Ears

No pictures just yet today. Little Kate has not been so photogenic. A side effect of being sick, though she is doing a lot better.

So, you know the saying, "Did you wash behind your ears?" I used to think it was a funny thing to ask. After all, while you are washing your hair, doesn't the area behind your ears get clean at the same time?

And that logic may be true. But when you are a small child, you aren't shampooing your hair every day. And apparently, some kids like to hide food behind their ears. For their mommies to find a day or two later, once it has crusted on and begun to cause a small amount of skin irritation.

Chalk it up to a new mom learning experience. (Similar to finding the toe jam when she was really little.) I now know the cleaning up after meal checklist is, at minimum, face, hands and EARS!

Sleeping duo

Kate had a bit of a fever this morning, so she and Doug stayed home today. When I walked in the door, this is how I found them. Both asleep. And Kate NEVER falls asleep in one's arms. The little bug must really not be feeling well.

Baby Mum-Mum

I was looking for some sort of "teething biscuit" at Fred Meyer on Sunday. What I found were "Baby Mum-Mums". Think of it as a gigantic rice crispy. Kate loves them.

What's missing is the picture of mushy rice all over her face and fingers. But you can imagine.

TEETH

Kate was giving out lots of smiles today. I'm sure it's because she wanted to show off her new teeth! Top left cut through Sunday morning, and top right was apparent today.

Someday you'll be even able to see them in the pictures!

Dance machine

I don't know what Kate ate today, but she was feeling the music today. She was cracking Doug and me up with the exaggerated movements and sound effects.

At one point, she paused, looked at Doug, and pointed her finger at him, as if to say, "This one goes out to you, Daddy." Unfortunately, not caught on film.

Latte stands

There are any number of drive through latte stands in the couple of mile drive I take to get from work to day care each day. aAnd a high proportion of stands use sex to market themselves. As if caffeine itself isn't a draw.

First, you can be sure that these places will not earn one penny of my business.

There are 2 Bikini Huts, where the baristas freeze their tushies off as they serve up people's double-tall mochas.

But my current favorite is a third spot that has a reader board advertising the "Hotest" baristas. Okay, I recognize that I've misspelled "hotest". But the reason why this is so memorable is that they didn't space it very well on the board, so it looks more like "ho test". Or maybe the additional "t" fell down.

Either way, in this scenario, is having a ho test so far off?

Reading

Kate loves to pull books and DVDs off of the shelves. Though mainly she contains herself to this section here. The book she's reading right now is from Doug's Aunt Mary. It has different animals with textured pages. Kate loves it, and will talk to the fuzzy pages.

9-month stats

Kate is happy and healthy, which we knew. :)

Today she measured 28 inches (62nd percentile) and weighed 20 pounds-6 ounces (74th percentile.)

Pictures later. This kid needs to go to bed. The loss of an hour is kickin' me.

Playin' in Leavenworth

We went overnight to Doug's friends Colie and Danica's cabin near Leavenworth. It was great to hang out with their family (as always).

Here, Kate and Cobin are "sharing" toys. Marianne was very good about finding toys that were appropriate for Kate to play with.

Maggie and Kate played with a baby doll this morning.

Then, this morning, we went for a walk. Danica had a 24-month size snow-bib for Kate to wear. It was sooo big on her. She put up with it well enough.

It was a fun and relaxing time. Now, off to correct tests!

9-month self-portrait

Here are a couple of pictures of Kate on her celebration of being alive 9 months.