Katherine has been looking forward to her birthday for days. On Saturday, we celebrated with a friends and then a family dinner gathering. She was a trooper, staying up until 9PM last night – exhausted but so excited to be “Two!” She is trying to form a V with her fingers, but so far the closest she gets are two intertwined fingers.
The best part about birthdays for Katherine is “chocolate cake.” She woke up from her nap right before Steve got home with the cake, balloons and party platters. We made the mistake of showing her the cake from Larry’s Market. Katherine must have said “try cake…pease!” at least 40 times before the party. She tried crying, she tried pleading, but we stayed firm telling her that we had to wait for her friends to arrive. As soon as her first guest, Sid, arrived she headed to the cake to eat.
What else did she eat before the party? A juice box, goldfish and crackers. The party was a hoot, with boys running around the house, the kids playing and coloring a large cardboard castle.
Katherine’s Vocabulary
Steve and I were debating tonight how many words Katherine has in her vocabulary. I would bet that she has 750 to 1000 words. Steve thinks she has over a thousand, maybe even two. Lately, her verbal skills have just blossomed to less everyday words. For instance, she helped us eat “Tacos” tonight, and played with her “Leap-pad.” She can describe just about everything and help us read books. I bought a book called “Truck in the Muck” last week. After only a couple times reading the book, she now follows along and helps me finish the sentences.
Her Favorite Songs
Thanks to Toby School, Katherine’s learned a handful of songs that she sings regularly. One is about fish swimming in the water. She says “fish shwimming in water, bubble…bubble pop!” and then starts in on ducks paddling. She also sings the main words to “ibby bibby spider” and also hokey pokey. She enjoys having me or Steve sing the hokey pokey; she’ll hold on to one of our hands to stick her foot out and also her hands waving them around – followed by a walk around in a circle. She loves being able to sing the songs and put them different parts of songs together. One minutes she’s singing her ABCs, the next she’s singing about spiders and fish.
ABCs
Katherine’s ABCs deserve a mention of their own because she’s made tremendous progress over the last month or so. Previously, she would say “ABC..Dada.” She heard Sid say his ABCs a month ago and pushed thru the Ds. Now she can say “ABCDE…H..GHIJKLOOOPQSTUVWXYZ now know ABCs sing with me!” She will sometimes skip T and then go straight to YZ, but if I say T!, she’ll fill in the rest of the letters. I think within the next 6-8 weeks, she’ll be able to say her entire ABCs without any issues.
Keeping Pooh Dry
Katherine loves potty training. She will run to her drawer, pull out a pair of Pooh undies and then attempt to stuff both legs into one leg hole. We’ve put her in her undies for up to several hours at a time. She’s done a great job, saying “peepee” and running to her little Baby Bjorn plastic potty in the downstairs or upstairs bathroom just in time to go bathroom. She tries to mimic us by using “paper towel” to wipe and then to flush the toilet. We just purchased today a Baby Bjorn formed plastic toilet seat that Katherine used to go to the bathroom on the “big potty.”
The End of an Era – or Decade
It’s the end of a long era. For the first time in 14 years, neither Steve nor I work for Microsoft. Wow! Friends have told us about this, but I wonder how I ever managed to work. We’ve been sooo busy this last month with family, appointments, Halloween, Katherine’s birthday…The list of things to do never seems to end.
