Where does Dada live?

Unfortunately Kate doesn't get to see Jeff much during the week, if at all. He works late most of the time, gets home after Kate is in bed, and leaves in the morning before she gets up. On weekends he sleeps in late, while I get up with Kate. Whenever I get tired of waiting for him to get up, Kate and I go into our bedroom and wake him up.

A couple times this week I took Kate into our room while I changed out of my work clothes. Both times, as soon as I opened the door, Kate says "Dada? Dada? Dada?" And runs over to his side of the bed! I love that she thinks he lives in bed! LOL!

Poor Kate!

I took Kate to one of those mall playgrounds today.. You know, the soft toddler/kid playground type thing.

Well, Kate found this staircase that she loved climbing up and down. She wasn't really in the other kids' way, she stayed off to the side and climbed. This little girl, probably about 3, came over, climbed in front of Kate, stood in front of her, and kicked her in the chest to make her fall off the stairs! Luckily I was right there and caught her but I was like... What the heck??? The next time she came around, Kate was climbing down the stairs, and the girl kicked Kate in the back to make her go headfirst down the stairs! I was SO mad. I said, "Don't kick her!" but she ran off, and I doubt she heard me.

Seriously though, why aren't parents watching their kids?? It was the first time my mama bear instinct REALLY kicked in, man I wanted to smack that girl!

One Nap

We hit a milestone this weekend I was hoping to avoid for a few more months... But Kate would have none of it. She's down to one nap a day. In the last week she had really started fighting her second nap. Even when we could tell she was exhausted, she just refused to sleep. Thankfully she never cried or anything, but she would just sing and play in her crib for 1-2 hours! So on Friday we decided to give the one-nap schedule a shot and see how she does. She did pretty well! This is only our third day, but the only thing I'm disappointed in is that I've heard they are "supposed" to sleep a good 3 hours when they go down to one nap, but not Kate! She's only giving us 2, maybe 2 1/2 hours. Oh well! The one added bonus we've seen is that before we switched her to one nap, she had been waking up in the morning around 6:30 am. Since we switched her, she is now sleeping in until nearly 8:00 am! I'll take it!

So overall I think it's a positive change, but I was hoping it would happen closer to 18 months, rather than 14. :) I just can't believe how quickly my baby is growing up. She is such a joy to be around - my favorite thing about her right now are her kisses. She is very generous with her kisses and loves giving them! Another adorable thing she does is that she carries around a little toy frying pan and serving spoon around with her, "stirring" whatever food she is "making" and always offers you a bite! It is so cute.

Vote for us!

Jeff and I watch the World Fishing Network (I know, we're dorks!) And they are holding a contest to "adopt an angler" to help the winner learn how to fish better! They're going to send the winner on a fishing vacation for 2... So much fun! They are going to pick the winner from the top 10 vote-getters, which at this point is like 2,700 votes. So enter with every email address you have! You are allowed to vote every 24 hours, with up to 10 email addresses. Please vote!

Thanks!



Click here to vote!

In related news - now that we have our boat in true working order with some updated equipment, I'm going to start a "fishing blog" for us so we can document when we go fishing and what we catch! Watch for the link soon. :)

What does the wolf say?

Allergy

I think I have discovered Kate's first food allergy. Ever since she started eating solids, she has eaten Gerber's baby oatmeal with no problem. A couple weeks ago I decided to graduate her to normal adult oatmeal, so I fixed her a packet of Quaker Instant apple cinnamon oatmeal. (One of my favorites!) She loved it, but a few minutes into eating it, I noticed that everywhere it touched her skin, she was breaking out in hives! I stopped feeding her and washed it off her skin quickly. I gave her some Benadryl and within an hour she was fine. I assumed it must have been one of the additives, spices, or whatnot in the instant oatmeal packet. We went back to baby oatmeal for a while.

This morning I made her oatmeal again, this time however, just normal plain Quaker oatmeal - nothing packeted or added. The same thing happened! I don't get it! Poor baby. So I guess I should just have her avoid oatmeal all together now? Or try it again in a month or two? I guess I'll ask her Ped next month.

Here's the latest cute shot I've gotten of her. She's wearing an adorable hand-me-down from her friend Ava!

First Sentence!

I about fell over this morning when Jeff said goodbye to Kate as usual, but this time in response instead of just saying, "bye bye" she held up her arm and waved, and said, "Bye, Dada!"

So proud of my little girl!