I love my little Katie bug so much! Before she was born I was never a huge "baby" person. Yeah, I thought babies were precious and liked holding my nieces and nephews, but I was never the type that would work in the church nursery or rush to hold anybody's baby. That all changed with Katie. After having her, I LOVED the baby stage... holding and cuddling with her, I was so excited about every little new thing she did like when she first started looking at us, recognizing our voices, cooing, etc. I remember saying "This baby stage is my favorite. I wish she would just stay like this forever." Then she grew up and started sitting up, then crawling, walking, talking and every time she grew up a little and started new things, I would say, "Well, now I think this is my favorite age." She's almost 3 years old now (wow, where did the time go) and I still haven't stopped saying that. Yes, she's 2 and is really good at whining (she gets that from her mommy) and throwing fits, but she is learning so much every day and I just love it. I've always said that's what I like best about teaching kindergarten... It's so exciting to see the tremendous growth they go through in that 1 year. Well now I'm seeing that in my sweet little girl. She says the cutest, most random things and makes us laugh every single day! I've started a collection of funny things she's said and done over the last few months and here they are...
She loves putting on her "ballet skirt" (tutu) and "doing ballet". And she likes watching "mommy's dance show" (So You Think You Can Dance). I've actually gotten Andy to watch a few episodes with me because Katie will beg us to watch mommy's dance show. I'm planning to put her in a dance class this school year since she'll be 3 and that's when most studios start classes. I can't wait to see her all dressed up in her little dance wear and learning how to dance.
She's had some pretty good falls that have scared me a little bit, but at Memaw and Papaw's house a couple of weeks ago she got her 1st huge goose egg. She was sitting on the couch with Lindsay (totally calm and not even playing around) when the phone rang. Lindsay got up to answer the phone and before she even made it to the phone, Katie had climbed on the back of the couch and fell head first on the wood floors then flipped on her back. I rushed over to check on her and she already had a golf ball size knot on her forehead. This picture was after 30 minutes of ice! Poor baby I'm sure she had a huge headache but she did really good. She asked for ice to put on her head and let me hold it on and off of her knot while she watched Dora. I think she had a bruise on her head for over a week!
Before Hannah was born, we talked about her a lot with Katie and since we induced we were able to count down the days with Katie until her baby sister came to meet her. One night when I was putting Katie to bed, she randomly said, "Guess what Mama!" "What?" "Hannah's going to see me!" She was so excited to meet her baby sister and has loved every minute of having her here.
She loves buckling things... Hannah's car set or bouncer, Katie's car seat, the straps in her booster seat. She can't unfasten most of them yet and I'm thankful for that. She can unfasten 1 part of her carseat and tried to undo it in the car once. Only once. Andy and I got on to her pretty quick and told her NOT to touch her carseat buckles while we're driving. Just from raising our voices at her she was pretty scared and I hate to say it, but I'm glad we scared her because she hasn't tried to unbuckle herself while driving again.
Katie likes to play with Hannah's stuff now. Hannah has a little wrist rattle that Katie likes to put on. At storytime yesterday Katie crawled into Hannah's carseat. We recently pulled down Hannah's Bumbo seat and Katie likes to sit in that too.
Katie is such a night owl. She doesn't nap a whole lot and stays up very late at night. She gets that from her daddy. She's never been a big napper at school. That all started in her 12-18 month class at school when they got rid of the cribs and started napping on nap mats. Her teachers told us she would go around to all the other kids in the room, stand over them, and say "baby, baby, baby" until they woke up then she would move on to the next one. In her 2 year old room this year, we got notes about 2-3 times a week saying she did not nap. Often times NO NAP was written in all capital letters, underlined, and with several exclamation marks. There were days she was kicking the wall, going around and trying to wake up her friends, etc. I have to say in her defense, they nap VERY early in the morning. 11:30! She doesn't wake up until at least 8:00 most days and goes to bed around 8:00. So 11:30 isn't anywhere close to the middle of the day for her. But she doesn't nap much at home either. We usually put her down for nap around 1:00 or 2:00. We hear her playing in bed... singing and talking to herself, making silly noises, looking at books, and playing with her stuffed animals. When we finally go to get her up 2 hours later or so, she will finally be asleep.
She does the same thing at night. We always go in to cover her up before we go to bed because she doesn't stay tucked in after we put her to bed at 8:00. Last night when Andy went to tuck her back in around 11:30, she was still awake! If I try to put her in bed with me while Andy's out of town, she DOES NOT sleep. I've had her in bed with me as late at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning before I finally give up and put her back in her own bed. Andy and I wonder how late she would really stay up if we just let her stay up with us all night.
