Since I haven't blogged yet in 2009, I thought I'd give an update from Houston Hobby airport, where we are waiting for what we desperately hope will be our last flight on this trip. After four significant delays out of five flights, we are a teensy bit skeptical about our odds of getting home today as planned. But as you can see from this photo, Kate loaded up on her collard greens and black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, so our luck should be improving any minute now. Happy New Year, y'all. I promise to blog once we get home and get settled. And after I get done kissing my kitchen floor and writing strongly-worded letters to various airlines.

As I'm still working on getting us back up and running in the laundry, groceries and general household organization categories after our trip, I'm not going to write much about these photos, but still wanted to share them. We really did have such a good time, and got to see a lot of people we miss in our life way out here in the desert.

First, here are Chi and Kate enjoying the slides at a park near the home of my in-laws. We tried to do a cute photo opp where they would go down the slide together, but they weren't having it.

One of the silver-lining type results of our flight delays was that when we arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, a day later than planned, it turned out that the flight of my friend, Leigh of Marvelous Kiddo, had also been delayed. Under our previous flight plans, we were going to miss one another by just a couple of hours. Instead, we got to swoop by her parents' home in Jackson and have a too-brief, but totally worth it visit, in which we got to actually behold one another's children for the first time. The Kiddo is even cuter in person, if you can imagine that.

One of the difficult parts of our trip was that Kate busted through four molars and came down with a terrible cold, which she then passed on to a handful of innocent bystanders, including my mom, my dad, my friend Liz who came to visit us, and, we think, Dan. So she wasn't in the best frame of mind for some of the trip, and thus, this photo sums up a lot of what we did for the first few days of our time in Mississippi: nose-wiping and crying. I could devote an entire blog to the topic of how much this kid hates to have her nose wiped, but I will spare you.

On Saturday, my college roomates Lindsay (left of me) and Robin (right of me) came to the house for dinner, and afterwards we took the same photo we always take, which is the one where I am in the middle, with my shoulders resting on these two, who are so cute and petite that I look large and gawky and weird in comparison. Next time I am sitting down for the photo.

And these last two photos are of Kate with Aaron. Aaron and Kelly gave Kate this thing called My First Purse, that comes equipped with a play cell phone, keys, compact, mirror, lipstick and, I kid you not, a pink and purple plastic debit card. Kate, needless to say, was thrilled, and walked around for the rest of the day in such a growny manner than you would swear she was just about to take her new purse, jump into her very own car, and whiz off to college. Here is Aaron helping her get her purse settled on her shoulder so they can go on a walk. I think he's going to make a great dad one day.

Dear Kate,

You are sixteen months old today. As I am writing this letter, you are walking around in the living room saying "Ba-Ba! Ba-Ba!" over and over again in a sing-song way. The casual observer might think that this is just a random sound you are making, but I know that what you are really doing is saying "baby." You got a baby doll for Christmas from Gam, and you certainly love it, so maybe if I didn't know better, I would think you were just talking about your doll. But I do know better, so I know that what you are really doing is chanting your shorthand name for "Baby Signing Time," the videos we've used to teach you signing. This mantra of yours is not being trotted out for no reason. You want to watch a "Baba" video ... right now. The problem is that you've already watched one today, and generally I try to hold you to one a day. And so with my heightened perceptive abilities, I can now predict what is about to happen: The Baba chant is going to get louder and more persistent. Then you are going to come in here and stand next to my chair and continue your pleas. And finally, when I tell you no, we're not watching any more Signing Time today, you're going to throw yourself on the ground and flail around in an extremely tragic manner while screaming about how life is unfair and I am a terrible mommy. Not in those words, obviously, but that is what your general tone suggests.

I bring this up to highlight a development that I view as mostly positive -- namely, the fact that you have gotten much better in the last two months at communicating your needs and wants. One of the most stressful things to me about the little tiny baby stage was that all crying sounded the same to me, and until you got old enough to point or gesture or in some way help me narrow down the reasons you might be crying, I felt like I was constantly engaging in a big guessing game. Now we have no such problem. Your signing is really coming along. You're actually making me look kind of stupid at this point. One day recently I fed you some slivers of apple and you reached up and did this circular motion on your cheek. I realized you were probably doing a sign, but I admit that I had to go scan through one of the DVDs before I was sure.

