Empty Nest

Katie's left the nest. On Thursday night she slept in her room all night for the first time! Last night she went to bed around 11pm (early for her) and didn't wake up until 8am. That's a new record! She even took a nap shortly after waking up. I think she learned that from her dad. Needless to say, her mom is very happy today and very well rested.

We think she slept so well in her room because it's a lot quieter in there. Usually when she's in our room, she has to listen to her dad a) loudly crinkle the newspaper as he struggles with the crossword puzzle, b) try to delicately navigate his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night without stepping on Rusty, and c) snoooooore.

So Katie is happy having her own four walls and a roof over her head. Well, most of a roof. We discovered a softball-sized hole in the roof caused by an old, unused satellite dish that fell over and took some of the roof with it. The wood around it is rotted but luckily not much water got in and there's no damage inside the house. And, as Nancy shrewdly pointed out, we're very lucky that squirrels didn't move in. Unfortunately, it's going to cost a big chunk of change. My Wii slush fund has been drained.

Katie's been doing a lot of neat things lately. She's started making a "raspberry" sound with her mouth (blowing out with her lips together). It's really cute. And she's started grabbing both of her feet with her hands and then rolling over. It looks fun.

Today Katie met our friend Kerri. We sat out on the back patio and enjoyed the nice weather. Kerri taught us an important lesson: Katie doesn't like it when people make loud popping noises with their mouth. Poor Kerri was holding Katie and making the noises to get her to smile but instead she started crying. She quickly calmed down though and they became fast friends. Kerri was nice enough to give Katie a cute pair of sunglasses (which she loves wearing), a stuffed toy cat, a rattle, and a really cute outfit. Kerri's training for a triathlon in New Jersey. The swimming portion is in the Hudson River near NYC. She's been training for it in a local pool but unless the water contains dirty syringes and oil slicks, it's not going to prepare her for the Hudson.