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.