We saw Katherine take her first couple steps tonight. We think the trick is to distract Katherine with a toy, in this case her beloved green pinwheel (courtesy of her friend Sid). I held the pinwheel just out of reach on top of the coffee table. Steve held her up, and we encouraged her to get the toy just to see what would happen.
After a few tries, she took a couple wobbly steps forward, grabbed the table and tried to get the toy. (On one try she accidentally bonked herself on the padded table, so this wasn’t such a great idea.) Katherine may have been motivated lately by other children who she’s seen walking. Or, she may be getting more balanced; it’s unclear, but nonetheless very exciting.
Katherine Plays with Legos
Katherine has been picking Legos out of her blue Lego truck for a while now. Tonight she crawled over to her truck and took some out again. Steve showed her how to pull them apart, and put them back together again. We would hand her Legos, and she would grasp them and pull them apart. For the most part, she was successful if we showed her which ends to pull – on other occasions, she would try and pull one Lego apart or pull the Legos the wrong away. But, she really seemed to enjoy being able to play more actively with her toys. She got a big kick out of playing with the truck and seeing her stuffed animals in the truck or Steve stirring up her Legos.
Happy Birthday Francesca!
One of Katherine’s PEPs buddies, Francesca, turned 1 this past weekend. We went to her birthday party and had a wonderful time. Francesca showed us how she can walk (wow!) and shared her toys with her friends. One very cute moment occurred with Francesca stood on top of one gift to reach the curly ribbons on another gift. Both girls eventually ended up standing side by side playing with the ribbons before Katherine edged Francesca off the box.
More Adventures with the Chariot
We went cycling again this Saturday to prepare for our upcoming trip. We started at Redmond Town Center, went up the Burke Gilman trail and stopped for BBQ sandwiches in Woodinville. All was going well, especially since Katherine fell asleep in her trailer. I stopped by a nearby store to say hello to a friend, Katherine woke up, and we hit the trial again. Despite the best of intentions, we made it only to the 10 mile mark before everything let loose. Katherine had had enough. She was hungry, wolfed down a whole serving of bananas, drank milk and was generally very unhappy. We tried to give her a break by stopping at a nearby children’s park on the trail. She seemed to enjoy this, but didn’t have the wherewithal to make it back to the car. Steve and I flew back up the trail with Katherine screaming bloody murder. Other cyclists seem to find the screaming Chariot Doppler effect pretty funny. ๐ Anyway, I stayed at the willows lodge for 30 minutes until Steve could get back to the car and pick us up. Katherine also showed us why we call her our little Houdini. At the children’s trail, we pulled off to find Katherine holding her bike helmet! Holy Cow.
Redmond Park
It turns out that Patty has been taking Katherine to a nearby park in Redmond to see the animals that the park service imports during the summer. We stopped by the park with Audrey and her parents to see the park ourselves, and it is quite a cool place. The ponies walked over to say hello. The sheep and goals were pretty friendly too. Katherine loved the animals and seemed to like talking (er…loudly) to them.
