Cate is Eight Weeks Old!

Here is Cate sporting her 80s-style headband for our first trip back to the gym since she was born:
Book Smarts Yesterday, Cate and I went to visit a friend of mine who is probably a few years older than my parents. Cate had gotten a little fussy in my friend’s lap, and I put C down on a blanket, gave her her pacifier and told her to pull herself together so that she could visit with her new friend. It took her about 30 seconds to get it together and then I handed her back to my friend. “Oh, so did you read all sorts of parenting books?” my friend asked. Nope. Totally made that “pull yourself together, Cate” line up myself. Honest truth: I’m totally winging it.

It’s definitely not that I’m unfamiliar with the parenting book movement. Let’s be honest: most of my new Mom friends are late twenty-somethings and early thirty-somethings with doctorates. We’re a bookish bunch. My friends’ nightstands are stacked with books like, “How to Ensure Your Child Reads by Six Months” and “101 Things Your Child would be Better at if You’d Eaten all Organic while Pregnant.” It’s not that it didn’t occur to me to read a parenting book or two, but I know myself well enough to know I can’t handle that kind of guilt. (Confession: I didn’t read Consumer Reports about a single baby product, either.) Our parenting strategy basically involves talking to Cate like she understands English and giving her lots of kisses. Cate isn’t reading yet, she doesn’t have a white noise machine, and I let her fall asleep on her blanket in the middle of play time. I don’t wash her clothes in special detergent and most of the time when she drops her pacifier I just put it back in her mouth.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed she’ll get in to college.

Knuckle Sandwich Cate still hasn’t figured out how to suck her thumb. She’s gotten close, but she just can’t seem to get it untucked from under her pointer finger. As a result, she gets her little hands right up there in her mouth and then sucks on the knuckle of her first finger like her life depends on it. It’s as if she thinks that if she sucks on her knuckle hard enough her thumb will pop into her mouth. Silly girl.

Goobers be Gone! Cate’s eye boogers are gone! Her tear ducts finally unclogged! Hurrah! It happened really suddenly just a day before she turned two months old. She woke up to eat in the middle of the night and her little eyes weren’t crusted shut. I’m very excited for her! Jack won’t be the only boy making a move for long!

Cate is Seven Weeks Old!

Cate had a very busy week this week. Right after cheering the Packers to Super Bowl victory, Grandpa came to town from San Francisco! Cate had such a fun time with Grandpa and advanced in her rattle holding, shaking, and moving skills every day. I only managed to take one photo of Cate and Grandpa together:

Manners, Manners Cate slept right through her weekly play date with Jack. I told her that if she keeps falling asleep when boys come to visit her they are going to stop coming. She did make Jack a Valentine, which he accepted and which has apparently found a prominent spot in his room. She’s flattered. We are looking forward to our trip to St. George with the Del Priores next weekend. Also on the docket: a visit from Aunt Dale and Grandma coming back the beginning of March. We have a lot to look forward to!

Go to Hell, Carolina, Go to Hell! (If you're a Blue Devil, this is not bad manners) This week, Duke faced Carolina during college basketball's Rivalry Week. This is what Cate looked like when Duke was down by 14 at the half:

But she had great confidence in Coach K and her Blue Devils. This is what she looked like after the break at the half. She knew they could pull it off, and they did:

Cate is Six Weeks Old!

Cate is six weeks old this week. By the end of the week, she will have attended five birthday parties. It was another fun week with Cate! One of the “Major” milestones this week was sleeping from 11 PM to 6 AM two nights in a row (followed by 11 PM to 3:45 AM and 11 PM to 5 AM nights)—we’re getting there! Another one: Cate hung out calmly in her bassinet, pulled up to the table, during dinner for three nights this week. She picked up a rattle for the first time and … she smiled at us! Here is a photo of Cate holding her rattle from Grandma:

Daddy’s Girl The verdict is in: Cate looks more like Sam than me. I have had exactly one person say, “Oh, she looks like you!” and everyone else says some variation of, “Wow, she looks like Sam!” I thought it was just their matching hairlines, but it turns out people say the same thing when Cate is wearing a hat. It’s a good thing Daddy is so handsome, I say! Cate and I do have the same mouth, which we know because only the two of us can make the “turtle face.” Unfortunately, the turtle face comes only in the split second when one is deciding whether to toughen up or have a teary meltdown. We don’t have any pictures of Cate doing the face, but she does it at some point nearly every day. Besides looking alike, Daddy and Cate are having lots of fun playing (and napping!) together.

