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!

Pumpkin Picking!

Last week we went to pick out our pumpkins!

I had big plans to find us someplace with pick-your-own-fruit, hay rides, caramel apples, cider, and the whole Fall thing, but it turns out those places (at least the ones I could find around here) aren't open on Mondays. Because our weekend is Sunday/Monday instead of the usual Saturday/Sunday, Monday was the day for picking. Oh well, I figure we'll all have more fun at a Fall Fest place next year when C's a little older anyway.

We found a pumpkin patch at a Methodist church near our house, and the proceeds from the pumpkin sale supported the youth choir's trip to Cuba. I have some mixed feelings about the ol' youth choir trip to Cuba, but where I've made it this long without injecting politics into the family blog I'll stick with talking about how adorable Cate was getting ready for her first Halloween.

Cate loved the wagon:

But it did take her a minute to warm up to the idea:

Some Photos

So I've finally managed to take some photos of Cate! Here they are, first at the Children's Museum, then at the park, then at home. Thanks for checking in!

Just one quick note on living in Houston: It is so crazy to hear people having conversations about "how great it is that it is getting nice enough to do things outside." Everyone's talking about it--in the grocery store, walking down the street, everyone! We were on a walk a few nights ago and someone just stopped us as we walked by his front yard to talk about how nice it is getting. I love this. I anticipate missing winter not. at. all.

Standing Room Only

I've found that the best way to feed Cate is with her standing up. The fact is, she can't stand up on her own and so if she's standing and eating her hands are tied up holding on to something. Which means she can't grab the pureed whatever with her hands and smear it all over us.

I know all babies are messy eaters at first, but I am telling you: you have not seen a messy eater until you have seen Catherine Lee Major with some pureed spinach. It is really amazing. Imagine one quarter teaspoon in her belly and one half cup spread between her hair, my hair, the inside of her nose, the inside of my ear, her arpits, my shirt, her knees and my elbow. Feeding her standing up doesn't prevent the smearing altogether, but it does improve the ratio of food in her belly to food on us significantly.

Of course, you might be thinking what I would have thought had I not been feeding this child for just over eight months. If you don't let her feed herself, how will she learn? Seriously? Think about that for a minute.

Yeah, that's why I've decided not to worry about it.

So while standing, Cate's absolute favorite thing to eat is Ella's baby food. I started off making all Cate's food myself, but that lasted for about three weeks. Then I found Ella's. It's all natural (no preservatives, no sugar, not even water added). It comes in crazy combinations, including C's two favorites: carrots, apples and parsnips and sweet potatoes, pumpkin, apples, and blueberries. The best thing about Ella's is that it comes in packages like Capri Sun with a handy screw off top and a little nozzle. Meaning you can just squeeze the Ella's right in to the little one's mouth. When I mentioned this technique to one friend she said it had never occurred to her do do that. Clearly, she is more refined than I am. Her baby eats with a spoon. Or his fingers. So sophisticated, you'd think he's the one whose dad is a chef at a fancy pants restaurant.

But the fact is, while our Cate is on the verge of walking she still has never held her own bottle, much less fed herself. (I imagine the experts would diagnose her with "delayed self-feeding disorder") Every now and then she manages to get a piece of food into her own pie hole, but for the most part she'd really just as soon have her people do it for her.

Oh, and did I mention: she refuses to wear a bib. Ever. She can get any kind of bib off faster than Houdini could get out of a straight jacket. Velcro, snaps, t-shirt neck, whatever. She can get it off.

Which means I typically feed her standing up, straight from the nozzle on the baby food container ... whilst she wears nothing but a diaper.

What can I say? She's a classy girl.