Halloween

That pretty much sums up Katherine’s new verbal skills. She started shrieking this past Thursday. It goes like this….she stands or runs around the house, babbles to herself, ex. “da da ba ba shriek!!!” It starts at a moderate volume and ends at an ear splitting volume. She’s not hungry, angry, or tired. We’ve read that some children like to do this because they like to experience the sensation of shrieking in their throat. We’ve also heard that lots of verbal discussion and shrieking signifies intelligence. Whatever the reason, we hope this phase passes quickly, or we grow more accustomed to it.

One byproduct of this is that we will be eating out less often. Saturday evening, her piercing verbal skills reached such a volume that we got our meals to go. On Sunday, we went to brunch at a salad restaurant and she was on a tear. She dropped all of her food on the floor and screamed bloody murder for no apparent reason. The only saving grace is that other kids were screaming too. 🙂

Mobility Increases

Katherine’s walking skills are progressing. She can now turn and walk the other way, without having to fall and get up again. She can stop and start with ease, bend over and pick items up, and stand on her tiptoes when looking in drawers or boxes. She can carry toys around (ex. her puzzle box) and even suck her thumb while cruising around. We probably see her spending more time on her feet now, than crawling around.

She truly is “curious Katherine.” She opens virtually any drawer she can get into and repeatedly tries to open the same drawer. Katherine understands when I say “uh huh” or “no” or “Katherine that’s not your drawer.” She’ll look up, go back to her drawer and then reach for her bottle drawer one or two minutes later. We’ve placed spatulas and brushes in our draw handles to prevent her from opening them (you have to see this…). Our baby proofing service arrives in a couple weeks; we’re hoping nothing happens before then!

Halloween (chatter chatter)!

For those of you in the NW, you know that Halloween was eventful this year because it was sub-freezing. Our thermometer read 28 degrees at 7PM (holy cow!). We visited four neighbor houses with Katherine bundled up in her red winter jacket with her black kitty cat cape on top of her jacket. Steve and I cut short our trick or treating (no, we didn’t collect candy), and spent the evening wondering where all the trick or treaters were. We only got 40 which is low compared to our all time high of 80. And, a bunch of these kids didn’t even want candy! They were on a scavenger hunt and asked for some pretty strange items.

Katherine was a bit taken back by the whole experience. The doorbell would ring and kids would talk to her in all sorts of costumes. One little boy who knows Katherine had a ghoulish mask and spoke to her from it. Her face fell and she started to cry. 🙂 Apart from that, she would stand next to me as I crouched holding her and the candy bowl, and watch me hand out candy to her friends. Unfortunately, we were supposed to go to a party that evening but Katherine was congested so we didn’t go.

Quality time with Katherine

Since our team at work launched our new product, we received Halloween day off. I spent the day with Katherine running errands and having her rest to get over her congestion. We went grocery shopping and bought her new shoes. Her starter walking shoes (size 3) were starting to get a bit small, so I bought her two new pairs of Stride Rites (size 4). One is a pair of white/pink everyday sneakers; the second is a pair of patent black Mary Jane Stride Rites. They are both adorable on her. I can’t believe our toddler is wearing sneakers! Katherine loved the shoe store. They have toys in a big cardboard box and she would peer in and want to pull out all sorts of toys. I cooked dinner and we had a nice time with Steve that evening.

Getting in the Swing of Halloween

It was a busy weekend, between a couple get togethers, our haircuts in Seattle and then dinner out. Our weekend started with dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant. We wanted to celebrate good news for Steve’s company. Katherine made a couple new friends at the restaurants, who said hello and she said hello back! After a good nights sleep, we headed out to Bellevue for my Saturday workout and then a trip to a Mercer Island bookstore. They feature a storyteller every Saturday. And, although, Katherine was a bit young for the stories, she had a great time “participating” in the story. We then headed over to our haircuts, to lunch at a nearby deli and then home for the afternoon. After a quick nap, we took Katherine to her first ever Halloween party at our friends’ house – where she was fairly confounded by everyone’s Halloween costumes. Katherine was a good sport and wore her black cat costume all evening. 🙂

This morning we drove around Union Hill looking at property and then went to a get together with our PEPs group. It was a blast seeing all the babies crawling around. Katherine was the only baby walking, so our challenge was making sure that she didn’t tromp on the other babies. We then came home and had a nice dinner catching up with family. Between seeing family and friends and daylight savings time, Katherine was beat and readily fell asleep.

More New Words

Katherine is continuing to expand her vocabulary. We’ve been pointing at our coffee maker and saying “Hot.” Well, a couple mornings ago, she said “Haaat.” This morning we let her touch the coffee cup and she touched it briefly and took her hand away just like Steve. She has also said “Baaaa” for Ball and “Bis” for Bisco (we think). She talks non-stop sometimes – she’s clearly talking to herself and us!

Kitchen Drawer

Katherine has her own drawer in the kitchen full of cups, bowls and such. She loves opening the drawer, bending over and flinging everything to the floor. She now tries to open other drawers – the one above and our bathroom drawer! We’ve got to get our cabinet locks installed…