11 Months and an Update

Truly, I have the Best. Baby. EVER. I'm sure I would say that no matter what, but when other people comment on what a fabulous baby Cate is, I know it's true.

Examples: She takes medicine without flinching, fighting, crying, or spitting it out. Every single time.

She sat at a resturaunt for 2 HOURS Friday afternoon while I hung out with some friends from work, and did not cry once. Nor did she fuss, or wiggle, or anything. She ate crackers and some cheese fries and her supper, and charmed the people around her. How is that not amazing?

I'll only give you two. More might make you sick.

She really is amazing.

She started army crawling in December, cut 2 teeth right before Christmas, learned to sit herself up right after Christmas, started pulling herself up last month, and has started crawling for real this weekend. She can say "hi" and wave, she says "dipha" (diaper), "out", "ma-ma", "da-da", and "bye-bye" (sometimes dye-dye.) She likes to dance to music, she sings along with songs, and she loves to babble to what I swear are imaginary friends. She likes to open and look at books. Today, after I read her a book, she opened up a different book and "read" it to me. It was precious.

She got her first ear infection this week. Even that didn't slow her down. It made her a bit fussier than normal, but not much. I think the medicine may be giving her nightmares though. I'm not sure if that's possible, but she's woken up crying in the middle of the last two nights, and that's way unusual for a girl who usually sleeps 11 straight hours, at least.

She is amazing, amazing, amazing!

9 Months

Just a quick update, Cate was 9 months old Sunday! She went in for her 9 month well-visit and this is what we got:

30! inches long, and off the charts in length.
50% for weight. She's super tall and skinny.

She's definitely going through an anxiety stage right now, she cried every time Dr. M touched her. Hopefully that won't last long.

Lots of pictures, including the mandatory Crying in Santa's lap picture, to come!

A Celebration of Babies

Today, my old RE's office hosted a Celebration of Babies. They invited all of the patients who they helped become parents.

It was so cool. It wasn't a huge deal. Just a tent in the parking lot of the office. Balloons, face painting, and cupcakes for the kids, and pictures with Dr. G. A couple of hours hanging out outside in the nice weather, chatting with other parents.

Jeff and I agreed it was unlike any party we've ever been to. Usually, we at least know someone. Here, we were all strangers, but with something in common. It's not like the RE's office invites lots of chatting and new friends. So it was neat to talk to people who are every bit as grateful for their children as we are for Cate. Singleton babies like Cate were definitely the minority, but what can you expect from a party thrown for former RE patients?

It was awesome. I think Dr. G really liked seeing all the kids, and I know the nurses did. They said they're going to try it every year, and I really hope they do.

Fall Crafty-ness

This is what I did today. I saw the idea on Pinterest, but I didn't have an account when I found it and now can't find it to give credit to the creator of it. If I do, I'll update this.

Supplies: one 12x12 canvas. (I suppose you could use whatever size you want, that's just what I grabbed.) One fat quarter (I think that's what they're called) from the fabric store. Scissors, spray adhesive, black spray paint, staple gun, ribbon, and hot glue. Oh, and paper letters.

First, I covered one of the canvases with the fabric, using the staple gun to staple it to the wood frame. I really should have ironed or washed the fabric first, but I was too impatient to get started. :)

I used my cri.cut to make a stencil for a friend the other day, so I used the letters she didn't need to make this. I laid them out to make sure they'd fit where I wanted them.

My little crafty helper. Totally not interested in looking at the camera.

I used some re-adujustable spray adhesive to get my letters to stick. When I found this on pinterest, she recommended using contact paper to begin with. That probably would have been easier and less messy, but the glue worked just fine.

After I got my letters where I wanted them, I sprayed the whole thing with black spray paint. You can kind of see where the letters started peeling up when they got wet, but they stayed down long enough to get the job done.

I waited about 15 minutes before peeling the letters off. I didn't want them to dry on there, but I didn't want to mess up the spray paint.

I waited another hour or so, then sprayed the whole thing with shellac, just in case. Then, I took some orange ribbon and braided it for the hanger, and hot-glued it to the back. I love it, because it looks like the handle to a candy basket. So excited to go hang it, just waiting for the glue to dry!

This was super fun. I have another canvas, and some more material (that's currently in the washer!) I think I'm going to do a jack o'lantern on the next one, since I can't reuse my letters. Of course, I can't cut out a pumpkin on my cri.cut, so I'll have to free hand it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Days like today

I sure am grateful that days like today don't come around that often.

