Kate is apparently going through one of those “mental leaps” where they start to process information in a different way, understanding some new concept of this world we live in. The current concept is familiarity. This is the stage when babies start screaming at bearded men when they don’t usually see anyone wearing a beard, or big hats when they don’t usually see hats. Kate? Screamed at a sasquatch. She was watching some TV with Den when a beef jerky commercial “messin’ with sasquatch” came on. I wasn’t in the room, but I heard a scream of terror and then frantic sobbing and walked in to find her clutching Denis and looking over her shoulder. Den was trying to comfort her without laughing and told me about the commercial. Not that I blame her, I mean a sasquatch is pretty scary. But she’s never reacted like that to anything before!

Then later in the evening we were at a party. Kate was getting tired, but as usual she was just kind of chilling out and enjoying the social atmosphere. Den was holding her watching a card came in progress when a beer was knocked over and everyone shouted and jumped up to grab it. Kate started screaming hysterically. She wouldn’t calm down, either… Den took her outside for a while and finally got her distracted on something new to look at. But holy moly, you would have thought the ground had just opened up under her feet and sucked her down into a pit of lava the way she was screaming.

She’s also really been fighting her nap and bedtime… acting like she’s not tired even though she’s exhausted and whiny (so SO whiny, OMG-shoot-me-whiny). I do all the normal things, I rock her and sing to her and she even relaxes a bit, I put her in her crib and… she doesn’t sleep. She throws everything out of her crib and then screams and screams. The past few days she had a 1-hour nap, a 30-minute nap, a very very late nap. So frustrating! If she wanted to be up and play, that’s one thing, but to refuse to go to sleep and then being a whiny mess is just not acceptable. Hopefully this phase passes quickly.

In addition to that she has started climbing everything in sight. Standing on things is her new obsession: standing on her pony seat, standing on the futon, standing on boxes and toys and anything else in her path. She’s had more than one crash lately – though usually from small things, and not the big climbs when we are actually expecting her to fall.

Unfortunately she’s also started some tantrums. I sometimes let her watch videos on my phone if I need to distract her for a few minutes, but she’s started throwing major fits when I take it away, which is not cool; I now avoid letting her even see my phone. She also has started getting very unhappy about my attempts to lead her away from things she wants to see. She normally loves to hold my hand and will proudly parade around with me, but if she gets the sense that I’m taking her somewhere she doesn’t want to go she sits down and yanks her arms away, and failing that will start making noise. (Not a scream or a yell or a cry, but a fake cry/complaining.) She’s getting good at the going limp thing. And of course as soon as she gets out of my grasp she gets up and runs the opposite direction. And that’s when I move from “trying to gently lead you” to “fine, I’ll pick you up and carry you while you squirm.”

It’s a good thing she’s usually in a good mood… well, when she gets enough sleep, at least.

I used to love photography. I never had the passion for it that true photographers do, but I enjoyed playing with my cameras, learning, trying new and creative things. When I got my DSLR I was so excited. Den and I both agreed that it was an absolute necessity before we had any kids, so I could take some good photos of them.

And to be fair, I do have a lot of good photos of Kate. But I find myself reaching for my phone (droid) to take pictures rather than my very expensive, slightly fancy DSLR. For one thing I always have it with me. When juggling a child, diaper bag, stroller, and goodness knows what else, the last thing I want to do is be packing a big camera bag – not to mention risk getting water or sand or dirt in it. And the other huge thing about my phone is the one-touch upload to facebook. I LOVE that. I can share funny pictures right then instead of waiting until evening, downloading them to the computer, resizing them, and uploading them. Not to mention that when I use the big camera it’s never one or two photos, but rather 20 or 30 I need to wade through, edit, and cull. I can always manage to find 2 seconds to flick through photos on my camera and upload; finding an hour on the computer is much, much more difficult.

Some days I look at my camera sitting on the shelf and sigh in guilt. I ought to be using it more, it certainly does take better pictures. Though not that my droid takes bad pictures – it’s an 8 megapixel camera and the quality of outdoors pictures are really very good. It’s just, well… I feel bad for my big camera.

Before I had a child I don’t think I ever really thought much at all about the process of teething. I mean, people would mention it about their babies, “Ugh, she’s teething,” and I would try to sympathize. But it always sounded to me like this big event, a stage they went through, a finite, limited bad time.

I was so wrong.

Teething is a state of being for apparently the first 2-3 years. You get small breaks in between teeth that are either a really nice break or a taunting reminder of what “normal,” depends on the week. It seems like 1 week off and 3 weeks of getting a new tooth. Especially when your child gets them one a time, like mine does.

So we’re on molar #2 now, I could feel one sharp point poking through. The first molar didn’t seem to bother her, for some reason; just one day it was there, and I was stunned. I incorrectly thought that would be how the rest would go. Nope. As usual she is not really bothered during the day but is absolutely refusing to take naps. This makes her a little monster – a whining, crying, wanting-to-nurse-constantly monster that bursts into tears at every little thing. Foot stuck? Tears. Dropped toy? Tears. TV turned off? Massive meltdown. At least she is sleeping at night… once she finally goes down. Last night I kept trying and failing and ended up sitting in the living room with her as she quietly played with toys until 11pm. She just starts screaming when I take her near her crib – the teeth always hurt her at night.

I have not had very good sleep the past few nights, then with Kate refusing to nap at all during the day and being very needy and whiny and upset all day long? Oh, I am exhausted.