It was a busy weekend, filled with more adventures and learning for Katherine. We happened to have several friends younger and older over with their parents. Katherine had a blast, once the children got used to being around each other. She played with the other kids and watched them playing with her toys. The good news is that Katherine only tried to take over a toy from another younger child only once. ๐
Katherine was fairly preoccupied this Saturday with her new ball pit. Unlike the traditional inflatables, this ball pit is constructed with fabric and netting and is not inflatable (it looks like a 40″ square transparent nylon tent). It has an opening on one side and on the top along with vents to stuff balls on the side. I ordered 150 balls, so there are at least 2-3 layers of balls in the pit. The pit arrived Saturday during Katherine’s nap. I unpacked it and set it up before she woke. Once she came downstairs, her eyes just lit up and she headed straight for it. She loves to sit inside and flap her arms. Steve shakes the sides of the little tent around, and the balls go everywhere. We also fit her little tunnel into her ball pit, so she has to crawl thru the tunnel to get inside. I think we’re going to spend a lot of time playing with the pit. Once she gets used to it (maybe another week or two), I’ll pack it back up and put it away for a while. That way, the pit will remain a special treat for her.
Trying to say words
Katherine is trying really hard to say words. For the second time with us, she’s tried to say “shoes.” It comes out as a very quiet “shooo” that you have to listen pretty carefully to hear. Her friend Sid kept saying “ball” today, so she said “baolll” or something like that when he left. We’ve gotten a few distinct “ups” today when she wants us to lift her up. And, we swear that she said “no” once this weekend.
She’s also learning to shake her head. For instance, Steve was holding her bottle last night and Katherine was desperately trying not to go to sleep. So, she shook her little head, smiled, turned around, and walked away from Steve (e.g. “I’m not ready to go to bed.”) Of course, she was exhausted and ended up hitting the sack a few minutes later.
Tonight, she kept pointing towards the stove during dinner. Eventually, she was so upset that we got her out of her chair. Later, during a tour around the kitchen, I discovered that she was pointing at a bunch of bananas on the counter! She mowed thru half of a banana and wanted more. Finally, I asked Steve to please eat or put the banana away, so she would stay regular.
Power Outage
Katherine and I had a very interesting Wednesday and Thursday while Steve was in Vegas at Consumer Electronics Show . Because of the snow and rain storms earlier in the week, lots of tree branches had fallen on power lines. This left almost 100K homes without power for over a day. Well, our power first went out at 4AM on Wednesday while Steve was still at home. After Steve turned off our beeping UPS, we went back to bed and the power went back on at 5:30. I thought no more about this and headed to work. According to Patty, power then went off at 11AM and stayed off during the entire afternoon. The house became very chilly and they went over to Patty’s family’s house to stay warm.
I came home early that afternoon to start the generator. The issue of course with our generator was that the battery had drained and Steve had jumpstarted it with the Volvo every time we needed to use it. So, not remembering that I had jumper cables in the Audi, I had called Tina to check on power status and she offered to come over a with a very cool battery jumper device to start the battery. I wrestled the generator out of the garage, set everything up and we started the generator without any issue.
Of course, this got way more complicated, cold and smelly before it got better. At 7AM, the generator ran out of gas, right as I was putting Katherine in her PJs after her bath. I worked on my tablet PC by flashlight for a couple hours and headed to bed. Katherine wore her fleece sleep sack to bed with PJs and onesies underneath to keep her warm.
At 4:30 I woke up just frozen. The house had dipped to 53 degrees. I tore thru the Audi and finally found an old pair of jumper cables I had never used. I drove the Audi to the generator, read the manual on how to open the hood and find the battery (not an easy task with the S4). I started the car and jumped the generator. This also involved finding an actual can of gas in the garage, spilling gas all over myself and hoping that I wouldn’t ignite my clothes in the process. By 5:30, the generator was running, I was wrapped up on the family room couch smelling like gas with a roaring fireplace. It took over 90 minutes for the house to heat back up again – Katherine’s room was only 63 degrees by the time she woke up (poor kid!)
I can thankfully say tonight that the generator battery is replaced. We have full cans of gas in the house and a cool battery jumper device from Costco in case the battery runs out again. I wouldn’t be surprised if power goes out one more time this winter. (RANT: I just don’t understand why PSE doesn’t bury more power lines on the East side. Every year the power goes out several times; tons of people lose power, and something catastrophic happens! I’m going to get off my soapbox on this issue – at least until the next inevitable power outage.) The only good news out of this whole miserable experience is that I’m ready the next time Steve leaves town during a major and extended power outage.