Spring Has Sprung

There's no denying it. Springing the clocks forward always seems to change my perspective. Even though that first day after losing an hour can seem short, having an extra hour of daylight (notice I didn't say "sunlight" :-) always seems to recharge my batteries. It's like coming out of hibernation. I seem to have new energy to think about projects I've been putting off. I feel compelled to clean and organize with reckless abandon (or is it reckless endangerment?). So I've been organizing closets and pantries and computers, creating todo lists, planning projects, scanning documents, organizing pictures, and just generally being a nuisance to Deanna.

There's no denying it feels good, but like all cycles in life, when will this one end? Hopefully not before I've at least finished this posting...

This being March means Katie must by 9 months old now. She had her 9 month appointment last Thursday. Everything looks good. She's now 50th percentile across the board in weight, height and head size (down from like 90th in weight). It's funny, though, how sensitive we are as parents to anything that may not be "normal" or "on schedule" in our child. Maybe it's just us, but all it took was our pediatrician asking one or two questions about Katie's development that we had to say no to (I think the two were "is she playing patty cake?" and "Does she say mama and papa?") before you cascade down the mental path of wondering whether you're doing something wrong. Are we playing with her enough, reading to her enough, giving her the right brain foods? Oh, jeesh, are we letting her watch her signing video too much? Yikes! We must be complete FAILURES as parents!!!!!

Ok, BREATHE... Count from 10... 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Phew... It's amazing how quickly you can let yourself go down that path. Not that we really gave it as much thought as I've done here, but the truth is at some point I guess you have to believe that you're doing at least some of the right things, be thankful to have a healthy child, and know that your baby is going to develop in her own way and on her own time table. And that it's all ok.

Katie's new and amazing feats this week include walking herself all the way around her activity table by herself (she's starting to do it so much that we're wondering if she has Mad Cow disease), as well as being able to pull her self up to the table from a sitting position. I'm afraid that she'll be walking by herself soon now. She's also closer to crawling, and will now move from a sitting position to her hands and knees, but she doesn't quite get how to move forward. By the way, I add this stuff about what's she's been doing more as a journal for ourselves to look back on, and not just to bore the bajeezers out of you... :-)

We had a really nice Easter dinner at Bob and Rita's today. A great meal, and always so nice spending time with Katie's uncles, aunts and cousins. There are a couple of pictures from today's visit in the slide show.

Here are the pictures. Click on Katie to see the slide show. Hope this finds you all well... Happy Easter! - kmt