Now that I'm a mom I'm finding personality to be so intriguing. Kids are SO different, and it's very clear that a lot of personality is totally innate. But then you have to wonder, how much do we as parents impact our kids' personalities? Kate has been outgoing and independent every day of her little life - she totally skipped over the separation anxiety stage, and she loves to meet new people. We've enrolled her in a class at The Little Gym, and she could care less if I'm in the room, I swear. She just wants to do her own thing, on her own terms. There are some things the class does together, particularly at the beginning and end of class, and it's nearly impossible to keep her with the group if she thinks there's something else more fun to do. I did manage to get her to walk in the circle with me for a couple moments, though, by holding her hand (which she didn't fight). The rest of the time was pretty much a Kate free-for-all,  as she checks out equipment or visits the other parents and kids, try as I might to direct her attention. The other moms keep telling me how cute she is (because isn't she, after all, the cutest child you've ever seen? ), but she simply does her own thing which just makes me feel foolish for bothering to have her in the class. Twit! Anyway, this independence has me wondering...have Jay and I encouraged it? I suppose so, in our parenting - she's never slept in our bed (except for a few nights at the hotel in Seattle), we've always forced/let her to play alone for pretty long periods of time (I remember when I got a developmental email from Babycenter telling me that she was now old enough to play independently for 10-15min, and my mouth fell open - she'd be playing alone for 20+ min for at least a month at that point), and I think in general we don't coddle her very much. Praise, absolutely, but we don't fret over her. So, I guess independence is a natural offshoot of those practices. And, believe me, I highly value independence, and I'd be thrilled to have her turn out to be a strong, independent woman. But there are definitely times (everyday) that I wish she was a little more cuddly and - dare I say it? - a little more needy. You know, she's only going to be a baby once, and I feel like it sure would be nice to have a phase when she liked to snuggle at least a little bit. Ah well, they're all different, right? And, the grass is always greener - needless to say I'm thrilled with the way Kate is growing and learning and becoming her own person. Maybe as she gets a little older she'll give me a hug once in a while - that is, until she's too embarrassed to do so. *lol*

It turns out that it's only one word, so when I was researching online yesterday I wasn't getting the info that I really was looking for. So, now that I've done that research again, I'm finding out that this is really not a big deal. I just read that the growths (80% of cases are in kids under 2) normally go away on their own in one to two years, so I guess we'll see what things are like in 4-6 months. If it's continuing to grow significantly or if we think that her waistband is starting to irritate it, then I guess we'll opt to have it removed. But, if things stay just as they are, maybe we'll give it some time to do its thing. I'm sure adult Kate would prefer to not have a scar on her back from the removal if it can be helped...I should really take a picture of it for you all to see - it's such an odd color, all yellow/orange. Very strange.

OK, so don't you all just love these pics I posted? I think they are so cute, and I particularly love the first one where she's peeking from behind the door and then the ones on the slide. She is so freaking cute! Sorry, just had to let that out.  

Last night we went over to Claire's to help celebrate Molly's bday, and Kate loved that. Seeing the cousins (besides Aunt Claire and Uncle John, both of whom she loves), eating dinner with everyone, playing with wrapping paper - and cake, of course. She had a great time but happily did not complain when we headed home. It was past her bedtime, so I think she was just happy to move along with that process. I watched Anna and Molly this evening, so Kate got to play with them again - she loves this! Oh, funny story. Claire is over here nearly everyday because we work out in the mornings, and Kate sees her afterwards a couple of times a week. Then, Claire is here pretty frequently in the afternoons - normally just in and out, but Kate is used to her coming over (and she just loves Aunt Claire). So, yesterday I tell her that we're going to go see Aunt Claire, Uncle John, Anna, and Molly so we need to get our shoes and coats. She does her happy dance (she literally has a happy dance), and we get our gear from the hall closet. Well, once she was in the hall she wouldn't leave. She was pointing toward the front of the house, and whining, and pointing, and she'd come into the kitchen to get me, and point...finally I realized that she thought Aunt Claire was coming to us - and why not, she does most of the time. I thought that was pretty cute. She is pretty good at understanding what you say to her, but there are certainly many nuances that she doesn't understand - it wasn't until I started to talk about the car that she headed for the garage door rather than the front door. She's really so silly.

Oh, one more silly thing. I do not understand her taste buds! To my frustration, she won't eat some of the simple, 'kid' kinds of foods - she doesn't like peanut butter or scrambled eggs, for example - but she loves almost any 'adult' food you give her. It just cracks me up. Today I decided to see if she likes tuna salad. In the last couple of weeks we've discovered that she loves both egg and chicken salad, so why not tuna, right? I can think of a few reasons, but I decided to give it whirl anyway. Kate sits on the counter now to watch me prep food, and I had opened the tuna packet and put the tuna in a bowl. I was chopping up some celery, and she just reaches in the bowl and grabs a chunk of tuna. I thought, oh crap, this is going to be the end of the tuna salad experiment - but nope, she tasted it, smiled, and shoved that chunk right in her little mouth. WHAT?!?! I love tuna salad, but I don't think I could handle just eating tuna straight up like that. And, man, that is a seriously strong flavor. In any case, the tuna salad was a hit. She easily ate a half sandwich on whole wheat bread. She just cracks me up.

