She May Look Happy Now, But...

She sure wasn't earlier in the day!! For the first time since joining her gym in January, Traci decided to take Katie with her so that she could actually work out before 8PM. One of the reasons that Traci chose this gym was because their kids' daycare looked decent. Boy, was Traci looking forward to a whole HOUR to herself in the middle of the day!!! When we got there, Katie was so excited to see all the mirrored walls, bright lights, and cool equipment. She even took a liking to the daycare room, with all of its cool toys. Traci thought, "This could go really, really smoothly..." So, Traci stepped out of the room without looking back and went for a nice run on the treadmill. A half an hour later, she decided to peek back at the daycare room. What she saw just broke her heart - there was Katie, pounding on the glass wall, crying her eyes out, staring right at Mama. Traci cut her work-out short and went to the daycare room, only to be told by the worker that Katie started crying the minute that Mama left the room. I guess she had been staring at me on the treadmill the whole time. Sigh.... At least she took a good midday nap after that cry. (The above picture is a pity move by Mama later in the day at Babies 'R Us.)

Crazy Local Wildlife

So, Katie, Traci, and buddies Maureen and Connor (15 months) were walking around the beautiful Burke Lake today when we came upon this crazy deer. As you can see from the photo, we were quite close to the beautiful creature, but it could have cared less about us or the other humans walking/running the lake. In fact, it kept on munching on the grass, only feigning slight interest when somebody yelled or cried. I couldn't understand why this deer was so non-chalant about all the humans...if this had been western PA, that thing would have bolted at the first scent of a person. Any thoughts - mad-deer disease? Used to humans? Just really, really hungry?

And, just to illustrate that Burke Lake has more than one species of crazy wildlife, here are two more - Homo Kateian and Homo Connorus.

Katie's Spot

It's that time of year again...our household has officially turned into a total Sports Watch Zone, where we spend hours parked in front of the TV watching Cubs play-off baseball, Notre Dame football, and the whole gamut of NFL football. Katie noticed that Daddy and Mommy always parked on their favorite chairs/couches, so she asked us for a special spot. We pulled her Elmo couch downstairs, and now you can often find her there rooting on our favorite teams. Go Cubs/Irish/Steelers/Lions!!!

Clean-Up Time!

We're TRYING (key word = trying) to teach Katie a little bit more responsibility as she gets older and more independent. One of the things we want her to get used to is cleaning up her toys. Every night we have "clean-up time," which sometimes goes well and sometimes not. She's still at an age where you have to give her very specific directions, such as "Please put the orange block in this plastic bag." Many times she's thrilled to help out, but... just seconds later, she's pulling out other toys. We, the parents, are probably learning more than Katie in this whole process: specifically, how much PATIENCE is required in raising a child.

Coo-Coo-Coo

If you haven't noticed the KRM dictionary to the right, you may not realize that Katie calls trains "coo-coo-coo" (as in choo-choo). She had a ton of fun playing with some cool coo-coo-coos at Barnes & Noble today with her buddy Patrick (2 years). Thankfully, the book store has a rather large children's section hidden away from the rest of the store. That allowed Traci and friend Kim to keep their eyes on the little crazy ones as they ran from the train track to the truck book section to the reading stage.


Here's a shot of Katie and Patrick reading a truck book...they HAD to have the same exact one. The stage in the background was where Katie and Patrick practiced their burgeoning jumping skills. Yes, we were in a book store.

Post-Bath Dance Party

As promised, here is a video clip of Kate's latest post-bath routine...

We Heart Mr. Don!

Katie and Connor (14 months) went on a new adventure today. They, and about 20 new little buddies, enjoyed the music of children's entertainer/folk singer Mr. Don at a local coffee shop. Mr. Don played kids' favorites (think Old McDonald), fun adult songs (Yellow Submarine), and some original stuff while the kids shaked their tushies and maracas. (We now realize that all you need to keep kids really, really happy is some fun music and a gym-bag-full of noisy maracas.) Katie was certainly strutting her stuff at the front of the pack - you could usually find her standing right next to Mr. Don. It was a nice excursion for Mom and friend Maureen - we could talk freely way in the background.