Jeff was sick, and Cate was grumpy. Extremely grumpy. Like, cried all day, didn't want to be held, didn't want to be put down, didn't want to be left alone for more than 2 seconds grumpy. Didn't want to eat, didn't want to play in the circus trainer, didn't want to lay on her mat. The only crying-free times I had today where when she took her naps and when I gave her a bath. She even cried through supper and refused to eat, which is way weird for her.

I think she's constipated. She strained all morning and finally went after her nap. But that didn't stop the fussiness, so I'm guessing she's still constipated. I made a trip to wal.mart for prunes this morning. She's only had about 8 spoonfuls though, since I'm terrified of giving her too much. I'll ask Mrs. Sarah tomorrow how much she gave her the one other time Cate was constipated.

This child really will eat anything though, because she gobbled up those prunes like no body's business. Maybe she doesn't have taste buds?

Of course, she also gobbled up the few small bites I shared with her of my mint chocolate chip ice cream, so she must have some. :)

To top it all off, while I was eating supper tonight, I noticed that Cate's right eye was red. Not fully red, but much pinker than normal. Being the pink-eye catching freak that I am, this is, of course, making me wonder if babies can even get pink-eye. I mean, we did spend over an hour waiting around for the doctor the other day. No telling what she could have caught there.

I guess we'll see tomorrow.

6 months!

Cate had her 6 month appointment today! Aside from waiting for the doctor for an hour (no exaggeration!) everything was great!

Cate is still right on the 75th percentiles for head circumference and weight. She's still in the 90-95 percentiles for length.

She's doing everything she's supposed to do. Dr. M was stunned when she heard how well and how much Cate eats. She was kind of rattling off 2 oz jars of vegetables, 2 oz jars of fruit, and 2-3 tablespoons of cereal. I laughed. She eats at least a cup of cereal, and 4 oz of veggies every night. We haven't really started fruits yet, except bananas. Peaches are next week, I think.

Dr. M also said Cate is old enough now that we can start giving her Alle.gra for her eczema. I'm super excited about this, because it really seems to bother Cate. She is constantly scratching her leg or her head. Hopefully this will help.

I was super proud of our girl today. We got to the Dr. at 4:05, and didn't leave until 5:35. And Cate was fantastic. She got really fussy about 5, because she had her last bottle early at daycare and was hungry. Luckily, I had a bottle in the bag that she sucked down in minutes. I had really thought we'd be home in time for her to actually eat, but apparently not.

She got lots of vaccinations, including a flu shot, but only cried for maybe 30 seconds. As I told her today, she really is the bee's knees. She thought that was funny, but not as funny as when I go "BRRRRRRR". That's hilarious! :)

A few thoughts...

I had about an hour to myself today. Jeff went to the school to work, and Cate took a nap. It was blissful. I sat on the couch and read. (And because names and storylines from "Game of Thrones" float through my head every time I close my eyes, I started re-reading "The Princess Diaries" for a break.)

I also spent a little time working on recovering our dining room chairs, and I started thinking. (Always dangerous with me). Here are my thoughts:

Every upper elementary and middle school english teacher should introduce three boys (men? guys?) to their students' lives. Their names are Gregor, Percy, and Harry. Those three do more for my reading scores and for getting my kids interested in reading than anyone else. (Maybe I should include their creators too....)

There are 2 incredibly annoying and, I think, offensive commercials running in our area right now. One is about that stupid "Dolphin Tale" movie. It's a preview, and someone says during it "That dolphin is the bravest creature I've ever seen", or something to that effect.

Can I just say, "Courage only counts when you can count." (from Gregor) That stupid dolphin had nothing to do with getting some stupid prothestic tail and relearning how to swim. It's not like it was given the option to say "hey, thanks, but no. I'm good." Ridiculous.

The other commercial is a USPS commercial in which some guy says "I can't think of anything worse than having to stand in line at the post office."Really? You can't think of ANYTHING worse than standing in line?!?! Cause I can think of a few hundred things just off the top of my head, and probably thousands if you give me about an hour.

Also, I was thinking about my favorite fictional literary couples. I came up with my top three.

They are:
Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy- Pride and Prejudice
Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe- Anne of Green Gables
Mia Thermompolis and Michael Moscovitz- The Princess Diaries*
*I came up with this list before I started re-reading the series.

I leave you with a most adorable picture, if you haven't already seen it on FB.