We took Kate to a dermatologist this morning to have her checked out. She has this growth on her back that the pediatrician didn't like the look of but didn't feel was urgent. To my recollection Kate had this little bump on the small of her back around 3 months of age. It's been growing bit by bit since, but in the last 3 months or so it's really grown quite a lot (it's 3.5mm across now). It also went from being just deep pink to being a yellow-orange color. Are you wondering why we never worried about this? Well, for one, it doesn't bother her in any way, and two, it wasn't really obvious that it was growing until recently. Anyway, the dermatologist thought it looked like a xantho granuloma due to its coloration - that's also what the pediatrician thought. It's totally harmless, and sometimes they just go away completely on their own. If not, it can easily be removed with a local anesthesia and will leave just a small 'spot' as a scar. We could have done it today, but the appointment ended up being at a horrible time for her, and there was no way that she was going to cooperate for the procedure. As the doc said, they want patients to be as old as possible for procedures like this simply from a cooperation point of view. So, we agreed to give it 4-6 months to see what happens. I assume it will keep growing - it shows no sign of slowing down - so I'm sure we'll have it removed at the next appointment. Poor Kate. Yeah, that's pretty much going to be horrendous, even though it's a small thing and probably would be nearly painless to an adult. One of our concerns, and the dermatologist's, is that it is located just above the top of her diaper, right at the point where her waistband touches. So we really don't want it to get aggravated by the rubbing of clothes and we definitely won't wait much longer to have it dealt with. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll just go away on its own...

Kate seems to have a few tendencies...It mostly manifests when food is involved. It started out that she had issues with the little 'strings' on her string cheese. I pull her string cheese apart and sometimes there are really thin pieces on the edges. About a week ago she started pulling these thin strands off and fussing until I removed them from her hand. She wouldn't eat as long as they were around. Well, now we've progressed to remove any little piece of food that could be considered a crumb. Small pieces of cracker, little chunks of pear...I'm supposed to take them away and make a display of getting rid of them somewhere. Ay. That, combined with the fact that she hates when her hands are dirty (she'll stand there looking at her hands with utter dismay until you help her wipe them off) makes me think that she might be a things-just-so kind of girl. I was that way, apparently, when I was little (not so much now, right Claire?).

She is at the start of the stage where her wants are made clear by Her Highness. We stopped at Claire's a little bit ago (Happy Birthday, Molly!) for just a few minutes, and as we were leaving I said to Claire, she's going to freak out when she finds out we're leaving. She did ok walking back to the car - until she saw the car. Then the waterworks started. Putting her in her carseat was a wrestling match between us as she flailed and arched her back as well as she could. She just didn't want to stop having fun with her cousins...She's happy 99% of the time, but when things don't go her way she can turn into quite the little banshee. Next stop - terrible twos!

I was telling Claire the other day that I really have preferred the winter weather in Virginia over Seattle, but that it kind of stinks that it's cold and ugly (no leaves) but without snow. Today, there is snow! It's really coming down, and I'm quite excited. Maybe, just maybe, it'll stick. As for the Seattle comparison...when you live in Seattle you tend to defend the weather there to non-Seattlites (it's always the first question when someone finds out you live in Seattle - doesn't it rain a lot?). No, it doesn't rain everyday, and after all it doesn't get very cold. The problem I always had with winter there was the darkness factor - the days in the winter are seriously short, much more so than you'd imagine. And, it's also the case that even though it doesn't rain everyday (because, really, it doesn't), it is very often gray, so even during the day when it could be light out, it still isn't. Here it's either yes, there's precipitation (not that often) or nope, no precipitation but sun instead. No grayness! Ah, that's been such a nice change. I do miss the stunning beauty of Seattle in the winter, though...

Oh, an update on yesterday. Kate ended up waking a few minutes after I posted my entry, for a grand total of 3hr 15min of napping. She struggled to get through the day without another nap, but she made it until 7 and slept late again this morning - 8:30. She went right back down for a nap at 9:45, though, so maybe we'll be able to have a pretty normal two nap day. I don't know why she's sleeping so late, but Claire and I have been joking that it's because Jay is home again. Over our Xmas trip she had started sleeping later - rather than 6:30 she was up at 7:30 - and that continued once we were back in VA (much to Jay's, her morning caretaker, delight). Jay left on his trip very early Sunday morning, and that morning she slept in until 8 like normal (she didn't know he was gone yet). Claire and I were able to work out and then I showered, had breakfast and read the paper - heaven! Monday everything changed, and the kid woke up the rest of the week by 6:10. I couldn't work out all week, and I had to shower during her nap (which I hate to do because it seems like a waste of my little alone time). This past Monday, she got up at 6:15. Jay came home that afternoon...Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - at least 8:00. WTH?? She'll sleep in for Daddy but for Mommy, no way! The little brat.

Yes, I'm back from my blogging hiatus, but don't get your hopes up. My number one priority right now is finding a job, and Spaces is a time sink, so I don't intend to be very active up here. That said, I am very delinquent in posting photos - I haven't posted house photos or those from Seattle, and now there are holiday photos as well. So, check back for new photo albums - I'll try to tell stories with the captions rather than in blog entries.

We had a great Christmas with my family in Rochester. Kate got a lot of new toys, and she's loving life now. She never actually opened any presents - she just kind of stared at us as we tried to show her how to rip the paper - but she loved to find out that there were toys or books inside that wrapping paper!

Jay took Kate to see his mom on the 26th, and it sounds like they had a great trip. Kate did well in the car for each of the long trips (7, 5 1/2, and 6 hours), so it looks like she'll be fine growing up with long-ish drives to see grandparents. I'll have no sympathy for her plight: when I was growing up we regularly drove 11 1/2 hours to Chicago, so 7 hours seems fine to me! Anyway, Kate behaved for Jay and he was able to keep her alive. *lol* She did have some issues for a few of the nights, and it sounds like she was wondering where I was. She's glad to have me back around, and she's been a little clingier to both of us this week than normal. Fine by me - I missed hugging the little squirt for the 5 days we were apart!

OK, just wanted to touch base. Come back later for photos!