Cold Spaghetti

Kate’s daily reports have been interesting reading over the past week. They say things like:
— Kate was VERY BUSY this morning. She and Stella played peek-a-boo under the cribs and woke up the other babies.
— Kate walked all over the school this morning. She is very frustrated that she cannot open the baby gate, YET.
— Kate was in a good mood today. She re-arranged all the diapers from the changing table bins.
— Kate walked all morning. She pushed toys bigger than her around the porch for an hour.
— Dora who? It’s KATE the EXPLORER!
When I’ve gone to nurse her (daily at lunchtime) or pick her up, I’ve observed her various activities including:
— Waiting for someone to open the baby gate, then tearing out to the hall to walk to Emmy’s office (she always goes to Emmy’s office, we don’t know why).
— Using her shoe to (gently?) tap a sleeping baby on the head.
— Trying to feed her friend, Stella, sweet potato puffs.
— Fussing at Ms. Gladys for moving all the changing bins (which hold the babies’ diapers) to the top of the changing table so that Kate can’t reach them.
— Sleeping. (This one surprises me, too.)
Kate has been walking for awhile. Really, she took her first steps the day she turned 9 months. It’s almost 2 months later, with each day showing a slow but steady increase in her walking. Now she pretty much walks everywhere, unless she’s racing you (say, to get into the cat puke on the floor before you can clean it up), in which case, she hits the floor on all fours and crawls at 60 MPH.
She is enthusiastic and eager about any food that isn’t her baby food. She makes it clear that she WANTS WHAT YOU’RE HAVING. I end up mashing up whatever we’re having for dinner to share with her.
We have come to understand our place in Kate’s world: we are her chauffeurs. She gestures to be picked up and then gives an oration in voice and with “her finger” regarding everything around her. Our job is to pick her up when told and follow her pointing finger to whatever it is she wants to see, which is everything.
Kate is into everything. And everything includes Will’s stuff. So far, he’s doing pretty well with it. He tells Kate when he needs space and has yet to pulverize her for chewing on his favorite things. Finding her carting his stuff around doesn’t thrill him, but he is handling it.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she flashes him one of these goofy grins whenever he tries to get tough with her. (We think she knows that her brother is pretty darn fond of her, too.)