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Patty Salgado

Allison Sarah Bush, Day 2

Day 2 for Allison. Last night Allison slept well for a newborn, waking up every 2-3 hours for “check-ups” by the hospital staff. Steve and Christine got a decent night’s sleep, all things considered. We’re tired but not exhausted.

It’s all coming back to us. We experienced a lot of firsts for Allison today: wet and dirty diapers, breast feeding, yawns, sneezes, fake smiles, turns to the light, etc. The second child is just as rewarding as the first. We missed a lot of “firsts” with Katherine as we were exhausted. It also gives us the opportunity to relive Katherine’s birth and Allison’s own growth plan.

Christine is recovering well from C section delivery. She’s been detached from all of the cords tying her down and is able to move around the room pretty well. Christine and Allison are mastering the art of breast feeding, every child has their own eating preferences.

Steve is spending his time in support of Christine and Allison, posting pictures to the web site and trying to tie up loose ends at work. He’s looking forward to finishing the open items in his parental leave transition plan so he can enjoy spending quality time with Christine, Allison, and Katherine. The people at Pure Networks have been fabulous in picking up any unresolved tasks.

Katherine visited Allison at the hospital today. Grandma Chang and Patty have been taking care of Katherine at the house. Katherine has missed mom and dad dearly and was really excited to meet her new baby sister. Dad met Katherine in the lobby and spent some quality time with her before bringing her back with Patty and Grandma Chang to the room. At Toby school, Katherine stood up during circle time and declared to all that she was a big sister now. Patty and Grandma Chang gushed with pride.

Katherine literally gazed at Allison in awe. It was a beautiful sight. She’s truly a proud big sister and will nurture Allison through her growing years. As a parent, it’s truly amazing to see the sister bond start to form. Katherine will be a great big sister.

Grandma Chang couldn’t wait to hold Allison. She beamed with excitement for new new granddaughter. As a parent, it’s rewarding to see the joy a newborn brings to the lives of extended family.

Nanny Patty patiently waited her turn to hold Allison. We are truly blessed to have Patty as a caregiver. She’s shown great love and guidance for Katherine and helped Christine and I raise a well adjusted child. We’re looking forward to Patty’s help in raising Allison as well.

Mom and Allison are asleep as I write this. I’m publishing it now without Christine’s editorial approval so this entry may be improved later when she wakes up and reviews. ๐Ÿ™‚

Daddy’s Keys

It’s Friday morning and Steve is hanging out with Katherine before Patty arrives at 8A. Patty arrives and Steve gets ready to leave but he cannot find his keys. Steve and Patty tear the house a part looking for the keys. Christine has in the past taken my keys to work by accident so I call Christine and “blame” Christine for taking my keys to work. After about a 1/2 hour, Christine calls back and says she doesn’t have my keys.

I asked Katherine where are Daddy’s keys and she points to the pantry. It turns out Katherine had taken my keys and put them in a glass pot in the pantry. I couldn’t believe it. So, I can no longer be so quick to blame Christine for misplacing my keys.

July 4th Weekend

Our web server has been acting up, so it’s taken a while to update our blog. We had a wonderful fourth weekend. Sharon and Jamey visited and babysat Katherine so Steve and I could go to our first movie in a very, very long time. (Spiderman 2 was a great movie!) Steve and I also took an afternoon to ourselves to go shopping! It was quite the luxury.

Anyway, we visited a couple different parks last weekend – the animal park, the new park with the slide & sand. We also spent quite a bit of time at the local mall, playing with Katherine’s toys and such. The weekend was fairly uneventful, aside from neighbors blowing up massive amounts of fireworks. We walked the neighborhood before sun down, watching neighbors send up bottle rockets and massive sparklers into the air. Thankfully, Katherine was not disturbed by the noise and she even managed to sleep thru the racket that evening.

Painting

Katherine has a new hobby – she loves to paint! Patty and Katherine bought new brushes and we cracked open her water paints. Katherine was so enamored that we painted Thursday evening, Friday morning and then Saturday morning. Really, the painting process consists of Katherine dipping her brush repeatedly in water, spilling her water, dabbling her brush in the paints and then eventually putting brush to paper. We have her first painting which seems to consist of blobs of paint.

Hold Me

Katherine’s most common words seem to be “Hold me.” Steve and I are building quite the muscular strength carrying our 23-lb daughter around. She loves to sit on Steve’s shoulders and pull on his hair (ow!)

Her vocabulary is growing almost exponentially. As of today, we’ve counted almost 170 words – and I’m sure we’re missing some words from our list. We’re starting to play games like “Katherine, is that a big or little dog?” For the most part, she gets the right answer, although she said that Bisco is little. ๐Ÿ™‚

Yesterday night, we stopped at the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. We ended up having to wait for dinner and I said to Steve “we should go shop.” At that point, Katherine bent her knees, stopped and put her hands forward. She then waved them around saying “stop” (thought I said stop not shop!). We almost fell over. I knew that she had been practicing stop and go at Gymboree, but hadn’t seen her in action. We practiced walking (go) and stopping (stop!) until dinner.

Learning to Share

Learning to Share

We entertained friends and family at home this weekend. Yesterday, Katherine’s cousins, aunt and uncle visited for dinner and playtime. She had a great time playing with the boys – first on a small slide in the backyard and then scampering around her sand table on the porch. After dinner, she and Kevin made cookies with colored cookie dough. Katherine didn’t quite get the hang of it, or maybe she did. As I buzzed around helping the kids, I would see Katherine take a bite of the dough tentatively when she thought I wasn’t looking. I would say “Katherine, please don’t eat the dough – we have to cook it first!” and the dough would invariably end up in her mouth.

