairs on her feet.

I'm back to the basement - I have one week left to finish the drywall and get everything primed and painted before the plumber comes back to finish installing the heating system.

News from the Nurses Station

Michael seems to have had the short version of the bug that I had - he is doing much better already. Catherine's sickiness is still lingering a little bit (she had a couple hours this afternoon where I am pretty sure she was feeling bad, but she slept it off), but overall she was acting much more like herself today, reading and playing and hanging out.



She is still on a diet of plain oatmeal, cheerios, applesauce, and select mushy fruits and veggies, and I'm not in any hurry to change that as long as she is keeping this stuff down.

I'm off to the basement again - I think all the tape is on the walls, so now I'm onto outside corners and then layer after layer of mud...hopefully drywalling will be a thing of the past by the end of the week!

Happy Easter!

Ok, I will warn you that none of these pictures is stellar, but it's the best we could do today and at least you get to see Catherine's adorable new dress. She really was never in the mood to do anything cuter than walk around.





Here is a video of Catherine helping me measure out coconut to toast for the top of a dessert. She loves helping to get food out. She picks out her own chicken nuggets and puts them on the pan, arranges french fries for Daddy, and she had a great time with this coconut. I figure as long as we only use the food that makes it to the pan and I don't let her step on it, no one can complain about us working on the floor.



And now I've told you everything happy or fun that's happened during the past week. The rest of this post is going to be about vomit, so if that does not interest you, you may consider this the end and know that you have missed nothing good by not reading on.

It is now Michael's turn with the stomach bug. He wasn't feeling too great when he got up at 5:45 this morning to get ready for the Easter sunrise service, but we naturally attributed that to the fact that he was up at 5:45 this morning. By all accounts the sunrise service was enjoyable but cold (I couldn't tell you for sure - Catherine and I were warm and cozy in bed) but Michael wasn't feeling any better after being up a few hours. He kept it together and delivered a lovely Easter service at church, but by the end he was pretty much done for and has basically been in bed since. So we cancelled our lunch plans and just Catherine and I went to a fabulous dinner at Nick and Athena's (their home, not the previously mentioned diner). Catherine had not thrown up since the middle of the night Friday and acted perfectly normal all day Saturday. So by this morning we were more than 24 hours since any symptoms of sickness and I thought she was really on the way to being better. I tried to keep her eating to very small portions at a time, same as Saturday, which pretty much infuriated her - she's been rather crabby about it. I guess I should have realized something was up when we were at dinner tonight and she was happy to just sit in my lap at the table rather than trying to devour everything on my plate. But she played with everyone and chased the dog around like normal, and didn't even have a melt down when we were out past her bed time. Then right after we got home I picked her up after changing her into her pajamas and she threw up pretty much everything she ate today. So I guess we're back to square one. I'm not really sure what to do with her - she has no fever and only the slightest runny nose and acts pretty normal throughout the day, playing and clearly wanting to eat. She just has to throw up once a day, and that doesn't seem to bother her either. Very strange.
I guess we can only hope that this week will be better!