Kate slept all night last night without her binky! She didn’t ask for it at bedtime, and I didn’t offer it, and she didn’t cry for it after I put her in bed.
She hasn’t used a binky during the day for a while now, just at night and nap time.
But now I have hidden her binkies and am hoping that she is done with them.
Kate continues to amaze us.
Hayley likes to play on the floor, tumbling and jumping and rolling around. And, as Kate spends most of her time trying to do everything Hayley does, Kate usually tries to jump and tumble as well. Her jumps of late have just been her bouncing up on her toes.
But tonight, Kate surprised us by doing a complete flip on the floor, putting her hands and head down and throwing her feet over to land on her back. Once she saw that we were impressed, she tumbled over and over again.
Then in the kitchen, Kate managed to completely leave the floor when she jumped. Not by more than an inch or two, mind, but there was definitely space between the soles of her feet and the kitchen floor.
On an unrelated note, I finally took Kate for her 18-month well checkup (though now she’s nearly 19 1/2 months old). She’s in perfect health, weighing 22 pounds, 8 ounces, and she’s 33 1/2 inches long. She’s tall for her age, but only in the 20th percentile for weight (though this is normal on Kate’s growth curve). She got two shots today and only cried for a few seconds before I was able to distract her.
Despite the fact that Kate is a very sweet and smart girl, she is also very much into her “terrible twos” and is beginning to throw little tantrums more frequently. I know this is normal behavior and I remember going through it with Hayley around this same age, but it is still difficult and embarrassing to deal with in public. I try not to get too frustrated with her and try to employ the lessons I learned from dealing with Hayley now with Kate. But I will definitely be a happier mommy when this stage of her development is over.
I think I’ve figured out Kate’s role in the current house dynamic. Her job is to act as a hype man to her older sister.
Conversations generally go something like this:
Hayley: “Daddy, we had a busy day.”
Kate: “DAY!”
Hayley: “We went to the zoo, and saw the giraffes.”
Kate: “ZOO! RAFFE!”
Hayley: “They reached their necks up into the trees to get something to eat.”
Kate: “TREE!”
(etc, etc, etc)
If she starts wearing an oversized clock around her neck, we’ll know for sure.
Kate had a milestone moment tonight.
We have noticed that she tends to pee right after she takes a bath. She used to pee in the bath; then, as she got older, she’d hold it until after the bath, and pee on the floor. Needless to say, Mommy learned to quickly diaper Kate after her bath.
Kate has been interested in people using the potty for a couple months, wanting to “wipe” herself and sit on her own little potty, but never doing anything in it.
But tonight, for the first time, Kate peed in her potty! I praised and praised her but it was hard to know what she was thinking. She seemed surprised that she did it, even though she has seemed to be aware of her body’s functions for a while now (she almost always tells me when she poops, and sometimes when she pees, in her diaper).
Who knows if tonight was just a fluke or if Kate will continue to use her potty, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. She’s still so young that I know it will be a while before she’s potty trained, but I will continue to have the potty available in case she wants to use it.
In other news, we’re all settling into life in San Antonio. We’ve been to the zoo, the library, the River Walk, the Alamo, and we have a little inflatable pool in the backyard where the girls like to splash and play. Kate’s language continues to develop in leaps and bounds. It’s like having a little parrot in our house. She’s so close to talking in real sentences. I think Hayley misses playing with kids her own age but we’re hoping she’ll meet some friends at her performing arts camp in a few weeks. Our neighborhood seems nice but there really aren’t any kids around for Hayley to play with.