Category: Kate

Dear Katers,

You have established one of the best laughs I have ever heard. It sounds like a machine gun but in the funniest way possible. People hear it, stop what they are doing to look or comment because it is so funny and it just makes everyone want to smile and laugh too. It is so awesome.

And it has really helped to have something to smile and laugh about this month as it was a tough one. Your Great Grandma T. passed away this month. You didn’t get to know her very well, but she was joyful, accepting, giving, kind, loved being around people and laughing and was always so grateful for everything she had. She touched so many people’s lives and we are all going to miss her a lot. I have no doubt she will continue to watch over you and bless you with some of her wonderful traits.

Thankfully, we were able to get out on Papa’s boat two times this month to relax and enjoy some good quality time together despite all of the sadness of Grandma T. You absolutely loved just sitting in the sand filling your bucket as the water gently washed over your toys. I was very surprised that you never tried to eat the sand but were very content just playing around. You also do this amazing thing of taking a nap on the boat. We lay you down on one of the seats, give you your paci and bunny and put a little blanket over the top of the chair to make a little tent, turn the sound machine on, and you fall right asleep among everyone else moving and chatting around you. Remarkable. neither Lexi or William would have ever done that.

Other development notes:

• You now wave your hand side-to-side instead of wiggling your fingers
• You officially learned to walk this month and quick crawling
• You guzzle milk in a sippy cup like a crazy woman. Seriously, girl. You love it.
• You discovered how to open drawers and cupboards this month and it is a new favorite pastime. You love to take out every cup, bowl and plate we have and leave them all over the kitchen/living room. Occasionally, you’ll put them back in, but most of the time you just like to take things out. You also LOVE to go into my drawer in the bathroom and play with my bobby pins, clips, deodorant, makeup, face lotion, traveling size Listerine bottle, and toothpaste. It is rare to find you without a tube of toothpaste sticking outside of your mouth. (the cap is on).
• You’ve pretty much quick doing any kind of baby sign and will just grunt like crazy when you want something.
• We kind of took your paci away this month. You’ve always only ever had it when you sleep and we started to not give it to you during naps, but then you’ll be really crabby and we give it to you, so that is more on us about being consistent.

I think it is amazing at how much you look like Lexi and William. You have the same complexion and face shape as Lexi, but you have William’s big eyes, and I think you are going to be more similar to William from a personality standpoint, but we will see.

Another big thing that happened this month was Lexi began kindergarten and William started preschool. You and William have much more time together and it is fun to watch how your relationship has evolved. He loves being big brother and trying to teach you how to play in the way that Lexi has taught him to play. It is also a different dynamic to for you to just be home with Daddy while he is at school. Dada says your kind of a lost puppy with out the big kids there to follow around and you need much more attention.

Happy 15 months big girl. Another month in the books. So crazy to think that in 9 months you’ll be two and will be talking and MAYBE, just MAYBE even ready to potty-train!?!?!

Love you sweet girl,

Mama

Dear Kate,

Your personality has come through loud and proud this month! You love to be in the middle of all the chaos of big brother and sister. You want to be where they are and you want your voice to be heard. You babble a lot, and whine a lot, both with a high volume. There is a lot to compete with so I get it but wow is it loud in our house.

You’re also a bit of a flirt. You wave to anyone you see in the grocery store, as cars drive by or as you are in the car waving to others. If someone makes eye contact, you scrunch your face to your shoulder and give them a $1000 grin.

You took your first steps this month but still prefer to crawl. You were a bit of a stinker and took them while Mommy and Dada were on a trip in Los Angeles. You had taken a step here and a step there before, but never 5-10 in a row like you did with Grammy and Papa.

Eating is a funny and stressful adventure with you. You love any and all food, but your favorite is really fruit. Every time you sit down to eat, it is a mad-dash to find enough food to fill you up. I’ll give you a handful of food, turn around to finish getting everyone else’s meal ready and you grunting for more. I have to raid the cupboards and fridge to find something to fill that growing belly and it never feels like enough. You also are very thirsty. You will easily down an entire sippy in a meal and we’ll refill it several times between each meal as well.

This month you had your first real adventure with Grammy and Papa. Mom and Dad went on a little trip to California so you and Lexi and William spent some good quality time with Grammy and Papa. Papa really worked on walking with you and this is where it sorta started to click for you.

