10/3/07 Katrina's self-image

Katrina now loves to look at herself in mirrors, pointing excitedly and identifying herself as "da-da." It's very cute! Now it seems like every few days, she does something new in terms of pointing or speaking or putting them together. Pointing especially, she does it constantly, and it's getting a shade less random each time.

Here she is pointing at herself in the mirror and giggling:


No progress on the walking front though. I sure am looking forward to it though! For one, when she's walking, we can start losing the crotch-snapping onesies that complicate diaper changes. For another, she keeps crawling under chairs or tables and getting stuck and crying. And, of course, it's so cute! As I was reminded by Saul last Sunday, who's toddling around like a champ. And was so cute.

On the whole, we've never had battery-powered toys, with a few exceptions, like trains that have toot sounds in them. One toy, however, stands out as being a really, really good, a gift we got Gabriel was 9 months old. It's supposedly a language learner toy, though I really doubt it does anything to teach Spanish or French, but it's got lots to do, with different non-obnoxious sounds, some mechanical things to operate, and -- whooowee -- a volume control! Now it will see a third baby through at least a year of fun with it. Not to mention, older brothers.

Anyway, I pulled this toy out of the garage today to try to keep Katrina busy while making dinner, and she loved it. She was laughing and giggling so much playing with it that I tried to take some video. However, I captured something else too: Gabriel had been instructed to stay behind me and not touch the toy while I was taking the video. But notice how he sneaks in to play with it, taking advantage of the fact that I was occupied with the camera, then he does exactly what drives me crazy: takes over the toy. But Katrina takes it back, twice! That whole interaction is almost more interesting than her delight with it, which was hard to capture anyway.



Third day in a row of picking Gabriel up right from school, though I had to stretch Katrina a bit to make that happen. I think I'm converging on a pattern now: I always use the CDC in the morning; it turns out that dropping Gabriel off at 10:30 is astoundingly inconvenient every day. But I really really like having him home in the afternoons. I like having everyone home, actually, and I think I can foresee that when I go back to work, I'm still going to want to have everyone -- including me -- home after school. After-school activities, sure, but at the moment, I'm thinking that avoiding 6pm pickups and starting dinner and homework and all that so late seems like the thing to avoid. Most of the moms I know do it though! Then again, I know a whole lot of super Supermoms, and it seems I'm just not one of them. As though that's some sort of new insight! Hah!

Fortunately, on the whole, other than keeping the boys off of Katrina and her toys, it's fun having them all home together. And, today I joined the PTA (well, gave them money, anyway), and maybe I can start to get to know other parents to help out with the future toddler-afternoon-nap problem.

10/3/07