Update!

I swear that I'm not nearly as horrible of a mother as I am at blogging on this site..its just that between baby bootcamp and the butte to butte run and myspace and facebook and yahoo..and actually, just enjoying every delightful day with my Katie girl, this just kind of got away from me. So, heres a little snippet of our summer.....

1. Katie's walking, well, stumble, tumble running walking, with arms in the air as though she were the Y of the dance Y.M.C.A. 

2. No lie, she has a vocabulary of about 70 words. These are unprompted, know what it means words. This kid can talk! Granted her full sentences are spot on for elocution, emotion, and syntax but its fully gobbldygook. I get what she's saying but no one else does when she talks like that. 

3. Katie can tell you the difference between what a bird, duck, turkey and crow sound like. I am not kidding you, her CAW! is delightful!

4. We're down to nursing only 3 times a day (hallelujah) and no longer eating baby food at all! 

5. She said ' I love you ' to daddy tonight for the first time, he got teary, so did I. 

6. She is FUNNY! Not just 'my mommy says I'm funny' but really funny! She loves to have her feet smelled, be told as emotively as possible that they stink, and then offer the other foot for comparison. 

7. She can recite most of the alphabet with help, all of the vowels, and has no qualms with the word 'no'. Surprise. 

8. Adrian just got a motorcycle and all day long its 'Dada, helmet, Dada, helmet'. I kid you not. 

This summer's been great. We've swam and parked, run in a marathon (of sorts) and shopped. We've been to Scandifest and sampled every fresh berry and fruit and veggie you can imagine. This has been the best summer of my life. Better than Paris, better than Florida, dare I say better than the San Juans. I'm watching my little baby unfold into a little person, funny, charming, human, brave, sweet, and delightful. I love this life. 

So the standing begins...

While Princess Crinkle Nose still crawls like an an army private in the muck, she can absolutely stand tall. She's got the Torguson legs, thats for sure. Strong, stout, and able to kick holes in walls with no problems. I've always thought that the women in our family missed the calling of being speed skaters, yeah, the thighs are a little something like that. So anywhoo, as I hustle in the kitchen to wipe and sanitize, sweep and grind tomorrow's beans, I often hear the Katerkins grunting that "i'm coming for you mommy" belly crawl huff that lets me know her general proximity (and reassures me that she's not trying to go fishing in the litter box in the office...ew.). So this time I peeked around the corner, thinking she couldn't be far off and found her peering outside of our big bay window, standing strongly on her stout little legs and beating on the little table that used to be the last safe haven for our poor, tortured cat. What a miracle this little being is, and how quickly she's gone from being my little grublet to a tiny premobile person with a whipcrack sense of comedic timing. She really is something special. We went to see our friend Nate the other weekend (he works at a furniture store) while we were shopping for a new mattress. Nate had recently broken his arm and was showing off the emaciated little shriveled zombie twig now filling in for where his arm used to be. As that Nate and I have what one might call an "antagonistic relationship", I proceeded to tell him that he now was the proud owner of a "chicken arm". While he began to glare at me, Katie began saying "bock bock bock" in her sweet little voice, absolutely spot on with her impression of what a chicken sounds like. We all burst out laughing at her brilliance, even good old "chicken Nate" who may never let me into his store again. Ah, my daughter is brilliant.

Spring has sprung!

Today, dear hubby took Katie out for an adventure while I decided to get down and dirty in the soil. I love digging in the garden. Am I a skillful gardener with a gentle siren song to coax life from the filthy soil? Uh, no. Do I have that innate green thumb that deigns that life shall shoot forth in rainbow blooms where ever I shall dig? Eh, no. Do I like the smell of dirt and the gritted slice of a shovel blade reverberating in my ears? Heck, yes I do! Honestly I live by the garden motto of "That which I don't kill can stay another year". It doesnt stop me from dabbling though. I've got knee high rosemary plants, lavender, sage, thyme, oregano, and sundry flowery doo dads that seem to keep liking this Oregon weather. Today's adventure was looking at the grass farm that the flower bed had become and deciding I would pull it all out, by hand. I didn't say that I was smart about this, did I? After wrenching and tearing and pulling out great tufts of the stuff, I realized that under all this grass was a huge bed of bulbs (what kind? i dunno). The next thing I knew, I had completely dug up half the bed and now had huge wads of dirt covered tubes with little emerald shoots staring at me, saying "well?!? you cant just leave us here...". Breaking apart bulbs is an odd thing, especially when you dont have a clue what you're doing. I kept trying to dislodge them gently while doing my best to channel the calm power of Martha Stewart. They kept snapping like fingerling potatoes and I kept wondering if I'd just killed another one. The 6 inch long tubers with no sprouts got piled together while I pondered if those should be thrown out. No yelling please, I called a friend that gardens, picked her brain and gave her half the bulbs. Apparently they're huge irises. I seem to recall a flash of purple color last year from the ones that struggled past the hoarde of snails that consider them to be a greens buffet. I diligently broke them apart and replanted after laying down some mint mulch and some potting soil. I gently splayed out their 4 inch long roots and picked the grass tendrils off. Finally I watered the little suckers. Now we'll see what mother nature has in mind. Oh yeah, I layed down some stuff to take care of the green grubs in the soil and I'm going out later with some snail killer too...but only the kind gentle for cats. So, now I have bulb shoots everywhere, garden, pots, still in a big clump on the patio (yes, I'll get those tomorrow). I'm exhausted, what a great day!

ugh, hormones

Took my first official day of "baby boot camp" today and paid up for the 6 month membership. The idea is that I can work out with other mommies and babies and have interaction, exercise, and fun. Miss Katie decided (as she did the last time we went) that she was miserable in her stroller and screamed for almost the entire time. My nerves were shot and then I began to cry too. Good times, working out, sweating, holding a 25 pound baby and crying. I found myself running between strollers, in a slalom fashion, with a screaming, crying baby in my arms, feeling like I wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. As if I thought there was no way to make exercise more miserable, I assure you, I've found it. Meredith, our super leader, let me calm down a bit and then came back and gave me some sage advice about toys and snacks....phew. Not the best way to start the workout routine. I will persevere, Katie will get used to seeing new faces and spending some time in her BOB, and hopefully, next workout will not include the tears streaming down my face. Ugh. I need a nap.

Baby Bliss and the adventures of 3

Welcome to the story of a family of 3 (four if you count miss mattie cat). For all of the things we never thought we'd do, having a baby takes the top of the list. Somehow, 8 years after meeting the love of my life, here we are. And so the story goes...