Loves: Swimming, peek-a-boo (you now put your hands over your eyes), clapping, laughing at what the other kids are laughing about, throwing your cup off tray, waving

Dislikes: Bath, actually listenting to books, snuggling, sitting still

words: num-a-num-anum, mama, dada, papa, uh-oh

You climb up stairs really well, which for the most part is great. The most challenging thing about that is you also want to climb up the bunkbed stairs which are very steep, wood and have no railing or safety and I’m terrified of you falling off them or getting up on the top bunk and then falling off.

You understand the word no, and will shake your head when you are doing something you knows you shouldn’t, like throwing food off your tray.

Surprisingly, the kids small toys like legos, shopkins haven’t been a problem even though they are EVERYWHERE. You do pick them up and put them in your mouth and suck on them, as soon as we notice, we’ll say, what do you have in your mouth? You open up and spit it out.

No changes on nap schedule. It is still 2 times a day for about two hours each time.

Two of my favorite parts are the day are when I get home from work. You get so excited. You wave your arms around uncontrollably like a silly little monkey and open your mouth as wide as a crocodile. It is just the best.

Then, at bedtime, I always attempt to read you a couple of books, which you pretty much have zero interest in and just climb out of the chair. BUT, when it is time for bed, I’ll get your blankie, bunny and a paci and as soon as I turn off the light you start babbling or singing. We sit down in the rocking chair and sing Twinkle Twinkle and you sing (make noises mimicking singing) with me. I can usually sing about two songs before you start squirming and want to move. As a non-smuggler, I cherish these brief moments of stillness with you to just love and appreciate you and how lucky I am to be your mom.

And maybe, just maybe you might grow back into the snuggles again.

Love,

Mama

Sorry, no pictures, this month. Something happened to my computer

Dear Kate,

I had it all planned out in my head. Today, you are 11 months old and tonight was going to be my last night nursing you. I’ve been holding onto nursing by a thread. We’re down to one session right before bed each night. I’m sure you’re barely getting anything but I’m having a hard time being ‘done’. You are my last baby and I’m never going to nurse again. There is a big part of me that is so ready to be done. For the last 5 years (minus a few short months) I have given my body up to you three babies between growing you inside or feeding you outside. I’m ready to have my body back to myself again. BUT there is another little part of me that can’t believe it’s over. I am proud to have carried you inside of me and nursed each of you for an entire year (minus 1 month for Kate). It takes a lot of work, dedication and sacrifice to do that. I never had the option to sleep through the night, unless you did. There was no taking turns between Daddy and I on who would get up with you in the middle of the night. I did it several times a night, every single night. But I also bonded with you and felt your little breaths against my chest when you feel asleep being burped. I smelt that sweet milk breath and listened to you snore in my arms. I heard the ‘hupe hupe’ noises as you gulped the milk spilling into your mouth. And because of all of this, I can’t just ‘be done’. I need to know, enjoy and savor the last time I will nurse one of my babies. And tonight just wasn’t that night. You bit me, were squirly, and kept crying as you were trying to nurse and I just can’t end on a note like that. So, we continue but will imagine that it will end at some point before your next post.

Another huge milestone this month was crawling. You were army-sliding backwards last month and this month you kind of figured out forward progression by reaching for things from a sitting position. The crawl started out with the the dead leg pull, where one leg made no contributions to moving forward  but was just drug along. Eventually you figured it out and crawl everywhere pretty quickly. The bigger thing is you just want to pull yourself up on everything. You have no interest in toys but love to pull yourself up on furniture, my legs, sides of counters, tables and have even attempted the stairs.

This month you cut a couple more teeth, another two on top and one on the bottom for a grand total of 7 teeth!

For as long of a winter as we had, the spring has been pretty amazing. We pretty much went from 2 feet of snow to 80 degrees. You love being outside and feeling the wind in your soft baby hair.

Sleep continues to be awesome. You go to bed around 8 and wake up around 7ish. Still taking 2 naps a day, each one lasting 1.5 to 3 hours long!

Finding enough food to keep you full is a challenge. You just shovel everything into the good old hatch. You are obsessed with berries and avocado–like you diminish and entire container of berries in one sitting by yourself and just keep signing ‘more’

Lately, I have felt like you are a twin to Lexi, just 5 years later. So I pulled up some pictures of Lexi at 11 months and then of William too and was SHOCKED at how similar you look to both of them. All three of you at 11 months.

Little Kate, we love you so much and are so thankful we have you all to ourselves. Happy 11 months!

