Our 2nd Tiny Talk Tuesday

Since I listed a bunch of Katie's new words last week, I'll list just the new words Katie has said this week.

1. "Hi" and "Buh-Bye".

The cutest example was when Katie's betrothed Kai was crying in his highchair, and I leaned Katie in to kiss his head and try to cheer him up. She got right into his face, started waving, and said, "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" Kai, who seems to be crushing on Katie as well, immediately cheered up.

2. "Pooh" (as in "Winnie the...") (first said 10/17)

Winnie the Pooh is everywhere in our house, and now she's referring to him by name.

3. "Two" (first said 10/18)

Katie was trying to get into a bottle of floor cleaner and I was giving her a countdown of one-two-three to encourage her to walk away before I had to intervene. I started the countdown: "One". She immediately replied, "Two!" That was her first time saying "two" in context of counting, and of course I couldn't be mad as she showed off her new word. I did, however, still remove her from the floor cleaner. :-)

4. "Bee" (first said 10/18)

We've been reading the Dr. Seuss book, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" before bed a lot recently. After Mr. Brown moos like a cow on the first page, he buzzes like a bee on the second page. Katie had buzzed once, but yesterday as she was picking up her bath toys and making animal sounds for each, she picked up the bee and said, "Bee." Good for her. Maybe we'll finally embark on a trend of saying the animals' names instead of just the sounds they make.

5. "Puppy" (first said 10/19)

Speaking of the animal name trend, another of Katie's new words is "puppy." No longer does every dog have to be "Bella." Unfortunately, I discovered this new word while trying to sit quietly with Katie during our evening church service this past Sunday. I handed her the "Puppy Love" book in the pew, hoping that she'd "read" it quietly while I listened to the sermon. Opposite reaction -- she started screaming "Puppy!!! over and over again in excitement. We exited shortly thereafter. :-)

(Others' Tiny Talk Tuesday posts are here.)

Our First Tiny Talk Tuesday

This is my first shot at Tiny Talk Tuesday, a blog event my friend Mary started to record the funny things her kids say every week. Since Katie's saying more and more words all the time, I decided it was time to join in!

Full sentences Katie (age 16 months) has said:

"She says moo." (response to the question "What does the cow say?")

"Whazdat?" and "Whoozdat?" (she asks this of everything she does not know the name of -- she is one curious child!)

"Bad Bella!!" (she says this constantly, whether or not our dog Bella is being bad and sometimes when Bella is miles away from us) (she also says this when trying to say "banana")

"It's a Bella" and "It's a baby." See video below as she marvels over the little plastic babies that I got as part of a twin baby shower favor.

Other words she says on her own now, besides the ones I mentioned in July:

"Shoe"
"Eye"
"No" (for both "no" and "nose")
"Mow" (for "mouth")
"Yes"
"Cookie" (for both "cookie" and "Cookie Monster")
"Wheeeee!"
"Bella" (she calls all dogs "Bella" now)
"Dank you!"
"Ow ow ow!" (as she hits Mommy -- we'll have to work on curbing that one)

Animal Noises she's improved upon:

Cow -- "Mooooo" (it's the first animal noise that she's really mastered in terms of both inflection and pronunciation)

Elephant -- "Brbrbrbrbrbrb!" (High-pitched motorcycle noise while she lifts her arm like a trunk -- it actually is the best elephant noise I've heard a child make)

Chicken -- "bak bak" (refers both to the animal and to the food. At least twice a week I have to go through the drive-thru, and all I have to do is ask Katie if she wants some "bak bak" -- chicken nuggets -- and I have one happy little girl)

Wolf -- "HOOOO-oooo!" as she points her mouth up to the sky

Tiny Talk example of the week: The word "Wheeeee!"

Katie's just learned the expression "wheeeee!" We use it when pushing her around the room on her fire truck or when pushing her in the swing or when going down the slide.

