This Week in Mommyhood

Cati's second tooth finally broke through! It must have been an incredibly painful process because I felt like this tooth affected her more than the first tooth. She didn't eat anything other than her milk for days. Or rather, she would eat one spoonful of solids at every meal and decide it was too much work to continue eating. The only things she was actually willing to eat were cold things like jell-o and string cheese. The little tooth is adorable!

I started giving Cati cow's milk this week. Somewhere along the line I miscalculated how much milk I had in the freezer for her and, as a result, I only have enough frozen milk to get her to 11.5 months versus 12 months. I figured it would be a good thing to start giving her cow's milk little by little to help stretch out the breast milk and to start getting her used to drinking that instead. So far her response has been positive and she eats her cereal with no problem. Giving Cati milk excites me for all the new things she's going to be able to taste once she hits the one year mark, like chocolate cupcakes!

Cati started music class this week and it was an interesting experience. They gave her a bag of wooden instruments and she was interested in them for all of two minutes. As soon as the class started and she had to actually use the instruments, she was over them. Cati is at the stage where she wants to walk around and has to be in constant motion. One of the activities was having Cati face me while I pointed out her facial features and every time I positioned her in front of me, she would wiggle and squirm until I let her turn around. She was also really interested in the other kids which was great considering she doesn't really interact much with kids her own age (or kids at all). My favorite part of the class was at the end when the instructor played a song on the piano: Cati moved to the middle of the room and actually started dancing. I nearly died of cuteness overload.

Emotions are developing at such an amazing pace. I remember when I used to tell Cati "no" and she would ignore me or when I would remove her from someplace I didn't want her to be and she was easily distracted with something else. Now if I tell her "no" she cries as if I have hurt her feelings and if I move her away and try to distract her she gets pissed and throws a fit. It's amazing to see such a range of emotions in a human so young.

Ahh, walking. I remember when parents would tell me life got busier once the baby started walking. They were not kidding. Life is a million times busier now that Cati is walking really well. She rarely crawls anymore and like I said earlier, she needs to be in constant motion. If I'm in one room she will walk to the other. Then she laughs when I chase after her like it's the best game on the planet. She also likes to play the "let's throw everything on the ground, watch mommy pick it up, and then throw it again" game. Drives me nuts! Although when she does things like bringing me her favorite book (the touch-and-feel one she sits on), the back-and-forth doesn't seem bad at all.

Cati will be one in 22 days and for the first time in her whole life I feel like I didn't get enough pictures of her this week.