You're also talking more. You can say mama, daddy, cracker, cheese, woof-woof (your word for dog), bird, car, banana, water and, my personal favorite, hi. You say it in this very perky way, like you haven't seen the person you're greeting in years and you are overcome with joy. "Hi!" You say it this way to total strangers, which got you a lot of attention in the airports last month when we traveled. When you decide the conversation is over, or you just get tired of saying "Hi," you say "Bye bye!" and sometimes blow kisses. It is all unbearably cute, and it really is helpful, too, because most of the time, I can ascertain fairly quickly what you are talking about, and then move on.

What I am not loving so much about your new-found ability to express yourself is the tantrum-throwing. I am sure veteran mamas will laugh at me, but somehow I thought this was a two-year-old behavior, so it sort of shocked me when one day while we were in San Antonio I told you no about something and you laid your 15-month-old self down on the floor and started flopping around while wailing and kicking your legs. You did it with such confidence that it was almost like you'd seen it before, like maybe when your dad and I have minor disagreements, one of us hits the ground and start screaming until we get our way, which I assure you does not happen. Most of the time. On the one hand, it is kind of funny in an absurd way, because I think this is your nuclear option, and you think that you are really punishing me when you do that. On the other hand, it is So. Not. Funny. Now that we're no longer traveling, we're starting to work on teaching you that it's not acceptable behavior. I'm sure any minute now I'll be able to report your transformation to perfect ladylike comportment. Or not.

Overall, the last two months seem to have been about you making the transition from being a baby to being a toddler. You even look different. Your hair is getting longer. Actually, it's just getting longer in the back, which is the nice way to say that you are getting a mullet. But a cute mullet! You insist on learning how to do new things, and get very upset if we think you are struggling with something and just do it for you. You don't want it to be quick. You want to learn how to do it no matter how long it takes you. It's pretty impressive, really, the persistence it takes to learn how to navigate the world. Good work. You even know how to ring doorbells, thanks to Aunt Audrey and Uncle Aaron.

You can run now, which makes for some great evening chases around the living room with your daddy. You're wearing out the second pair of shoes we got for you before Christmas, and when we came back from our holiday travels, suddenly there were all these new shelves and surfaces you could reach, which I guess means you've gotten taller. I think one reason I've been writing you letters that cover two months at a time lately is because one month seems to pass in seconds, you're changing so fast. Looking through pictures we've taken these last eight weeks, it's like I can see you becoming such a big kid right before my eyes. At least, you think you are. In your opinion, you should have, at minimum, a cell phone as cool as Aunt Dinah's.

But enough about you. Remember those tantrums I was mentioning at the start of this letter? Here's the truth about those: I'm not proud of how frustrated this all makes me some days. I am finding myself having to take a deep breath every once in a while to try to regain some patience before I set about dealing with whatever meltdown you are having at the moment. Yesterday, it even occurred to me that teaching you how to take a deep breath might do us both a world of good. So I showed you how to do it, and weirdly enough, you caught right on! I'm not sure you really understand the point of the whole exercise, since you generally go right back to screaming after you let out the big "aaaaah" at the end of your deep cleansing breath. Maybe if I enroll you in baby yoga you will chill out. It's probably also true, as your daddy keeps telling me, that some of this can be chalked up to the fact that we traveled for more than two weeks this month, during which time you broke through four molars (so gross!), caught a nasty cold (even grosser!), and didn't sleep all that well. So to be fair to you, my perception is probably a bit skewed as of this moment, and things are probably going to improve now that we are home and you are recovering from all of that. In the meantime, the whole thing is revealing my own inner tantrum-throwing toddler who just wants her way. Temporary or not, I think you and I have hit a stage in our relationship where we're going to have to exercise some patience and grace toward one another. Since I am the adult, and I love you, I'll go first. Since you are the baby, and you love me too, I'm sure I'll be rewarded with lots of big, slobbery kisses, which make up for a lot on the rough days. Keep those coming, OK?

