Walking!

An announcement for all of you that have been anxiously waiting for Katherine to walk...

She's walking!

Katherine started walking about 2 weeks ago. There's always the question, "do a couple of steps count as walking?" We got past that point, and it's definite now. She is walking all over the place and is getting pretty darn fast. She also likes to show us how she can climb up the stairs.

All of her motion makes it difficult to get a non-blurry picture, but here are a few.

12 Month Check-Up

Katherine had her 12 Month Check-Up on Wednesday. She got three vaccinations, was weighed and measured, and had the normal exam. She is 22.8 lbs. (75th percentile) and 31.5 inches long (97th percentile!). There was the normal crying with the shots, but she did fine.

In Maryland, children have to be screened for lead poisoning and anemia. They do this by drawing blood from their arm. We got this over with yesterday. As you can imagine, drawing blood from a 1 year-old is not an easy task. The lady that drew the blood was great and successfully drew blood on the first stick. I held K in a tight bear hug while Rob entertained her. Let's just say that she was NOT happy. She screamed, cried, and fought to get away. By the time it was finished, we got her sweater on, and went to Panera Bread for dinner, she had forgotten all about it.

Katherine is cruising around everything and is pretty darn fast. She will take a couple of steps to get to people or things she wants. Once she decides that she can walk, she's going to take off. Her eating is back to normal as her molars have stopped hurting. I think she has three out of four in. She has also graduated from her bottle and using cups (sippy, or with a lid and straw) exclusively with real milk or juice.

K is starting to say words like "cat", "duck", "bug", "Mama", "Dada", and "more". She started daycare three days a week and "Grandma and Grandpa-care" two days a week. We've noticed that being around other kids has really increased her babbling and talking.

Here are some pictures of Katherine being goofy. One is in the bathtub, the other is her giving a cheesy smile while playing in a box. The third picture is Katherine in her favorite position...upside down!

First Birthday!

Katherine's First Birthday was last Sunday. She had a good time and enjoyed being around close family and friends. Here are some pictures from the party.

Sailor Girl

Katherine has had two maritime "firsts" recently. She went sailing with us during my birthday party and she attended a boat christening. K is having more experiences during her first year of life than some people ever do!















She enjoyed sailing, with all of the sights that go with it. To our surprise, K tolerated the lifejacket well. It got a little warm and we took it off for a break. But she didn't mind putting it back on for the ride back to the marina.
















We attended a christening for my company's new articulated tug and barge unit. It was an impressive party with thousands of people, good food, pirates, music, a sandbox barge, and golf driving range. Katherine enjoyed all of the activity and was a complete doll during the 6 hours we were there.

Molars

The past week has been a challenge. Katherine is cutting at least 2 molars. I think I may have spotted a 3rd one this morning. They look painful. Katherine is handling them like a champ, but seems to be bothered when she eats. She had been eating chicken nuggets, meatballs, chunks of cooked veggies, and whatever she showed an interest in. For the past week she's been on basically a liquid diet. We're back to baby food and anything else she doesn't have to chew. Even the small pieces of carrot in the baby food meals appear to be painful. Poor baby!

The bright side is that she'll be able to eat even more of a variety of big-girl food once her chompers are completely in.