Dear Kate (or Hoover as Daddy likes to tease you),
Girlfriend, you can pretty much eat anyone in this family under the table. You love anything and everything food and drink related. You’re favorites are any kind of berry. You also love noodles, ice cream, graham crackers, cheese, melons, chips, goldfish, cheese-its, vanilla wafers, chicken, corn, tomatoes, tortillas, broccoli, hot dogs, hamburgers, rice, eggs, pancakes, sausage, french toast and the list goes on and on. The one thing you haven’t really loved is cereal and toast, but you will eat it if you don’t have anything else.
During meals, there is usually a mad scramble to find additional food to feed you. You’ll eat everything I’ve given you and sign more so we dig through the cupboards to find something to fill you up. When you are hungry, watch out! You’ll start saying mumumum, which eventually turns into yells of ‘Aheeeeee’ until we put something in your belly. You’re also always very thirsty. You drink whole milk and water from a sippy and will easily cash an entire cup in one sitting. This month, you’ve also figured out/realized there is a special spot on the tray in your high chair for your cup and will regularly place it there.
Your 8th tooth (bottom left side) finally popped through. So now you have 4 on top and 4 on the bottom, which is really helping with the hoover status mentioned above.
We also spent a week up north at a cabin right after your birthday with the Sampson family. We celebrated your birthday up there and you enjoyed lots of attention and lovin’ from your grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
You’re relationship with your siblings continues to blow me away. William loves to be around you and love on you with hugs and kisses. He sings songs to you when you’re upset and is always trying to make you laugh. You and Lexi have a special language with one another. For years, she has done what we call ‘baby bird’ where she makes two spine-tingling high-pitched noises that sounds like what a baby bird would do. Recently, you’ll respond to her in s similar high-pitch noise that mimics her inflection and tone. The two of you will go back and forth to each other several times with your bird call
No walking yet, but I would guess by the end of the summer. You pull yourself up on everything and zoom scoot along furniture, but you haven’t started to stand unsupported or move from sitting to standing without holding onto anything, but I think you’re close. Sleeping is your jam and I hope you never grow out of that. You go down around 8 or 8:30 and sleep until 7:30ish. You’ll nap twice a day most days. First nap is 2-3 hours and the second is an hour and a half to two hours. All we do is give you paci and a stuffed animal pal and you shut your eyes before I turn off the slight and shut the door. So amazing and easy!
Words:
- Mamamama
- Dad
- Mumumum aka num num num which means food
- attempt to say all done, but it is really just a ‘ah-d’
Loves: Paci, Bunny, Food, Drinking, scooting (just moving in general), stroller rides, laughing at Lexi and William, mama, dada, Peek a boo, Guess Who book, Brown Bear Brown Bear, Who Says Quack, getting into Lexi and William’s toys, swimming/bath
Dislikes: diaper changes, sitting still (even to read books) snuggling (but will do it occasionally now), Toys–you only want to scoot around, wearing a lifejacket,
Nicknames: Kate the Great, Beetle, Hoover, Beetle-the-etle (which has morphed into etle; which has morphed into Eatsie (I think that’s how those names came about).
One evening we were watching Lexi play soccer and you leaned forward out of the chair you were sitting in and nose-dived into the foot of another lawn chair. You immediately developed a goose egg on your forehead and refused ice to help any swelling. Thankfully, the goose egg disappeared by the next morning, but left you with a nice little bruise on your forehead.
Around the 4th of July, we went to the beach and you loved sitting in the water splashing around and amazingly didn’t eat a ton of sand. We also purchased a medium-sized pool and you love to kick around in there with me.
We also spent an afternoon out on Papa’s new boat. You really hate your lifejacket, but were much happier when we stopped the boat and you could crawl around jacket free. You even took a snooze in one of the chairs. We laid you down, gave you your bunny, paci, turned the sound machine on and put a towel over the chair to make it a little dark and you were out.
Finally, we rounded up your 13th month up at the Bothwell cabin. You had lots of fun playing with your cousins and enjoying the fresh crisp air of the north shore.
It was a busy and fun month. Watching you grow, learn and experience new things is such a joy and I love every inch of you my sweet girl.
Love, Mama
Peanut Smiles 