Milestones

Milestone #1: After 20 months of either being nursed, rocked or danced to sleep, Kate now puts herself to bed. This is a HUGE deal in our house since she has been very reliant upon us to get her to sleep. Now all we need to do is read her some books, cuddle for a few minutes, put her in her crib and close the door. She cried for the first week of us doing this, but no more than 20 minutes. Now, after 2 weeks, she quietly goes in her crib and falls fast asleep. God certainly answers prayers!!!! Milestone #2: Kate can tackle the park almost 100% on her own! She can climb up most structures and go down big slides all on her own. We can thank her cousin Drew for showing her how it is done. :-) It is so nice to be able to just watch her play instead of having to do all the climbing with her. Milestone #3: Kate loves to play pretend! She is always putting shoes and clothes on her dolls. She also likes to use a wipe and diaper when the dolls go poo poo. Kate has greatly enjoyed pretending with her kitchen...we are always having hot cups of tea. We even "go to the park" with her stuffed animals in which she pushes her play stroller to and from the front door and then sits them on her slides. Milestone #4: Kate's vocabulary is growing so big everyday. Her favorite 2 phrases right now are "oh well" and "green light." She loves to repeat most of what we say and it is becoming easier to understand her words. She is a VERY talkative little girl. Milestone #5: Time outs. After debating how and when to start discipline, the other week we started to put Kate in time outs. Thankfully it is not a very common occurrence since threatening her with a time out works most of the time. The few times she has gone to time out she has cooperatively gone to the corner and stayed there until I tell her she can leave. Usually she is very sad to be in the corner and requires a cuddle afterwards. Everyday Kate amazes me with all the new things she is learning. She certainly has a mind of her own and expresses her opinion frequently, but she is such a beautiful person. I have so many people tell me how cute she is and how much fun they have playing with her. God has blessed us with such an amazing daughter!