Love,

Mama

Dear Kate,

I’m not sure to call it a quiver or the super shakes or what when you get really excited your arms and hands will shake like a hummingbird’s wings. This usually happens when you are about to eat, have a bottle, see Lexi or take a bath. At first, I was really worried that you had really low blood sugar or something like that, but I’m pretty sure it just happens when you get really excited.

For the amount of food that you shovel into your mouth, there is no way that you could have low blood sugar. During any given meal, you’ll easily down an entire avocado, fruit/veggie pouch, handful of crackers, cheese, couple of pickles and a bowl full of noodles. The only thing we’ve given you that you don’t seem to be a fan of are cheerios. Grapefruit, oranges, chicken, blackberries, raspberries, apples, broccoli, turkey, crackers, cheese, noodles, bread, peanut butter, toast, pancakes, sausage, eggs, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, cookies you name it, you love it.

As a result of transitioning to table food so well, I think you’re starting to wean yourself from bottles. We give you a mid-morning and and afternoon bottle, both 6 oz and between the two, there is usually 2-3 oz that you don’t finish. My pumping sessions had gotten to be pretty pathetic, barely producing 3 oz total. So this past week, I cut those out and am just nursing in the mornings and before bed. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue to do that until your one. The frozen breastmilk stash was starting to get pretty low, so I bought formula for the first time ever and we’ll start incorporating that into the mix for the next two months to hopefully lengthen the amount of breastmilk you get. Because of the hoover status mentioned above, you had a huge growth spurt this last month and a half or so and are officially out of 6-9 month clothes. I think you were in them for a total of a month and a half–which is crazy considering you were in 3-6 month clothes for 4 or 5 months! Size 3 diapers are getting pretty snug too.

You’ve also made some progress on the mobility front. You roll from back to belly more frequently and even slept on your stomach for the first time ever this month. We are putting you on your tummy all of the time and you have started to scoot backwards and spin around to get stuff you want, you haven’t figured out how to move forward. We’ve even tried to put you on all fours and move your arms and legs in a forward motion, but you just push yourself up to a sitting position and are as content as can be sitting and playing. You have no real interest in crawling at all. You do seem to enjoy standing up much more. You haven’t built up your guns enough to pull yourself up on anything but love to stand and wobble around.

No complaints on the sleeping front. You sleep from around 8ish to 5am-ish, nurse and go right back to sleep. Then you’ll nap around 9:30 and again around 1:30 for about 2 hours each time. You absolutely refuse to cuddle in anyway shape or form and it just kills me a little that my sweet babe doesn’t want to cuddle with me. On the flip side, you are the easiest baby in the world to put to bed. I lay you down awake, put a stuffed animal and your paci in your mouth and you roll over and go to sleep usually before I’ve even walked out the door. So I guess I’ll have to give up cuddling for good healthy sleeping habits, but promise me you’ll cuddle with me when you get older?

Other monthly shenanigans: You celebrated your first Easter. The Bunny brought you some applesauce pouches and a new swimsuit! You also came down with your first sickness and fever on Easter. At first, I thought you were cutting teeth, but your fever spiked above 100 degrees and it lasted for several days. You were very restless and un-consolable. One night, I was up with you for several hours as you just wouldn’t stop screaming. The only thing that helped was to get into a new environment, so we went downstairs and turned the fireplace on and you watched the flame flicker around. After day 4, I took you into the Dr. just to make sure you didn’t have an ear infection. Then, the following day, your fever broke and a rash appeared all over your body–tiny little dots. They weren’t raised or anything, but it was just a side affect of your body fighting the virus off.

You love to play parrot–in that you copy noises and gestures. You’ll make this noise ‘Ehha’ and we repeat the sound to you, and this goes back and forth sometimes 10 times. You also love to bring both arms above your head and then smack them down onto a hard surface. You will play this game with anyone who will give you the time of day.

At the end of the month, your top two teeth cut through the skin. You were a little whiney and up in the night, but for the most part, they came in pretty smoothly.

Sometimes when you laugh, it sounds like a machine gun. You love to take baths and splash around by banging your hands against the water or kicking your legs while you’re on your back getting you hair washed. You and Lexi are kind of obsessed with each other. She loves to climb in your crib with you, play with you, talk to you and be by you all the time. And I have a feeling the you feel the same. When she is around, your eyes just follow where she is going and she can get you rolling in giggles like nobody else. With that said, she also kind of gets up in your bizness more than  you would like and you have to shoo her out of your personal space from time to time. I hope this relationship stays just as strong as you two grow older.

