Thanksgiving with Kate was such a fun, low-key event. There was no wince at the “giving thanks,” there was no wanting to hide in corners, there was no feeling of suffocation at being around people. It was a smaller gathering, too, which I think was nice.

It was a lot of fun seeing Kate with her cousins now that everyone is growing up a little. I marveled at how big she looked, sitting on the floor playing with toys with her 2 and a half year old cousin. Thankfully BabyH was polite in gently taking the toys back after Kate reached out and snagged them! Or else she would just look at me and say, “That’s my toy?” It’s going to get very interesting when Kate is old enough to walk and follow her around! We also got a picture of Kate with the two baby twins, who are now 4 months old and looking very healthy! Funny enough I think they are now passing her in weight. Kate managed to grab one of them from behind as we were getting the picture, setting off some tears. Yes, I think it’ll be a fun bunch as they grow up together.

Tonight Den and I went on our first date night, the first time Kate has been left with a babysitter. She’s at an age where she loves to play, she’s not the least bit shy, she takes a bottle just fine… the only worry was sleep, since she’ll only sleep on someone unless she nurses to sleep. Thankfully Den’s sister has experience with needy babies. Unfortunately our dinner was disappointing for how much we spent on it, but we got to watch Harry Potter. As we walked into the theater I said to Den, “We get to watch a whole movie without hitting pause even once!” Tee hee. That being said, it was a nice evening but not a fantastic we-absolutely-have-to-do-this evening. I know some parents feel like they HAVE to get out without the baby.

We got home to a very happy baby, which just made my day. She did only nap for 30 minutes on her auntie, but that was enough. She was shrieking and laughing and grabbing at her toys. They apparently had a great time together, what a relief! She seemed to be thrilled to see us home, too. Not relieved that we were finally home, but it was like she was just busting at the seams and had to tell us all about it. She squealed, shrieked and giggled for a solid 2 hours after we got home, until she finally lost steam and passed out at the boob at 11:30. I tried putting her to bed before then, but she just rolled all over the place and loudly played with her toys.

She just stuns me with how active she is now. She rolls everywhere, back and forth and back and forth. On her belly she can spin in circles to change direction or reach something. If something falls out of reach she’s rolling back and forth, wiggling forward a tiny bit at a time. She’s trying to scoot forward using her toes, but it’s not all that successful yet. Soon, though. When sitting, which she does a lot now, she used to faceplant if she leaned too far forward reaching for a toy. Yesterday I noticed she’s started using one hand to prop herself up while she reaches with the other hand, keeping herself from toppling over. She’s keeping her balance much much better.

She’s also realized that computers are fun. Her favorite thing right now is on KneeBouncers, the music-maker. She gets wicked excited, flapping her arms and then leaning forward to bang on my keyboard. She sometimes likes to watch videos, but her attention span isn’t that great right now. She needs to be grabbing/banging/eating things for it to be interesting. I ended up getting one of our old computer keyboards to let her smash on it for a while. Me, being such a geek as I am, am planning to reformat my old laptop (it needs it, badly) and then installing some stuff and a kid browser on it for her. When she’s playing on my computer I get worried she’s going to accidentally pop a key off or something. I don’t care if that happens with the old one. ;)