Holy smokes Kate is exhausting lately! Ever since discovering running and climbing she just never wants to sit still.

She’s started using furniture as step-stools to reach things. She’s very quick at moving a chair across the room and using it to climb. She started climbing into her highchair when she’s hungry, which doesn’t sound bad in and of itself except for the fact that I have always left the tray on the highchair. So she climbs onto the tray, turns around, then into her chair feet-first. Well one day we were cooking dinner and heard a crash and THUMP and wail. We turn around to find Kate and the tray on the floor! It’s not made to hold a toddler. So we have to take the tray off and keep it elsewhere, but she’s still trying to climb into the highchair all the time.

I ended up bringing our strap-on booster seat into the house the other day and she found it, dragged it into the living room, and sat in it asking for cheerios. I figured maybe it would be safer to have a booster at the table than the tall highchair – at least she can climb up into the booster safely on her own. So that’s what I’ve been using the last two days. And I’ve realized that it just creates new problems. She’s obsessed with climbing on and off the booster. So she gets there, grabs the tray off the table, snaps the tray on (?!), asks for food. That part is fine, I don’t mind that. I give her some food. She eats two bites, then says, “No,” and tosses the rest on the floor. I grimace and take off the tray. She worms down while I set to cleaning up the food. Then the moment her feet touch the ground she’s climbing back into the chair and trying to put the tray on again. If I ignore her she’ll start yelling “stuck!” because she can’t get the tray off herself.

Some meals, like breakfast and dinner, she’s fine sitting in the chair for a while, strapped in with food. She still will dump food on the floor and bang her sippy cup upside down to make a mess that way, but she’s okay sitting and eating when she’s hungry. But the rest of the day? Lunch and snacks? Forget it. I’ve started giving her a cup of crackers or cheerios and letting her sit in her chair watching Sesame Street. Of course then I turn around 5 minutes later to find cheerios all over my carpet because she won’t just sit still to eat them, she has to climb all over her little chair in the living room.

The sippy cup thing, by the way, is getting really annoying. She’s known for a long time how to get the water/milk out by banging it, but now she’s chewed the spouts enough that liquid comes out faster and she does it every single damn time I give her a sippy cup. And when I say, “Katherine! No! Messy!” she gives me a big stinkin’ grin. I take the sippy away if she continues doing it, but she still needs to drink during the day. So apparently I need to watch her like a hawk every time.

Because of the food issues and especially the sippy cup issues I’ve had to change her like three times a day because she ends up smearing food on herself or dripping milk all down her front. First of all it is freezing cold so I can’t just let her walk around soaking wet. And secondly, gross. She also has a great fondness for running her hands through her hair while eating. I swear, everyone talks about having to change newborns 3 or 4 times a day and we never had to – she didn’t spit up and never had blowouts. Now however it’s a whole new game.

I am exhausted! When is it bedtime?