Party Time! Cate has been to four birthday parties in her six short weeks of life, and she is going to another one tomorrow! Wow! Cate is always honored to be invited to parties, but she has a limited tolerance for crowds of strangers making lots of noise. At some point, usually about 45 minutes into the party, she makes a little fussing noise which I couldn’t decipher at first but which I now know means, “Mom/Dad, I’m over this. Can you please put me down on the floor on my blanket at the edge of the action and just let me be?” At that point, she will hang out solo, totally content, for as long as we want to stay at the party. Until I became Cate’s mom I didn’t know that babies would sometimes fuss to be put down and left alone. Turns out that as much as Cate loves a good party she also (like all of us, I guess) likes her down time!

Big Foot Cate is very long. When people meet her, they say, “What a tall baby!” or “She is so long!” She has grown more than three inches since she was born, and she was in the 90th percentile for height at her two-week check-up. Even strangers comment on how tall she is. In addition to being tall, she has very long arms, long toes, and long fingers. This week, someone said to me, “She is so tall! Maybe she can be a basketball player and make you lots of money!” Huh. Strange comment, but I definitely heard stranger when I was pregnant. Maybe that’s why people say such crazy things to pregnant ladies—to prepare them for the crazy things people will say about their baby. Apparently that guy was unaware that professional women’s basketball players make, like, minimum wage. Anyway, we measured Cate’s longest toe and my shortest toe this week. My shortest toe is 7/8 inch long; Cate’s longest toe is 3/4 inch long. That means my six-week-old baby’s longest toe is only 1/8 inch shorter than my shortest. She’s long and we love every inch of her!

Cate is Five Weeks Old!

“Wow! She is a month old already?! Can you believe it?” is something I’ve heard a lot lately. Cate is so much fun, we love her to death, and yes, I can believe it. It’s been five weeks and three days to be exact, and I’ve felt every minute of it! Not in a bad way, but this has probably been the longest five weeks of my life. I hear that at some point you blink and they are starting kindergarten, then you blink again and they are graduating from high school—but so far, when I blink the only thing that happens is I fall asleep. Then when I blink again she wakes up. So we’ll see … I’ll keep you posted!

One of the things I really love about writing this update every week is that it is on my mind throughout the week. As we go through the week, I often find myself thinking about what I will include here. I jot down my story ideas and then I’m ready to go when it’s time to write this on Friday or Saturday. For the last two weeks, I’ve done this with the laptop propped up on my lap while Sam and I watch a movie and Cate takes her last nap of the day. It’s a good life we have, and I am so grateful for Sam and Cate and all the fun we are having together.

Cate’s First Awkward Stage Our adorable Cate’s hair has grown out so that it is starting to cover her fuzzy ears, her tear ducts are still clogged so she has constant eye boogers, she’s now facing a bout of baby acne, and she scratched her face in the night and broke the skin, all of which combine to make this officially her first awkward stage. I hope that getting through this will be inspiration for her in later awkward stages because (let’s be honest) she’s going to have them!

Forever in Blue Jeans Cate and I went on a big adventure Thursday night to visit Sam while he was teaching a class at Orson Gygi. I got Cate dressed in a light pink onesie and decided it was the perfect occasion for her to debut her boot cut blue jeans, and off we went. We ended up staying through the whole class! We got home and Sam had to run to the Art Institute for a minute. While he was gone, I changed Cate’s diaper and saw that her legs were blue! My first thought was that her diaper had somehow cut off her circulation, but she seemed fine except for her color so I figured that couldn’t be it. My next thought was that somehow I had bruised her, even though I touch her so gently. Of course, that had me really worried. I called Sam right away and told him to hurry home. Then, just as I got off the phone with Sam, I saw her jeans sitting on the chair next to her changing table! Her jeans had turned her legs exactly the color of a bruise! We washed her off and just like that—circulation back, no terrible bruise-causing disease. Whew!

Meeting Wilma This week, we went to visit my friend Wilma, whom I met through the Duke Club of Salt Lake about eight years ago. Wilma graduated from Duke in 1944 and has lived in Salt Lake City for more than 60 years. We became fast friends and have done so many fun things together over the years, including watching Duke basketball games, going on lunch dates, and working on craft and sewing projects together. Wilma came to visit Cate in the hospital, but this was our first visit to Wilma’s house. Cate was so good and just loved snuggling with Wilma!

Cate is One Month Old!

We are having so much fun with Cate! Every day she seems to be more and more alert. In addition to going to the rain forest, we celebrated Cate’s one-month birthday with a family nap in the afternoon and Cate’s first trip to a restaurant, a Mexican place we love called Rafael’s, and a movie for the three of us at home. Happy Birthday, Cate!

