Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Reaching New Heights

Katrina seems to be growing taller every day. Unfortunately for me, this opens whole new doors for exploration, literally. All the doors in our house have handles, not knobs, and now that she can reach them she can open every door in the house, including the front door. Fortunately she can't unlock it, so that was taken care of pretty easily. The pantry, on the other hand is a whole other story. It is her FAVORITE door in the house. She opens it 25 times a day. If she stopped at opening I would be ok, but she is no fool. She knows what treasures lie within the recesses of the pantry. Didn't like the lunch mom made? There's pretzels in the pantry. Feeling the mid-afternoon munchies? There's graham crackers in the pantry. Just a little bored and looking for something to make mom's head spin? There's vanilla wafers, you guessed it, in the pantry. I'm not exaggerating, she does it all day long. I take one food item away with a stern no, and she just waits a minute and goes and gets whatever's next to it on the shelf. Then when that gets old she moves on back to her old haunt, the Tupperware cupboard.

She also isn't above attempting the subtle art of manipulation and girlish wiles. How do kids learn this stuff so early? When I catch her doing something she's not supposed to she looks up at me with eyes twinkling mischievously and says in her sweetest most innocent voice, "Hi". I have to hide my laughter behind a stern "Katrina". Sometimes I just can't resist her sweet "Hi" and sweep her into my arms and tickle her until she shrieks.
 Despite my frustration at putting the same thing back in the pantry for the umpteenth time, I can't help but marvel at how big my baby has grown. Part of me just loves this age. She is constantly learning new things, figuring out how things work and how she can maneuver them for her own benefit. She is finally old enough to actually play with Emily and I love watching them wrestle around giggling at each other. I'm probably totally biased, but she is such a smart little baby and I am constantly caught by surprise over the things she can do and understand. I could go on all day, but somebody's in the pantry again.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

The Piercing

Emily, a couple of months ago you reached an important milestone in a girl's life. You got your ears pierced. I know this is a somewhat controversial decision. Many parents feel kids should have to wait until they are in their teens before making such a decision. Other parents just go ahead and pierce them as soon as they are out of the womb. Your Dad and I land somewhere in between. We wanted it to be your decision, not something we arbitrarily did to you, but we didn't feel it was such a life altering decision you had to wait to be a teenager to make it. I got my ears pierced when I was two. I begged my parents until they said ok, and though I can't remember it I have never regretted my decision.
 
Anyway after some gentle use of power of suggestion from grandma, you said you wanted to get your ears pierced. We explained that it would hurt, and that you would have to take care of your ears and earrings by letting us clean them and not playing with them. You still insisted you wanted to do it. A couple of weeks went by and you stood firm on your decision. So off we went to get your ears pierced. You was so cute and serious during the whole thing. Of course you cried, but you have been so excited and happy about your earrings and tell everyone about them. You even included them in a self portrait you did at school.
There have been a few bumps in the road, but overall it has gone smoothly. We had two episodes of an earring accidentally falling out and having to put it back in. The first one was bad, I couldn't get it in and it was hurting, but after that it had healed more and it went back in pretty easily. We have been pleasantly surprised by how proud you are of your earrings and of yourself for being brave. You have also shown a lot of responsibility in reminding us to clean your ears. You have even showed added maturity in other areas, like deciding that you are too old to suck your thumb and quitting, pretty much cold turkey. So far I feel happy that we made a good decision, we'll see if you claim we mutilated you or something down the road. :) I love you sweet girl and you are beautiful to me with or without pierced ears!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Contemplation of a Cheerio


These pictures are several months old, but I just love them. Katrina knows four signs now and they all have to do with food, "hungry" "more" "milk" and "all done". That girl loves to eat! I'm glad I pulled out the camera one day and snapped away. Emily never sits still long enough to take these kinds of close ups and Katrina is fast outgrowing this stage too. These pictures make me think of the simple pleasures in life, and how much I love kissing those fat cheeks.



















What are you doing Mother?























 




  




 



 
















                                         Milk is umm, umm good