She has no problem going to her bed for nap or night night most of the time though and stays in bed the whole time. She likes being in her bed and will entertain herself literally for hours in there. I've even started telling her that when she wakes up from nap or in the morning, she can get out of bed and play. She doesn't have to wait for me or Andy to come get her. She's so content and quiet when she gets up in the morning, I can't use her as my "alarm clock" anymore because even with a baby monitor in her room, I don't hear her and know when she wakes up. Even after me telling her she can get up on her own, she still waits for us and stays in bed until we come get her.
Katie watches sports with Andy and has heard Andy say "There's no crying in baseball." So one night when Hannah started crying, Katie told her, "Don't cry in baseball!"
Andy was talking on the phone during the NBA playoffs and said that the Mavs were playing on ABC that night. Katie heard "ABC" and started singing her alphabet. She's listening even when we don't think she is.
She was playing the other day, coloring, and just out of nowhere she said, "Bluetooth ready!" That's what our car says when we press the bluetooth button to make a phone call... Listening even when we don't think she is.
She listens to us when we're on the phone now and likes to play with her toy phones. She will walk around the house holding the phone on her shoulder and just talks away... "OK. I'm coming over soon. Yes. I'll be there in a little bit. Ok. Bye." When we ask who she's talking to she usually says, "grandma."
Katie loves playing with games on my phone (the iphone has a ton of great apps for kids). I don't mind this because she learned all her colors and shapes pretty quick from playing games on my phone. She even knows what a hexagon is! She's learning patterns, numbers, letters, letter sounds... It's great. She also likes doing her puzzles. The teacher in me can't just let her put a number or alphabet puzzle together on her own. I lay out 3-4 letters at a time and tell her which one to put on her puzzle. about 90% of the time she can pick out the right letter and knows her letters to 10 pretty consistently. We're working on her naming the letters in her name without help. She still needs help doing that, but she's getting there.
We were telling her what some of the letters "are for" one night while she was doing her puzzle... "C is for cat, A is for apple, etc" Andy told her "J is for Jack-a-moe!" Now Katie will tell you "J is for Jack-a-moe!" all the time.
Wearing her In N Out Burger hat she walks around saying "Ahoy Captain Hook!" (She's never seen Peter Pan.)
Several months ago I made muffins for breakfast. When Andy was getting her ready for school and gave her a muffin she got really excited and said, "Cake? I get birthday cake for breakfast?" Andy went with it and said, "Sure." She replied with, "Thank you Daddy" and proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday to Daddy."
She still loves Dora and Diego. She would watch them all day if we let her. And she loves Veggie Tales too. She goes upstairs and plays in her room by herself now sometimes. She was very quiet one day up there so I went to check on her and she was just sitting in her chair listening to her Veggie Tales music. Not playing or anything. Just listening to her music.
We read her Bibles often for bedtime stories, say our bedtime prayers and sometimes say prayers to talk to God throughout the day, etc. Katie got her 1st skinned knee last weekend and told me, "It broke. I can't fix it." Then she told me "Jesus will make it all better." When we said our night time prayers that night, we asked God to help her booboo get better. It's still scabbed over, healing and she tells me every day, "I have a booboo. Jesus made it feel all better." So sweet. I love my little girl!
She always notices sounds and asks, "What's that Mama?" We were playing outside one day when we saw a couple of planes in the sky. After the 1st one flew over our house then out in the distance so we couldn't see it anymore, Katie started saying, "Come on plane! You're in the sky!" She wanted the plane to come back. A minute or 2 later, a smaller plane flew over our house. She told us it was the "baby plane going to the mommy plane."
Katie loves being a big sister and helping Hannah all the time. She finds Hannah's paci, stuffed animals, and blankets and likes to bring them to her. She usually just calls her Hannah, but if you ask her to introduce her baby sister to someone, she introduces her as Hannah Banana. We didn't teach her that. She just started saying that one day before we had Hannah. I guess she heard her teachers say that at school maybe? She has a Hannah in her class at school.
When Hannah was about a month old and going through her several weeks of a very fussy stage, crying a lot, we were all in the car together. Katie was singing when Hannah started crying. Katie then started singing "Hannah stop crying. Hannah stop crying." to the tune of "Where is Thumbkin."
The list could go on even longer. Like I said, she makes us laugh every single day with the cute random things she says and does. I thank God every day for my 2 sweet girls and can't imagine life without them. They are such blessings!
