This Week in Mommyhood

I feel like this has been a huge week in development. Or if not, it’s just been a week full of so many great firsts. At the beginning of the week Cati jumped on me wrestling-style and it was the funniest thing. She always comes to me and likes to play on me when I lay down on the floor, but this time she actually threw herself on top of me. I love how she shows affection.

Cati got scared this week and did the crawling equivalent of running. I had a bag of craft scissors on the bookshelf in the family room and when she pulled it off it fell to the ground it made a loud sound. The sound scared Cati, she crawled (crying, nonetheless) to me, and because this was all so entertaining, I laughed. As soon as she saw me laughing, she calmed down and went back to the bag of scissors to investigate. It’s as if seeing my reaction helped her reevaluate her reaction to what happened and she realized there was nothing to be afraid of. It's little things like this that make me feel great about how attached Cati is to me. 

Cati's motor skills are developing at a rapid pace this week. She can bounce while standing, can keep her grip on things when I pick her up (before she would drop whatever she was holding), finally understands what she's supposed to do with finger food, tries to climb on the sofa, and, get this! She is starting to take little steps! It’s only one step at a time and after each step she falls. Cati needs to figure out how to take a step and maintain her balance. I wonder how long that will take.

The cutest thing Cati does is makes noises when she wants more food “dah” (“mas”). I also think she calls Perla “go” because every time I ask “donde esta Perla?” she looks for her and says “go.” I think she might have gotten that from me always saying “go Perla.” It also dawned on me that the first word Cati understood was "bouncy." Long before she knew la manito, palmitas, hi, and bye she knew that "bouncy" meant to bounce up and down. I think she's been able to go "bouncy" on demand since about 7 months old.

Cati is quickly growing out of some of her 9-month outfits, especially her PJs. I put on 12-month PJs this week and it was a shock. It's always the little things that make you realize how quickly your baby is growing and how far she has come in terms of development. The feet on 12-month PJs had rubber grips on the bottom. That means the makers of 12-month PJs are assuming you have a walker by the time your baby is fitting in that PJ. Cati will always be my baby but it's hard to continue thinking of her as a baby when she's going to be doing things like walking.

I predict lots of exciting thing to happen over the next month. I'm hoping teeth and walking are two of the things!