Tonight, we asked Katherine to share her toys with a younger friend. She got really inspired once, running after her friend saying “share share” as if to say “hey, check out this toy!!” I asked her to show her friend her table and chairs. She went running down the hallway, looking backwards to make sure that we were following, and plopped herself on the chair (“see look at me on my chair!”). Katherine was very hospitable, although she did grab a few toys away – but later giving them up when we prompted her to share. She’s learning ๐Ÿ™‚

She definitely gets the sharing concept. For instance, she asked Paulette to share the whipped cream on her coffee drink on Friday!

Practicing for Drivers Test

Practicing for Drivers Test

For the last 2-3 weeks, Katherine been saying “Drive drive drive” incessantly. Whether we’re driving around town or she’s in the house, she turns her hands like she’s holding a steering wheel, and she wants to get behind the wheel! Steve and I discussed this weekend how to address the situation. We decided to go to Toys R Us to find a car for Katherine. ๐Ÿ™‚

She loved car shopping. Katherine got behind the wheel of a low slung mini cart, checked out a Barbie Beetle and tried to climb into a bigger Jeep. We ended up choosing the Barbie Beetle because she could easily open the door, walk into the car, reach the pedal and turn the wheel. We ended up visiting two stores with Steve finding a Beetle (in an unopened box) in Lynnwood.

Katherine was super excited to go home and check out her new car. Unfortunately, we finished our bath, toddled downstairs to find 20-30 pieces of the Beetle all over the driveway – some assembly required. So, Katherine patiently sat with her thumb in mouth and Lambey in hand on her folding chair watching Steve assemble the car for 90 minutes. (I told her that if she kept walking all over the garage, we’d have to go inside.) So, with this in mind, she sat tight in her chair and occasionally crawled into my lap for a better view.

Once she even tried to help by pointing out the hubcap that needed to go on the last wheel – as if to say “don’t forget dad, there’s one more hubcap!” At 9:30PM (way past her bedtime), Katherine got to climb into her car and drive, drive, drive.

The 6 volt battery needed charging, so Katherine didn’t get to zoom around in her car until tonight. After we all ate dinner, Katherine waited while we put on her coat and shoes. She grabbed my “keees” (keys) and Lambey and headed straight to the garage. Funny enough, she walked to the Volvo driver side door as if to drive “Daddy’s car.” I explained that we were going to drive her car, and she got the biggest kick out of making the car go. With a towel behind her, she held the wheel at an angle and just kept driving around in circles in the driveway. Steve would ask “are you done driving?” and she would shake her head no and keep her foot planted squarely on the pedal.

Sand Box

Katherine is talking up a storm these days. She really understands what’s going on and these little stories really help bring this to light. Yesterday, we went to Costco and bought a pineapple (or “pi”). When we got home, Steve opened the trunk and the pineapple fell to the garage floor with a thunk. He suggested that we cut it open, since it had gotten bruised. Well…we were playing with some new plastic fruit and her shopping basket (name that fruit game) and we were talking about the plastic pineapple. I mentioned that our pineapple from Costco went “boom” and that Daddy said we should cut it open. Katherine then got very animated, ran to the counter, pointed to the real pineapple, said “Daddy” something else and then “Boom.” Later last night and even this morning, we would ask…”Katherine, what did the pineapple do when it fell out of the car?” and she would say “boom!”

Tonight, I got home and Patty explained that K’s combo sand and water table was missing the plug for the water side. Patty suggested looking in the trash can since the garbage is picked up on Tuesdays. So, when Steve got home I relayed the message. Katherine got excited saying “pug” and “trash” and “agua.” She was telling Steve to look in the trash can for the plug to her water table!!

Trash is a new preoccupation. K loves to take trash and put it in the garbage can. For instance, she was finishing up her plastic cup of milk from Nordstrom the other day. After she finished it, she motioned to the nearest mall trash can and dumped the cup in saying “trash!” She will also pickup dirty tissues (or clean ones) or dog hair and attempt to put it away. She is a very tidy child – must be from me. ๐Ÿ™‚

Other Words

Let’s see…other words from her books or conversation in general: Trash, Tractor, Bike, Bus, Doll, Hat, Shh (for fish or Quiet), Cheese, Ice, Juice (of course), Up/Down, Peas (for Please), Boot, Shoe, Babee, Dance …. I can’t begin to remember all the words that she has used…

We have another new game, courtesy of our photo printer. I ordered a plastic photo holder that should arrive any day. The idea is that you put pics in the holder and hang it up. So, I printed pics of family and her little friends. Tonight, she said “pa” for Paulette, “paw paw” for Grandma Chang, “Babee” for Baby Tyler, “wawa” for Lambie, “Ke” for Kevin, “Wa” for Will, “Sss” for Sid and “Auey / Audey” for Audrey. She really loves her pictures – I’m going to have to start taking pictures just for her hanging photo album.

Our Little Patient

Well, as you can guess, Katherine was sick today. And, I was sick too. Somehow, both of us managed to catch a fever and cold. We woke up this morning, both with 99-100 degree fevers. I was sniffling and Katherine kept rubbing her nose. I stayed home and locked myself in the den to work, while Patty took care of Katherine. Steve also stayed home late this morning also in the den. So, Katherine would keep running down the hallway saying “da da ma ma” and Patty would have to extract her from the den.

By mid-afternoon, I was whipped and had to take a nap. Poor Katherine had a 101.7 degree fever. Patty and I told her that she would feel better if she took her Tylenol – so she was a trooper and swallowed her dosage. By late afternoon, she was on a tear, climbing her trike and running around. We had a nice long bath and she went to bed early after downing more Tylenol – 101.5 fever again.

I’m heading off to bed now. Steve’s has been working late both last night and tonight, so I’ll be glad when we get to the weekend. Just have to shake this cold.