She had never used it in observation before, but we were watching a classic Sesame Street segment of gibbons swinging from rung to rung in a zoo. Since gibbons are similar to monkeys, I expected Katie to start making her monkey noise "Ay yi yi yi" (see this post to find out why that's the noise a monkey makes). Instead, as the gibbon swung from rung to rung, Katie started cheering it on: "Wheee! Wheee! Wheee!"

And tonight I was checking email while Katie was absorbed in watching Sesame Street behind me. Suddenly I heard her saying "wheeee!" and there were no gibbons swinging this time. She had climbed up on the coffeetable, and was using her "wheeee" to describe the adventure she was having. Note to self: Listen carefully for "wheee"s whenever Katie's out of sight. :-)

Katie Has An Important Announcement!

That's right, we're due March 20th with Baby #2. We hope to find out the gender on November 5. Please keep us in your prayers!

Mommy's 10 Year College Reunion: Boy She's Old!

Last weekend the three of us flew to Chicago for my 10-year college reunion. It was an exhausting but wonderful and fun weekend.

The flight there was the best flight with Katie so far -- there was an empty row of seats so she got her own seat in between us. Then we fed her some donut pieces at the beginning of the flight and she spent almost the entire flight bouncing in her seat and waving to everyone around us. When she started to crash after her sugar high, she fell asleep in my arms in minutes. Amazing. Thank God!

Once we landed, we decided to do a little sightseeing before my friends arrived. With our new GPS (thank you, Grammy and JayPa!), we were able to make several spontaneous detours without getting too lost. First up: Superdawg, a 1940s-style drive-in hot dog joint. John loved his burger, and the shake was so good we went back for a super sundae.


Next we drove over to Lakefront Drive to enjoy the views of Lake Michigan. We stopped long enough for John to hop out at Soldier Field and enjoy the spectacular architecture of the Chicago Bears' stadium.

That evening my three college roommates arrived, and spending time with Ruth, Karin, and Kelly (some of my best friends ever) was definitely the highlight of our trip. Here the roomies visit the suite where we first lived together our sophomore year (though we'd been inseparable since September of our freshman year):

We also lived together in an apartment our junior and senior years. Our senior year, we lived next door to an apartment that included Kelly's future husband, Jeff, as well as three other guys (Dan, Josh, and Jason) who became close friends. In this photo, that other apartment is represented by Rachel on the left, who was dating Dan that year and is now married to him with two kids; Josh making a muscle in the background; and Kelly on the right (my roommate and Jeff's wife) with one of their two children, Riley.

And here are the roomies with our unforgettable friend Duane.

While roommate time was wonderful, I also enjoyed my time reconnecting with friends I don't have as much contact with. Friday afternoon we met up with the professor I used to TA for who just got married for the first time at the age of 74! Then we met up with Emily and Morgan, a friend from home and her five year old daughter. And Sunday, just before we left to go home, we had lunch with one of my prayer partners from college, Amy, and her family (husband Kris, children Elena, Ian, and Anneliese). Here are photos from that fun afternoon:

Katie's highlights of the trip were playing with all the children she met -- Amy's three children, Kelly's daughter Riley, and Emily's daughter Morgan. She learned the word "baby" that weekend as well, and got to practice it on Anneliese. Unfortunately, a college campus isn't very babyproofed, and Katie has been sporting "war wounds" on her face this week from the four faceplants she did while in Illinois.

These Are a Few of Her Favorite Things...

Katie had her 15 month appointment this week (a few weeks late) and here are her stats. She's finally reached 20 lbs! Yea!

Weight: 20 lbs. (10th percentile)

Length: 31 inches (50th percentile)

Head: 46 cm. (50th percentile)

I thought the best way to give you an update on Katie's life was to get several of her favorite activities on film. Enjoy!

Katie's favorite things these days include:

Pulling (usually clean) clothes out of the laundry basket and putting them over her head. Often it's underwear (again, usually clean!). In this case, it was Daddy's undershirt, and Daddy named her "Katie the Friendly Ghost."

Drinking juice from her sippy cup. However, the doctor told me this week we need to replace her juice intake with milk. So far she's not drinking much but she's not complaining much either, which is good.

