A minus

Cate had her 1-year check up Friday and she passed with flying colors. She is 30 1/4 inches long (80 percentile) and 22.5 lbs (67 percentile). She got an A+ from the doctor and I got something closer to an A-.

Doc wanted to know if Cate is sleeping through the night. No, she's not. Why not? Well, because Sam and I snuggle her and feed her when she wakes up. Yes, we know it's a bad habit. Yes, we know that she's not going to start sleeping through the night if she knows she can have a snuggle and a snack in the middle of the night. Yes, we know that children like boundaries.

Well, doc says, I will tell you a couple things to help talk you out of nighttime feedings. First, now that she is drinking whole milk instead of formula she is going to get real chubby real fast if you feed her 8 oz of whole milk every day in the middle of the night. Second, it is good for her brain to rest from eating for 12 hours. "Oh," I say, "So you are telling me that if I stop feeding her at night I'll help her be smart and skinny?" Well, yes, basically, says the doc.

Now, honestly, what better gift could a mother give her daughter?

And so, that's what I'm going to tell myself over and over when she wakes up until she gets the hang of it and starts sleeping all the way through. Truth is, I could use some sleep before Peter/Elisabeth arrives so hopefully doc's encouragement plus that thought will help me (us) resist the urge to snuggle her.

Post-post: Last night was our first night on the new program and guess who slept 12 hours and 15 minutes without making a peep? Cate Major.

It's Been a Year

There are a few things I swore I'd never do when I was a mom, and here are a few I still haven't done:

1. Smell Cate's bum to see if she has a dirty diaper (It's a show-her-some-dignity thing; she's small, but she's a person.)

2. Taste baby food (Ick. I just can't stomach the thought, even if it's organic and even before I was pregnant.)

3. Lick a pacifier after it fell on the ground (Cate wasn't much for pacifiers anyway.)

4. Sanitize a grocery cart before putting Cate in it (She's been sick one time in a year and I swear it's because she gets plopped right into those carts with no wipe down.)

One year down.

Happy Birthday, Cate!

On our third date, Sam told me he wanted to make his kids cakes bigger than they were when they turned one:

Done and done. Cate's a little taller than this, but the cake definitely weighed more than she does. The bottom layer is actually a styrofoam dummy cake, because Sam tells me a 14 in. round like that one could easily feed 60 people! Who knew.

Here's one more shot of it:

The favors in the basket to the right are sugar cookies made using a recipe and cookie cutters from my great-grandmother (Cate's great-great-grandmother) on my dad's side. Aunt Dale gave the cookie cutters and the recipe to Cate when she was born.

My mom and I made this banner for Cate. I hope she likes it, because I really want to have a family tradition of making all of our kids birthday banners for their first birthdays and then putting them up every year. (If Baby is a girl we are probably going to name her Elisabeth, but while sewing this banner I started to wonder if maybe we should limit our name choices to four-letter names.)

I made this party wreath for the door:

(Some cameras make things look better in pictures than in real life. My camera is not one of them. This looks better in real life than in this photo.)

We hung the cutest balloons from the ceiling in the kitchen but I didn't take any pictures at all!

Cate got the hang of opening presents:

So that by Christmas she was really in the swing of things:

More Christmas photos and stories to come, but in the meantime, here is our Cate working on her very own 6-in cinnamon strawberry cake made by her favorite pastry chef. (My mom was appalled that she did this shirtless. I suppose I could have at least put her in a onesie, but ... too late now!)

11 Months Old

Cate is 11 months old today! I should have taken video of her when she first started walking--a month ago today!--but of course I didn't. Bad mom. Anyway, here she is now, walking around like she owns the place:

Four

Baby Major #2

arriving June 2012

Our Happy Strawberry

Many months after strawberries had been well established as Cate's favorite food, we heard babies aren't supposed to have strawberries until they are a year old. Well, all I can say to that is that I'm so glad I didn't deprive Cate of even a day of strawberry eating. We figure she eats about a pound of strawberries every 4-5 days. That's a lot when you only weigh 18 pounds. I recently bought a two-pound container and wondered if she would be able to eat them before they went bad. Answer: yes.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate Cate's first favorite thing than this:

Our Blue-Eyed Pixie

I love this picture of Cate because it shows just how blue her eyes are.

She is still so tiny, and I love that you can tell just what a pixie she is here. Sam's eyes are hazel and mine are really more greenish than blue. We figure she must have gotten those wonderful eyes from my very blue-eyed parents.

We love our little blue-eyed pixie!