Katherine was on the whiny side for most of the day. Until I spat out some popcorn kernels that hadn’t popped. This was clearly the funniest thing she has seen yet in her year of life.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_z3QQCmr8&rel=0]
I would, incidentally, have you know that I was getting a haircut and so there was already a sheet under me to catch stuff to be discarded outside. Lest someone thinks me more barbaric than I actually am.
Sydney
As Katherine gets stronger and (if possible) more reckless, I’ve come to dread hearing Sydney say, “Katherine has a new trick . . .” I’ve learned that Katherine has been hounding the cat, eating cat food/books/plastic, trying to jump off surfaces, and, today, eating the stuffing out of the chair cushions. There’s no way to child-proof for this kid.
In good news, the recent good weather has shown me how much fun it is and will be to take Katherine outside. She gets very bashful in public, so it’s great fun to sit in a park, have her walk in circles around you, and then suddenly, when the bashfulness wears off, take off running across the grass.
She is stuck on the “Lahddle-ahddle-ahddle” sound for almost a week now. Is it good or bad that my thought was, “Well, she may never learn to talk, but at least she may have a future as a double-tonguing brass player”?
I’m now seeing cross-eyed after having worked through a chapter draft and sending it off. No more screen time for awhile.
Erin
Sydney watched Katherine last night as she tried to climb over the storage-bin tower we’d constructed in front of the cat food. “By the end of the week she’ll be climbing onto the bins, and then we’re really going to be in trouble.”
Two minutes ago I got the following email while I was barricaded in my library carrel: “Katherine is climbing onto the plastic bins.”
Any ideas on teaching kids to climb back down???
Erin
I took Katherine in for her one-year checkup today. Healthy as a horse, as if we didn’t know. I love that our doctor has four kids; although, technically, the parents’ not sleeping because baby’s teething is not a medical issue, he could at least sympathize and offer tips from his experience.
And apparently, though she’s in the middle of the charts for height and weight, she’s near the top of the range for head circumference. Now we can tease her about her big head. I knew these visits were good for something.
Erin
Today we had a great day. Sydney and Milton went out for brunch at Thai Cuisine and tasted delicious and unusual dishes, one after another. I stayed home with Katherine while she napped, enjoying some quiet time in which to catch up on email to friends. Milton had to take off for Ontario after lunch, but it was great to see him. He drove down yesterday so that we could get in a visit before we leave for England, so we immediately hauled him off to a hike, followed by good sandwiches and desserts from Ithaca Bakery.
After Milton left this afternoon the weather was so gorgeous that we decided to take another hike, this time at Monkey Run. It’s a new one for us, and as we were walking we kept thinking, “Why didn’t we know this was here before? Why are we leaving a place like this?” But we know that England will hold its own treasures for us. At any rate, I plan to take Katherine there again before we leave. She loved the bouncy ride as I hopped across wet patches and tree roots.
To top it off, we came home thinking that we needed to eat potatoes (as part of our pantry-cleaning effort), but then Sydney dug up a fantastic peanut-potato curry. Delicious!!
Oh, and did I mention that K’s been in a great mood all day? Fun to play with, but even more fun to watch as she storms around the house, trying out sounds and exploring on her own.
Erin
Charge!
You can't catch me
Very sweet, Dada, but I'm NOT going to sleep
If you bring it near me, it goes in my mouth
Everything about Katherine these days is about a strong-willed little personality on the move. Which means that pictures rarely capture the girl we know. So, though these are not the traditional portrait pose, they’re true to life.
Erin
I’m sitting in my carrel on the third floor of the library, hunting footnote after footnote. Miss Katherine’s increasing mobility has made it harder to work in the house, so we’ve taken to going to campus for much of our work time.
But as I sit in this little cell, where there is little distraction other than the internet, I looked out my little window–and right into the classroom in the next building over. I saw a madman gesticulating and then recognized one of the faculty from my department. So strange watching another person teaching when there is no sound. He really does look crazy. I wonder if I look like that when I teach . . .
Erin
I had a number of students in my class using ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ as conjunctions and this was starting to grate on me, so yesterday I gave them a mini-lecture on the matter. I started out by putting ‘but’ and ‘however’ on the blackboard and asking them what part of speech each of the words was. Dead silence. Finally, one guy (one of my better students, incidentally) asked if they were prepositions.
I was about ready to pronounce the demise of Western civilization.
Now don’t get me wrong here. This isn’t a particularly important matter (students get much more important things wrong, trust me). Nor is it the sort of thing that I would expect most people to know. On the other hand, I’m teaching a class of smart students at an elite university. And not a single one recognizes ‘but’ as a conjunction?? So what did they learn in high school?
Sydney
I just came across the word “vomitrocious” in my stack of student papers. I don’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed that other problems took higher priority when I was writing up comments for the paper.
Erin
Alan Schmierer