Climbing on everything -- me, chairs, tables, and in this case, the Terps beanbag chair that her Grammy and JayPa had just sent her.

Watching "Sesame Street". It's the only show I let her watch regularly, and we watch it several mornings a week. I also bought a retro Sesame Street Singalong DVD several years ago simply for the clip of Madeline Kahn and Grover singing "Sing After Me", and Katie loves it as much as I do (probably more, since I've heard it 10 times in the last week and need a break).

Eating spaghetti. WOW. My super-skinny baby doesn't eat much, but put a plate of spaghetti in front of her, and she will literally eat till she pukes. I've never seen anything like it.

Playing piano with Mommy. Usually she's sitting on my lap and playing nicely with her hands, but I guess "Good Morning Baltimore" from Hairspray was too exciting for her to sit still. In this video you can watch her accompany my screeching:

I need to update the Talking Tally too, but will do that in a later post. She's saying so many funny things -- what a fun age, and what a delightful daughter we have! I love her dearly.

Trying Out Single Parenthood

Don't worry! John and I are still as happy together as ever. But last week Katie didn't see us together for four days and John and I each had a chance to play "single parent" for awhile. Of course, the three of us would rather be together all the time! But I had to share the many adventures of last week.

Time With Daddy

On Sunday, Sept. 7, we all went to Baltimore to celebrate John's brother Jamie's birthday. The next day John had a doctor's appointment there, and I had a meeting closer to home, so we decided to have Katie and Bella stay with John and his parents in Baltimore while I went home and spent my first night without Katie. Boy did I miss everyone! And then they decided to stay in B-more through Monday dinner, while I had plans that night, so I didn't even get to see Katie before she went to bed that night. Sniff, sniff...

However, there was an unexpected blessing: I'd been trying to wean Katie but wasn't quite done yet. However, Katie and I were separated for 36 hours, so the weaning took care of itself! It was SO much easier than I had anticipated! So I thank God (and John and his parents) for that!

Time With Mommy

By the time Katie woke up Tuesday morning (and BOY was I happy to see her after my period of KatieWithdrawal!), John had left for 3 days of work travel. We both missed him very much. However, we had lots of adventures while he was gone.

Tuesday morning Katie and I had our first week of Community Bible Study (CBS) for the year. This year I'm a co-core leader for a group of moms with young children, and I'm really enjoying getting to know a bunch of new friends. Afterwards I had a leadership lunch, and although Katie was super tired, she perked right up when the plates of spaghetti and french fries showed up. In a later post, I'll show you what she looks like eating spaghetti. She doesn't tend to eat much usually, but when it comes to spaghetti, she usually eats till it starts coming back up! Anyway, her spaghetti-eating entertained the whole table of leaders.

Tuesday evening we hosted my former roommate, Jaime, who was here from Arizona on business, along with another couple (aka the parents of 11-month-old Kai, Katie's betrothed). Leave it to me to only take photos of the babies instead of the adults. Kai and Katie had a great time playing, especially in the ball pool:

But the real adventure began after Kai and his parents left. Jaime and I took Katie and Bella for a late-night walk since Daddy wasn't in town to do Bella's last walk of the day. And when we got home, Katie was missing her glasses!! Oh no!!! So Jaime and I spent an hour or so of our quality time together scouring the neighborhood with mediocre flashlights, trying to find the glasses. No luck (at least that night). But thanks anyway, Jaime!

After dropping Jaime off, I went home and baked a birthday cake for my best friend Sara, since I was having her and some friends over the next morning for playgroup. At 12:15 am I took the cake out of the oven, left it out to cool, and collapsed exhausted into bed.

Wednesday morning I awoke early with Katie. We took Bella on another walk along the same path we'd lost the glasses, but even in the daylight we couldn't find them. Sigh.

When we came back, I took a look at my poor birthday cake. There were 200 ants crawling all over it!! ACK!! I shook them off and did some quick panicked thinking. Could I still serve the cake, and just not tell anyone about the ants? Tempting, but no. Maybe stick a candle in it and tell Sara it's the thought that counts, even if she can't eat the cake? But what kind of best friend would I be then? Finally I decided I had no choice but to bake her another cake. So I did, and Sara was so blessed. It was worth it if it blessed her.