And that my sweet little Kate is your 10th month in a nutshell. I can’t believe you are going to be one in two months. In my mind, you are still like 6 or 7 months old. You continue to be the happiest most content baby ever. Every time someone comes over or sees you, they are just blown away how happy you are all of the time. You don’t have fear of strangers, you love your siblings, you love to play by  yourself, you are a rockstar eater and sleeper. You truly are too good to be true and your Daddy and I are so in love with you and the little family we have. God is Good and we are Blessed.

I love you sweet bubsy,

Love,

Mama

Dear Kate,

I experienced my most scary moment as a parent to date with you. You’ve been doing pretty good with food over the past several months so I handed you a cracker from William’s 3rd birthday party the evening before. This cracker was a little bit harder than others you have eaten, but not that hard and I have you a pretty small piece. But you started choking on it. You couldn’t breath, weren’t making any noises or coughing and were starting to turn purple. Thankfully, I was holding you and tipped you upside down and started giving you back blows. Nothing was coming out so I flipped you over and did a finger swipe in your mouth to try and loosen things up. You started coughing a little so I flipped you back upside down and did more back blows but you still weren’t breathing. I asked Daddy to call 911 knowing that it can take several minutes for them to arrive and I know that every second counts when choking. I applied two more rounds of back blows and you finally started to cough and the cracker came loose and you spit up a little. In reality, I’m sure this little scenario was 1 minute or less, but it felt like an eternity in the moment, and my blood pressure and adrenaline were running so high I was shaking for a good 5-10 minutes. Many extra prayers were said in thanking God that nothing terrible happened, or ever will.

Outside of this scary incident, eating is going well. You like all foods and do a decent job of getting food into your mouth. You’re still figuring out how to actually get it out of your palm as you aren’t pinching it yet. You’ve figured out how to drink out of a sippy cup–which was a life-saver on the airplane, but haven’t realized that you need to tip it back to get something out of it.

Nursing is going OK. You easily get distracted from any kind of noise. You’ll stop, sit up check out what is going on around you and then go back to nursing and you’ll do this like 5 times in one session. Pumping has become pretty pathetic. Although I am going at noon everyday, I’m probably pumping a total of 3-4 ounces and it used to be closer to 6-7. So we’ll see how much longer it lasts.

You’ve started to put your arms up for ‘So Big’ but it takes several prompts and someone else showing what you’re supposed to do.

You love to swim and were so happy splashing and kicking your little legs around in the pool in Florida.

You love to be tickled, receive raspberries and giggle. You’re ticklish on your belly, your neck, feet and behind your legs.

As a family, we went to go visit Grammy and Papa in Florida for a week and you took your first airplane rides. You did so awesome. For the first flight, I tried to nurse you during take-off to help with your ears and you had zero interest in hiding under a blanket or nursing for that matter with all of the nosies and action happening around you. I did have a sippy cup filled with water to help with your ears and that seemed to do the trick as you would drink the water during take-off and landings. You also kept yourself very entertained with the bag of peanuts and crackers they gave us.

You loved Florida and getting loved on by your Grammy and Papa, playing in the sand, swimming and enjoying some extra vitamin D.

You love to sit and have NO interest in tummy time, crawling or rolling. Although I think you have the strength to roll-over, you never try. You do roll onto your side while you’re sleeping but that is as far as you ever try and go. Tummy time just puts you into a cranky mood so it doesn’t happen as much as it probably should.

You are the best little sleeper. You never fall asleep in my arms or cuddle. You always always always are put into your crib awake with your bunny and pacifier and you just rub your face against your pal, roll over and go to sleep. You never cry, chat or monkey around. You go straight to business. You still go to sleep around 8, wake up around 5ish to nurse and then sleep until 7 or 8. You also take 2 naps each day which are about 2 hours long.

My sweet Kate, you are the happiest baby ever. You are so content just playing by yourself with your toys and rarely fuss or make a peep. You always go with the flow and smile at everyone who glances your way. I love you so much little bubs! It is the best coming home from work everyday to see your sweet smile and squinty eyes absolutely light up and your legs kick excitedly when you see me.

Happy 9 Months Sweet Pea!

Love,

Mama

Stats:

• Height: 27″ (36%)
• Weight: 19 lbs (69%)
• Head Circumference: 17″ (84%)
• Size 3 diapers (but getting small)
• 6-9 month clothes, but they are tight and will need to transition to 12 month