A Visit from Nana The most exciting thing that happened this week is that Nana came to visit us! She was here from Tuesday through Saturday and Cate had so much fun with her! Here they are together:

Cate’s First Birthday Party Cate went to Lauren Graham’s 2nd birthday party this week! She picked out a very cute mermaid book to take Lauren for a present and had fun visiting with all the guests from the comfort of her Moby wrap.

A Few More Visitors Three of the eight-year-old girls that I teach at church came by to visit Cate this week. They are the perfect age for meeting a new baby—they were enchanted by Cate (even though she was sleeping) and just as excited to see her room!

Out and About In addition to all her visitors this week, Cate also went to United Way to meet my coworkers and to the Culinary Crafts kitchen to visit Daddy while he was at work. She was a big hit with all of our co-workers, and I was so happy to see my friends from work after a month away.

Cate’s Fuzzy Ears Cate’s ears are still just as fuzzy as when she was born. We’re hoping that will clear up at some point (she does, after all, have her first playdate with Jack DelPriore scheduled for this week), but for now it ensures Daddy will be the only one who is nibbling on her ears—and we’re okay with that!

Cate Visits the Rain Forest Cate loves her rain forest play mat. Here is a photo of her relaxing in Costa Rica:

Cate is Four Weeks Old!

So far the most surprising thing about being Cate’s mom has been that I really do seem to be able to figure out what she needs pretty quickly (Sam has this same ability!). It is not true that the second I pick her up any time she is fussy she is overwhelmed by my maternal love and settles right down, but it is true that I generally know when she needs to eat, when she needs her diaper changed, and when she is just tired. She hardly fusses at all, so that probably makes it easier. I have stopped checking on her every five minutes through the night, and we finally now sleep without any lights on. For the first few weeks I wanted to check her breathing every second. She’s become a more consistent breather as she has gotten older, and I’ve relaxed a little. Either that or I am just too exhausted by the time she goes down that I really don’t have the energy to stay away watching her breathe! The pediatrician told me the only cure for hyperactive checking on her is exhaustion, and I think he was right!

Another surprising thing about being Cate’s mom is discovering that even at only three weeks old, she has preferences. She simply likes some things better than others, and I’ve highlighted a few of those here.

Cate’s Quirks There are a few things about Cate that make her unique already, and we just love them. One is that she really prefers not to be swaddled. It took us a few weeks to figure this out, but now we are going with it. We wrap her in a blanket tightly, but usually with her arms out. She likes to keep them above her head when she sleeps. I love that we have this ultrasound picture of her doing just what she likes to do now:

Things Cate loves: wearing short sleeves, snuggling with Daddy, wearing socks, having a clean face, laying on Lamby (her blanket from Grandpa, pictured above), riding in the car, bath/spa time, eating, trying to hold her own bottle

Things Cate does not love: the sound of packages opening (like the crinkling of a bag of chips), wearing two layers of long sleeves (causes bunching of undershirt at the elbows—very uncomfy!), clothes that are even slightly too big, having her hat fall down over her eyes

Cate is 3 Weeks Old!

Cate’s First Party Although Cate’s first celebration was her homecoming on Christmas Eve, her first official party that included people outside of our family was the Culinary Crafts Holiday Party last Tuesday. She did great! I packed her up in the Moby Wrap so she was nice and snug and close to me. The major benefit of the Moby is that it clearly conveys, “Thank you for inviting us. We are glad to be here. No, you cannot touch me.” People are funny: some said, “Oh, you’re just not letting people touch her because she’s your first. By your second you won’t even care!” Then others said things like, “I would never take a two-week old baby out!” So I guess you can’t win. Regardless, we had a fun time and Cate was the hit of the party. Sam and I very carefully packed her diaper bag, including an extra outfit (good thinking, Dad!), and then promptly spilled water from a water bottle into the bag within 10 minutes of being at the party. Oops. Cate did end up needing a change of clothes, but her extra outfit was wet, so we had to strip her down to just her onesie (gasp! We’re trying to teach her to be a lady, but there she was in just her undies at her first party!). Her hat also got wet, which meant she was not only in just her underwear, but also hatless. Again, good thing she was all bundled up in the Moby!

Spa Time Cate loves getting a bath and having her hair washed! We’ve also incorporated another element to bath time, which takes bath time to the next level: Spa Time! A friend of ours recommended infant massage and gave us some infant massage oil and a book about it. The book is pretty hokey—it does, for example, encourage the parent to “approach the naked infant and ask for permission to touch her body,” (a step we skip) but the massage oil is great! Cate loves it! After she gets her hair washed and combed, I put her on a blanket and massage her legs and arms, then give her belly and back a little rub. When it’s over she is in heaven!