Recent Photos & Quick Stories

This is my third (and final) post of the evening. Believe it or not, there is one that is not about Cate, but you'll have to scroll down to get to it. This one is all about Miss C. Here are some recent photos of our favorite girl.

Cate loves to hang out in her diaper, but to be honest I never really remember that until I've already got her clothes on her. The other day I remembered and it was particularly warm that day so I decided that as a special treat Cate could sleep in just her diaper for her nap. She's never done this before, and this is what I found when I went in to check on her:

I think she liked my idea.

Here is Cate is her "Grandma Sweater" and a hat my mom sent her from Cannery Row in Monterey. We just love this girl's serious looks:

Finally, Cate in her tropical dress with her current favorite toy, Polly the Parrot:

And now for two quick snippets before I hit the sack.

First, on strollers: We are thinking about getting a jogging stroller so that we can take longer walks and not wear out the stroller we have, which is really not made for the three- mile route my post-pregnancy bum really ought to do every day. I’ve found strollers to be the only thing I don’t love about being a mom. I got so frustrated with one of ours this week (yes, we have two and we’re thinking about a third) that I very uncharacteristically almost broke it in two with my bare hands. Really not my style, which I think probably says something about the ongoing sleep deprivation, the poor engineering of the stroller, or both. Cate, for the record, was not in the stroller at the time.

Second, on a mother's instinct: Dogs are my second-to-least favorite animals, right above mice/rats/other short-haired rodents, which are my least favorite. This week, I was visiting someone from church who I know has a black lab. I’ve been over to this house before, and the dog and I have not really spent any time together because when people come over they put the dog in a bedroom. As we were visiting, Cate got squirmy and I asked to put her on the floor in the front room where we were visiting. I laid out Cate’s blanket and down she went with her rattle. I assumed the dog was in its usual place until, all of the sudden, the front door opened and in came my friend’s husband and her crazy, cantankerous, slobbery 70lb. lab, which lunged immediately for my sweet Cate. I have lived to tell you that I have never, ever in my life moved as fast as I did to pick Cate up. I grabbed her, her little body jostling, and held her so close to me I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Cute girl, she didn’t even cry. When I told Sam about it that night the only way I could describe it was sheer instinct. I told him I could never re-enact it. Sometimes I wonder if I would really “do anything” to protect Cate the way people say a mom will, but in that moment … I knew that I would. So did the dog.

Adios for now ... if you got this far, there are two more posts from tonight below.

Ladybug Cake

Ok, so I didn't fall asleep while that last post was uploading, so here is one that is actually not about Cate. Sam made a ladybug cake this past week for a girl's birthday party. He also made 24 matching cupcakes, but he didn't take pictures of those. Here's The Lady:

Cate's Latest

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, so I'm just going to copy and paste from a little newsletter I write once a week or so for our families. It's 11:39 PM right now, and if I don't fall asleep while these little snippets are uploading maybe I'll write a new post. If not, check back another time. And speaking of that ... does anyone read this? Will you leave me a comment? I don't mean to be a nag, but I sure do love comments. You're the best, Reader.

She Eats! Our pediatrician (have I mentioned lately how much we love him?!) said that we could start giving Cate some food in addition to formula whenever we were ready. We had tried some rice cereal to no avail, but we tried it again and it was a hit! The key: a tiny bit of applesauce mixed in. Honestly, who wants that pasty rice cereal with just formula in it? Not Cate! A little no-sugar-added applesauce was just the trick. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised, since Cate comes from a long line of applesauce lovers on both sides.

Giggles Cate has been smiling for a while now, and on occasion and with much effort we have been able to get her to do something akin to a laugh. But in the last week or so she has really gotten the hang of giggling! Today, for no apparent reason, she just couldn’t get enough of herself laughing. She giggled for a few minutes, and I giggled right back at her, which just made her giggle more. I wish everyone could see her adorable double chin, two dimples, and tongue out as she howls!

Tummy Sleeper For generations, babies were put to sleep on their tummies. In our generation, that is a no go. Babies go to sleep on their backs. That is, until they can roll over. Cate’s new favorite thing is rolling over on her tummy to sleep, and it is the most stressful part of mommyhood so far. It absolutely freaks me right out when I go in her room and find her face-planted in her mattress. I know she’s strong enough to roll over. I know that she can use her bionic neck to lift up her head any time. And she is always breathing just fine. It’s me who stops breathing when she sleeps on her tummy.

Daddy-Daughter Date Sam has been able to be home for a whole day every few weeks since Cate was born to hang out with her for the day. One of their favorite things to do together is go to the Red Box to rent an action movie. This week they rented Harry Potter and something called Tron. I’m not proud of this, but Cate is absolutely mesmerized by the television. It’s hardly ever on, but when it is, or when she spots one somewhere else (in the mall, at a restaurant, in the waiting room of the tire place) she can’t take her eyes off it! She especially loves to sit in Daddy’s lap watching action movies, taking a break only to eat. Hey, don’t judge. At least she’s eating formula and not potato chips!

Cool Things Cate Has Figured Out Cate can officially turn pages in her board books! I’m so excited! It’s so fun to watch her grab the page and turn to the next one. We were in a waiting room this past week and she was totally entertained by her book the whole time. I did not read to her while we were there (how obnoxious would that have been?!) but I just let her flip through the pages looking at the pictures. When we read at home, she’s my go-to girl for page turning.

