Steve had the stomach flu this week. This flu had made its way around both of our work environments, leaving folks with 3-5 days of GI issues and a nasty fever. Our goal had been to make sure that Katherine and I didn’t get the flu, and so far we seemed to have ducked the virus. Steve basically quarantined himself in the family room for two days, while Katherine and Patty stayed out of the house as much as possible. I took care of Katherine for a couple evenings – which was brutal given that she woke up every 3-4 hours!
Faerber-izing Katherine
We finally decided last night that Katherine needed to learn how to fall asleep on her own. Instead of rocking and walking her to sleep, we’ve prepared her for bed with a bath, books and brief walk. Then, we’ve put her directly in her crib the last two nights. Last night, she cried for 40 minutes straight. She spent almost 30 minutes standing in her crib, clutching and shaking the railing, and screaming at the top of her lungs. When we walked in (5, 8, 10, 15 minutes apart), she had tears running down her face and was convinced that we would pick her up to comfort her. Just as the book suggested, we consoled her (she would momentarily stop crying – and snuffle), but didn’t pick her up. At the 30 minute mark, just as I asked Steve “how much longer do you think this will go on,” she started to snuffle and cry only intermittently. At 40 minutes, the crying stopped!
Tonight, Steve walked Katherine around the neighborhood after her bath and books. Once she was sleepy and had started to suck her thumb, he put her down. This time she only cried 20 minutes before passing out in her crib. All in all, this experience hasn’t been too traumatic for us and Katherine. She was fairly cheerful today and didn’t seem the worse for the wear after her crying jag last night. I passed the 40 minutes of crying reading the new Harry Potter book, and much of the 20 minutes today cooking with the fan on. ๐
Katherine Gets Her First Pair of Shoes
To date, Katherine has been wearing her little baby Merrills (3-6 months) and Robeez (6-12 months). Now that she is walking around, Patty informed us that she needs to wear shoes with rubber soles. So we stopped by the local shoe store at Redmond Town Plaza. The owner of the store was very knowledgeable, and the shoe store clerk managed to measure Katherine’s little foot using the silver measuring thingy (size 3D – thin foot!). Anyway, we got a pair of Stride Rites – fairly flexible leather with rubber sole and laces. He said that Katherine can still wear her Robeez inside the house as slippers. But when she is outside she should wear normal socks with the shoes.
Katherine looked very funny walking around the store in her shoes. Steve called it “high stepping” – the owner said it was like learning how to walk again, because there is a good .5″ inch between her big toe and the end of the shoe. That said, Katherine seemed to enjoy the experience and we manage to capture her in her stroller wearing her first pair of real shoes today. How exciting!!
Developmental Milestones
Katherine can pull herself up by herself using either her Neurosmith block, her Leapfrog learning table or her toy shelf. She’s also a very practiced sitter, thunk!, and still loves to walk around. She’s also increased her speed of crawling and modified her technique. Instead of the army-type of crawl, she uses one knee and the other foot extended to push herself forward alternately. It’s not a traditional crawl, but it seems to work fairly well.
Katherine can now sort of clap. If we clap, she’ll get excited and move her hands together. Often times her hands will actually meet – which is what we call clapping. This Friday, she also started to play ball. We spent the last couple days rolling her little ball to her. She would then flap her arms around and manage to hit the ball, sending it back in our general direction. She loves being able to interact with us!
She has also started to push food out of her mouth. Food that she’s liked in the past, like pears and mango, are now on her “do not like” list. When we try and feed her this food, she sticks it out on her tongue and pulls her tongue back into her mouth without the food. Today we fed her the old sweet potato standby which she ate without any issues.
