15 months!

First of all, my beloved sister, Caroline's fabulous Aunt Katherine, is now a Certified Professional Midwife!!!! She passed her board exams! She graduates in June and Caroline and I will be out there to celebrate. 15 months ago her presence made a world of difference at C's birth. We are SO proud of her! Not surprised at all, but SO PROUD! Go Aunt Katherine! Catch some more babies!

Here's our beautiful girl earlier this evening shortly after she climbed up on a trunk at the end of the bed and then up on to the bed! She then laughed with glee!






Such events are common lately... moments when she takes it upon herself to make something happen... turning things on and off, opening and then closing doors, drawers, what have you, banging on drums or piano keys, and perhaps the most delightful... feeding us! Rather than dropping food off her tray when she's tired of eating, she motions to us to lean in and feeds us bit by bit. She won't take "all done" from us though. So long as there is food on her tray, she wants us to eat it! She's big into closing doors, including car doors. When Kev gets her out of the car she starts grinning and leaning in. She puts an open palm to the window and pushes (with a bit of help from daddy) the door closed.

The word of the week this week seems to be "Sock." It sounds like "Sssah" and she uses it to refer to socks and shoes. She looks at us like we're silly when we try to teach her "shoe" and then says "sssah!"

She tends to greet Kev or me, after being separated for any length of time at all, with a big "Ha-ee!"

She seems to have grown immensely. I've very curious what we'll learn at her next appt. Her 12 month footed pjs are almost too short. She wears 18 month clothes now just fine.

Caroline seems to have great rhythm. She'll dance or pat her leg to a steady beat along with something she's listening to. She also occasionally seems to sing along with music. Other times it seems she sings to herself. It is so sweet to see.

She had her first middle of the night puke session about 2 weeks ago, on a Saturday night. She then seemed fine, but spiked a fever a few days later. And the last few days she seems to have come down with a cold. Her sleeping was very messed up the first night of the cold. Kev bore the brunt of it, bless him, getting only 2 hours of sleep the whole night.

Last night was better... we can only hope tonight will be better yet. Though she fell asleep on the drive home from picking me up and is fighting bedtime tonight.

Caroline is just starting to have some interest in the potty. With some encouragement from us she peed in the big toilet this evening and seemed to know what the toilet paper was for. Shortly thereafter I put a diaper on her. The next thing I know she has run out of the room, run into the bathroom in which her potty sits at the moment, and closed the door behind her. When I got in there she was trying to sit on her potty. I took her diaper off and sat her on it. She peed a bit. She then stood up and peed all over her pjs and the floor. Oh well... and least she's showing some interest.

With her occasional illnesses her eating has been a bit erratic, but if there's chocolate in the house she seems to have a magnet for it and will not relent until she gets some... the past few days she's really been eating well again (and feeding us well, too!)

Below are several pics from the last month. Thanks for your patience. It is SO hard to stay on top of blogging these days.

One fine Sunday...





A cozy afternoon with daddy and a book...


In Christmas PJs on Valentine's Day just after eating a V-Day chocolate... Aunt Katherine seemed horrified that we let her have one... she was not horrified at all... she was quite pleased. It was Valentine's Day. There were three in the box... She only had one.


A visit from a Div Student who has a vision of starting a L'Arche community in Nashville. Sometimes now C warms right up to strangers... (She's doing her sign for eat in this pic!)


A recent visit to the zoo with friend Julie... though Julie isn't in any of these pics... how did we manage that? Many of the animals weren't out because it was too cold for them, but the goats in the petting zoo, Caroline's favorite animals thus far, were out! Hooray! She pet one and as she did she said "Sof." She definitely knows "soft!" She also seemed to pay attention to other animals more on this visit. She really watched the meer cats scuttling about and keeping up their posts. She even giggled a bit when they'd come close to the glass.






Another great picture Julie took while visiting last weekend...


Several random pics from daddy's cell phone...