Memorial Day Pictures

Perspective

Kate has not been napping well the last couple days - she'll talk and sing and run back and forth in her crib, but will not fall asleep. Because of this, she's been pretty cranky in the afternoons and kind of generally driving us crazy. Yesterday, she didn't nap at all and also didn't get to bed until close to 9 PM. I figured she'd be really tired and would sleep in this morning, but shortly after I got up to feed our dog (who will wake us up by 5:30 AM if she has not been fed yet), I heard Kate yelling from her crib "Sadie - is that you, Sadie???" Paul and I tried to ignore her for a while until she started yelling "Dada, Mama, I wanna get out!" See - generally driving us crazy....

I went running with a friend this morning and afterwards, we went to get coffee. On the way to coffee, we ran into a man and his two sons who my friend knew because the guy's wife was a close friend of her sister's. We chatted with them for a few minutes and when we got back in the car to go home, my friend told me that this guy and his wife had had a daughter too. She was two years old and woke up one day throwing up. They figured she had the stomach flu, but when it didn't get better, they took her to the doctor, who admitted her to the hospital. They ran all kinds of tests and when they did an MRI, they found out she had a brain tumor - she was dead within three days. Stories like this make me physically ill. I don't know how people can survive that.

There is a woman in my neighborhood who was in the middle of a nasty divorce - her husband had a history of mental health problems and she had tried to get his visitation rights terminated because she was afraid about his mental stability. About two months ago, he took the kids for visitation and didn't return them. He had taken them to a hotel in Baltimore and drowned them all and then unsuccessfully tried to kill himself. The kids were 2, 4 and 6. I don't know how that woman gets out of bed in the morning. I bet she wishes her children were not napping and waking up early in the morning....

Some Recent Pictures

A Beautiful Memorial Day Weekend

Paul and I (okay - mostly me :)) decided to start this blog to keep friends and family updated on Kate's latest adventures and as a place to post pictures. I'll try to keep it updated with new pictures of her every few weeks.

This weekend so far has been beautiful! We had some friends over for dinner and Kate has such a great time playing with their son, Andrew. She also really enjoyed bossing him around (hmmm-I wonder who she gets that trait from????) I really love watching her grow up and begin friendships with other kids and I feel really lucky to have so many great friends with kids Kate's age right in the neighborhood.

As many of you already know, Kate is talking more and more every day - while it's great to hear her language develop, it's hard to get a word in edgewise or a moment of peace. She even talks to herself when she's supposed to be napping or sleeping. For example, I let her have a book ("Mama, Where are You?") in the crib with her at naptime today and an hour later, she was still "reading" the book (quite loudly) to herself. When she started "reading" a book that wasn't even in the crib with her ("Super Blankie"), Paul went in there and told her to go to sleep right now. It still took another half hour or so for her to be quiet - I think she really likes the sound of her own voice. And I'm beginning to re-think my previously held belief that the fact that my parents would pay me a penny for every minute I didn't talk as a kid was a pretty awful thing to do. Let me tell you - I am now saving all my pennies....