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Katherine First Tooth Appears

This past Friday, Patty informed us that Katherine’s first tooth was about to appear. Sure enough, today Steve felt Katherine’s lower right front tooth. Christine confirmed that a small point of her tooth had poked through. Katherine had been pretty cranky for a few days prior to this, stuffing her hand (and anything else she could get her hands on) in her mouth and crying occasionally. We think this had been due to teething. Once the tooth appeared, she seemed much more cheerful this afternoon, taking an hour and forty minute nap and then smiling thru dinner and the first part of the Alias season finale.

Katherine reached one other key milestone on Friday. She reached from a seated position to the bars of her gym and pulled herself to her feet. She has been trying to do this in her bath as well – putting her hands on both side of the bath and trying to leverage herself up. We also found her in her crib, pulling herself up her bumper and grasping her crib bars. So, today we removed her crib bumpers and also lowered her crib mattress one notch. We also removed the dangling part of her Tiny Love mobile.

This was a big day for Katherine!

Swinging Katherine

Patty took Katherine to Marymoor to the swings for the first time. Apparently, Katherine loved it! She kicked her legs vigorously and watched the other children on the swing set. Steve and I will need to take her (and Bisco) one of these weekends.

We also noticed this past day or two that Katherine now holds on to the side of her tub with one hand and plays with her ducks with the other. This is helping her keep her balance in the tub while sitting up.

On Saturday, Christine and I took Katherine back to Marymour to play on the swings. We had to see Katherine swing for ourselves. Katherine had a great time and loved swinging right up to our faces. When she got close, we said “boo” and Katherine would start giggling.

Katherine Learning to Crawl

Steve and I put Katherine on the carpet yesterday with her “Oh the Places You Will Go” book slightly out of reach. As usual, Steve helped her move forward by putting his hands behind her feet. She would push off frog style and inch forward. For the first time though, when Steve wasn’t helping, she arched her back upwards, raised her shoulder and pulled her body forward. We were astonished and stared at her for a few minutes while she dragged herself across the carpet towards her book. At that point, Steve ran to get the digital camcorder and we recorded the event on film. We mentioned this to Patty this morning, and Katherine and Patty spent the day practicing crawling on carpet and hardwoods. How exciting! Our little baby is growing up…

April Colds

Our crazy week seems to be finally ending. Katherine is still slightly congested (e.g. snotty), but sleeping more soundly. Christine and Steve shook their colds a few days ago. The only remnant of Katherine’s first big cold has been a series of listness nights. For the last several nights, she slept 3 hours at a stretch, but has waken up very hungry. This is fairly unusual, especially since prior to her cold, she slept through the night, and if she did wake, often we could get her to go back to sleep without eating.

Katherine had a big day today – we went to the LeVines home, where they hosted their big matzah brei. Katherine met lots of friends and saw her friend Sidney very briefly. After getting home, she tried avocado for the first time and seemed to sort of like it. Most of it ended up on the high chair, the bib or Christine’s shirt. We also started to feed Katherine a dinner of rice cereal today. Maybe if we feed her solids for dinner she won’t need to wake up so often to feed during the night.

Steve and Christine are still exhausted from the week. Hopefully we can catch up on our rest tonight (finger crossed)!

Katherine Gets Sick

On Thursday, Katherine got her first real cold. Patty had been feeling under the weather and by Thursday Katherine was sleeping listlessly and by Friday she had a full blown cold. We tried everything – from the cold vaporizer to tilting her crib mattress to sucking her snot out her nose with the bulb and saline – but she remained congested for a good 4 days.

  • Thursday evening – Katherine wakes up every hour. Steve tries not to wake Christine.
  • Friday evening – We went out to dinner, and it becomes apparently clear that Katherine is sick. We take her home and she is unable to sleep in her crib she is so congested. We finally resort to putting blankets in her infant car seat and having her sleep in the car seat. She wakes every hour, with Christine and Steve taking shifts to put her back to sleep. Her temperature reaches 100-101 that evening.
  • Saturday – She seems much better in the morning. In the afternoon, she gets more cranky and by the evening it’s pretty much the same routine. Suck the snot out with the bulb and Katherine screaming at us. She wakes every hour, with us sleep walking her in the hallway and trying to sooth her. Her temperature is only 99-100 that evening.
  • Sunday – We take her to Pediatric Associates in Bellevue to check her ears. She weighs in at 15 lbs 4 oz. The nice doctor tells us that these colds last about 7 days with days 3-4 being the worst (yep). Katherine doesn’t have any signs of ear infection thankfully. She manages to sleep for a couple hours at a stretch.
  • Monday – Christine drinks half a cup of caffeinated coffee at work she’s so tired. Christine and Steve are both getting sick from Katherine and not sleeping.
  • Wednesday – We’re finally both getting better and Katherine is only waking a couple times during the night.

Katherine Visits Woodland Zoo

On Sunday we took Katherine to the zoo with the Sarins. We borrowed the Sarin’s Kealty Joyrider jogger as the one we purchased for Katherine has not arrived yet. We bundled Katherine the pink fleece full body suit Patty purchased for $9. We think Katherine enjoyed the trip to the Woodland Zoo though most of the pictures of Katherine show her looking like she’s just humoring us.

Christine and I went to Africa in Aug of ’01 as a last big vacation before we decided to have kids. It was hard for both of us to see all of the animals in a cold, wet zoo having seen them in their native surroundings in Africa. The Thompson gazelles looked lonely because in Africa they travel together in large herds (50+). On the other hand, there is no way we could take Katherine to Africa at her age. The Woodland Zoo gave us an opportunity to show her the animals we saw in the wild. Some day, we’ll take Katherine to Africa to see them in the wild. Hopefully, by the time Katherine is old enough, Africa doesn’t because so commercialized that the experience is lost.

After about a half hour, Katherine started to fuss. We made the mistake of changing her diaper in the cold (~45 degrees). She didn’t appreciate the cold and every time went downhill from there. Christine and I carried her around for a while. Finally, Tina had the magic touch and was able to get Katherine to fall asleep in her arms.

Katherine’s favorite animal was the bears. The Northwest discovery room allows visitors to look through Plexiglas at the bears. Katherine was fascinated by the biggest “Bisco” she had every seen.