Another cool thing Cate has learned to do is sit in a grown up’s lap while the grown up eats without grabbing the food or the plates (she’s still working on not grabbing placemats and napkins). At first, she could only do it for about a minute, but now she can sit on a lap through a whole meal! How many grown ups could do that?!

Yes, She's a Baby. And She's Here for Dinner.

I was never really one to think, “What are they doing in here with a BABY?!” before I had Cate, but now I’ve felt myself becoming a real baby advocate. Obviously, there are places babies shouldn’t be, but I feel like most of the world really ought to be pretty equal opportunity. I haven’t gotten any strange looks from people when we’ve taken Cate places (probably because we don’t take her places she really shouldn’t be) but in general I’ve found that I’ve adopted a, “Hey, she’s a person, too” attitude. In my mind, I hear myself saying to the world, “Look, she’s got as much of a right to be here as you do. And who knows! She may make even more of her life than you have of yours. At this point, she’s never been mean, she’s never hurt anyone’s feelings, she’s never taken advantage of someone else’s weaknesses, and (bonus!) she’s even wearing a really cute outfit.” So, yes, she is a baby. And, yes, she’s here for dinner. Don’t worry about it, world.

Our Little Ballerina!

Cate is going to ballet class with 5-year-old Eliza this week while Eliza's mom watches Cate for the morning. In preparation for her first dance class, we tried on her tutu from Nana Major. Here are a few shots of our little dancer:

Our Little Bookworm!

Cate is very grateful to be the charter member of Grandma's Book of the Month Club! Every month, Cate gets a box of books in the mail from Grandma. This month's books are almost all Easter books! Here are a few photos of Cate checking out a book about bunnies:

A Weekend in St. George

We had a fun such a fun trip to St. George this weekend! Nana and Granddad were in Milwaukee, but we made the trip down to their house and enjoyed every minute of our warm weather getaway. It was 80 degrees down there on Saturday and we opened all the windows in the front room and spent most of the day enjoying the wonder that is indoor-outdoor living.

Cate loved feeling the warm breeze! Unfortunately, we’ve learned that infant sun hats come in only one size. Whatever size it is, it’s too big for babies whose head circumference is in the 20th percentile. It drowns her little face, but we are good parents so we put it on her. We spent most of the weekend watching General Conference for church, but on Saturday afternoon we took a long walk around the golf course. We made delicious barbeque chicken sandwiches on the grill and went on a family date to Dairy Queen on Saturday night. It was after 9 o’clock but still warm enough to enjoy our treats outside. Pure bliss.

California Girl is trying to maintain composure about the fact that we came home to several inches of snow on the ground. Ah, April in Salt Lake …

Cate’s First Pedicure Confession: I’ve been wanting to paint Cate’s toenails since before she was born. Friday afternoon, in anticipation of our weekend getaway to St. George, I could resist the urge no longer. Once I decided it was officially time I couldn’t even wait for Cate to go down for a nap, which I knew would make my task easier. I just got my nail polish and got to work, right in the middle of play time—wiggles and all! It took a few tries and involved several Q-tips with nail polish remover on them, but I did it. Cate’s toe nails are painted! To be honest, I haven’t quite decided if it’s really cute or a little bit trashy, but she got lots of compliments when she was rolling sock-less in St. George this weekend!

It was hard to get a photo of her toes, but here is my best shot:

Home Again, Home Again … For several weeks now we have noticed that Cate just loves being at home. It’s hard to describe how you can tell what an infant prefers, but whenever we come home after any length of time away, she is so happy and relaxed. We could tell this even before she could smile, but now that she is smiling and babbling so much it is very obvious. She’s no trouble at all when we go away overnight, but boy is she happy to get home! We’ve started taking her right in to her room when we get home, and she just looks around and smiles and coos and every muscle in her little body relaxes a little bit. Tonight as we were all hanging out in Cate’s room right after we got home Sam said, “Seeing her so happy here is the best part of coming home.” I couldn’t agree more. We’re glad she likes it here.

Ice Cream, Ice Cream, We All Scream for Ice Cream! Don’t tell, but we gave Cate her first bite of ice cream this weekend! There we were at Dairy Queen, and I just couldn’t resist! I took my extra long spoon from my mini blizzard, put about 1/100th of a teaspoon of Sam’s vanilla on the spoon and put it right up to her adorable little lips. She—she, who loves anything having do with eating, her eating, us eating—stuck her little tongue out, made contact with the frozen deliciousness, did kind of a funky thing with her lips, and just like that, her first taste of ice cream was over.

For about half a second I had a second thought about what I’d done (knowing, you know, that the parenting books definitely say no ice cream until your kid is three or something like that, and even then, no processed sugar, for Heaven’s sake!). But I got over that pretty quickly.

I actually love thinking about that moment, Cate in her little blue polo shirt onesie and her cream colored bow, my handsome husband, and me … all sitting outside pretending it was summer, eating ice cream after dark on one of those still-slightly-sticky-from-the-last-family plastic tables with the benches attached. This, I thought, is what it's all about.