Update for Friday, September 23

Just a quick little note to tell you that Miss Katie has learned to blow raspberries! It is endlessly funny to hear her squeak, squeal and blow raspberries with her mouth all day long. In fact, after Katie went to bed last night, Paul and I laughed while we listened to her over the baby monitor, playing in the pitch-black darkness of her room.

Last week, Katie's Grandpaw came down from the Alaskan Tundra for some babysitting duty. Katie ran him through his paces, and tested his mettle with a giant poop that contaminated her entire room, and into which she put her little foot for a laugh. Katie tells me she likes it when her Grandpaw comes over - she thinks it's funny to see how fast he snaps to it when she starts to fuss.

FYI, we call him Grandpaw - with a 'w' - because he was Luna and Mocha's GrandPAW long before Katie came along.

Katie's Grandpaw is quite an excellent photographer, and he took some really good photos that we'd like to share with you!

So long for now . . . pbbbbttt!

Update for Friday, September 16

Hi Everyone! I can't believe I did it again, but here we are, mid-September, and it's been a month since the last post. So much has happened in the past weeks that we'd like to share with you. Since we last posted, Miss Katie has been back to the therapist for her follow-up neurodevelopmental assessment. This time, she tested well for her age, and has passed her tests without incident. This means that although she was 6 months old at the time, she tested out as a 3 month old in terms of developmental ability - this is accurate as to her adjusted age had she been born at full-term.

Right around when Katie turned six-months old, we had a few people over for a barbeque. Here are two pictures from that day. The first one is our good friend 5SW Julie, who works at Swedish hospital in the unit where Julie was on bedrest for 9 days. The second one is of Katie - she got spit-faced at the party!

More recently, Paul and I took Katie to St. Louis to visit her Grandma Carol. A few days before our trip, I asked Paul to put all of the baby's stuff in the diaper box in her room. Lo and behold, just look what I found!

Once we got to St. Louis, Miss Katie was a hit with her family. Her Grandma Carol was particularly smitten with her granddaughter!

While we were in St. Louis, Paul got Katie her first wild critter. While driving home from the store, Paul saw a snapping turtle in the middle of the road, and stopped to pick it up. Apparently, it's a common practice to label these wayward turtles with your initials before relocating them and setting them free. Now there's a turtle in St. Louis that belongs to Katherine Grace McDermott!

Before I sign off, I have a request of our loyal readers. Please post a quick hello to let me know who's still faithfully checking for blog updates! So long for now!