Before Sara came over though, I took a shower. Since Katie was awake, she had to hang out in the bathroom with me (usually I shower when she's sleeping, but she'd woken up earlier than usual that day). When Katie started fussing outside the shower door, I cracked the door so she could peek in and talk to me. But she pushed the shower door all the way open and climbed in with me, pajamas and all. Although she HATES it when I try to give her a shower, apparently it's totally fun when it's done on her terms. She ran around inside the shower with me, and I even got to shave my legs because she was having so much fun. Of course, she was drenched!

We had a great time that day with Sara and our friends. As our time together came to a close, I printed off ten flyers and my friends Sara and Kim walked around the neighborhood with me to help look for the glasses and to post flyers everywhere:

After we had posted all but one of the flyers and we were two houses from the end of the route, Kim found the glasses!! HOORAY FOR KIM! Someone had picked the glasses up and put them on a branch, and since I had been focused on the ground (where Katie would have thrown them), I never would have seen them there. I am so thankful to God and to Kim. Even worse than being out $300 for the glasses would have been having to be without glasses for Katie for several weeks till we could get a replacement pair. After all the progress her eyes have made, I really don't want to take any steps backward if possible. So, thank You Lord!!

(Incidentally, Katie came across the stack of flyers in the recycling pile tonight -- usually she has no interest in that pile but tonight she started laughing hysterically as she flipped through the pages, squealing, "Whoozdat?!! Whoozdat?!!" with each new photo of her. Of course, she knows exactly who that is!)

Wednesday evening I got to go to a fancy dinner that my client invited me to. They had bought a table there, and I had a wonderful time with my coworkers, with my brother Stephen (who is interning there this fall) and his fiancee Lindsey, and with several old colleagues that I got to see there. And I'm super-thankful to my "baby" brother Daniel (age 23) who stepped out of his comfort zone to watch a toddler that night so I could go. Thank you, Daniel!

Thursday we had my friend Abbie over with her 5 1/2-month-old Meghan. Katie loves Meghan and it's so funny to see them love on each other and play with each other's toys.

While we were still playing with Abbie and Meghan, Daddy came home! And it was one happy family reunion!

Happy birthday, Sara!

Sara and her son (and Katie's BFF) Daniel, Fall 2007

(l-r: me, Larry, Sara, Becky. and Bob at Sara's bachelorette party, 2002)

Tomorrow is my best friend Sara's birthday. For the last 6 years or so, Sara has been more than a friend to me -- someone who will tell it to me straight and yet love me nonjudgmentally no matter what I've done. One of the things I love most about our friendship is the lack of drama -- I rarely have to worry about stepping on her toes or having to watch my words around her. Even when I say stupid things around her, she shows me God's grace rather than taking my big mouth personally. And her prayers for me have been sacrificial and amazing. I've never had a friend like her, and I thank God for her.

Six years ago, when Sara was preparing to marry the wonderful man God had prepared for her and when I was just beginning to realize how much I treasured her friendship, I came across a song that put into words exactly how I felt.

"More Than You'll Ever Know" by Watermark

Something brought you to my mind today
I thought about the funny ways you make me laugh
And yet I feel like it's okay to cry with you
Something about just being with you
When I leave I feel like I've been near God
And that's the way it ought to be...

CHORUS:
'Cause you've been more than a friend to me
You fight off my enemies
'Cause you've spoken the Truth over my life
And you'll never know what it means to me
Just to know you've been on your knees for me
Oh, you have blessed my life
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah

You had faith, when I had none
You prayed God would bring me a brand new song
When I didn't think I could find the strength to sing
And all the while I'm hoping that I'll
Do the kind of praying for you that you've done for me
And that's the way it ought to be... (CHORUS)

You have carried me
You have taken upon a burden that wasn't your own
And may the blessing return to you
A hundredfold, oh yeah... A hundredfold, oh yeah... (CHORUS)