I love you,

Mommy

While we were on our Christmas trip, Kate picked up a nasty cold virus of some sort. It never made her violently ill, but it has hung on for a ridiculously long time, in my opinion. At this point, she's mostly fine during the day, but at night she has these awful coughing spells that wake her up. I called her pediatrician a couple of days after we got home, because I started to worry that maybe she had a secondary infection, and we went through those diagnostic questions they ask you to determine if your child is really sick or if you are just being paranoid. (They are super nice about it, and they don't call it that, but I think we all know that's what they are doing, right?) They gave me some things to look for, said Kate will probably be fine in a couple of days, and that was the end of that.

Last night, Dan and I were sitting on the couch listening to Kate struggle through one of these coughing fits in her sleep, and Dan asked if I was sure we shouldn't take her in to the doctor. Well, maybe if it doesn't clear up soon, I said, but if you think about it, she's not running a fever, her energy level is fine during the day, she's getting plenty of fluids, and she's not suffering from any loss of appetite. And after that last one about loss of appetite, we both laughed, which leads me to the point of this post: I think Kate is going through some kind of ultra-ramped-up growth spurt, because she is suddenly a bottomless pit for food. She'll eat her food, demand more, eat off our plates, sign that she's all done, and then three minutes later be back signing "cracker" or "banana" or some other food-related message. This morning at breakfast, she snorked down a bagel, two containers of yogurt, and a piece of bread. Here she is checking to see if the yogurt is really gone.

And apparently, the little spoons just aren't getting the job done any more, so we're moving on to the serving ware.

I can already see the growth. She's definitely moved up a shoe size since our trip, and some of her clothes are starting to get a little tight. I think she'll be fine with me starting to put some of her bigger clothes into the rotation, since it will give her more material to work with when she's putting together her high-fashion outfits every day, such as this one, which looks like a cross between Rambo and Rainbow Brite to me. Funny, hungry kid.

Tomorrow, January 16, is my 29th birthday, which I suppose means that as of tomorrow, I am on the big countdown to 30. As you can see from this picture from our family jaunt around the neighborhood to watch the sun set, the view from my 28th year has been pretty sweet. Also, Dan promises me breakfast in bed and a fun night out tomorrow. (Complete with a babysitter! And a restaurant where you don't order at the counter and there is no playground!) So bring on 29. I can be old later.

Here are a couple of pictures of Kate helping us with things we needed to get done around the house this weekend. First, she helped me sweep up the kitchen to get ready to host our small group from church. I love how serious her face is in these photos. Housekeeping, apparently, is important business.

And here she is helping Dan play the Wii. Her expression isn't quite as serious here, but she really does think she is helping. Lately, she has taken to bringing Dan the Wii remotes and demanding that he play so she can sit in his lap and help. Raise your hands if you are at all suspicious that he is training her to do this. That's what I thought.

Since we've been home from our trip, I've been having a really hard time finding socks for Kate. It seems like almost every time I am getting her dressed, I can only find one of any given pair of socks she owns, and some pairs just seem to have disappeared completely. For a while, I kept waiting for them to turn up in the laundry, but we've been home for a while now, and while I am not exactly the Donna Reed of the Southwest, I have managed to do all the laundry from the trip now that it's been three weeks since we came home. It's been a mystery, but not a glamorous mystery, just a vaguely irritating one.

In what I thought was a completely unrelated phenomenon, when I've gone to get Kate up from her afternoon nap lately, I've found her sockless in her crib. I hadn't really thought about how many times this had happened, because who has time to think about that kind of stuff what with all the laundry piling up? And then last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, it suddenly came to me where all those socks were. Predictably, I went to sleep and forgot all about it, but this afternoon when I went in to get Kate up from her nap and found her barefoot, I remembered my theory and looked between her crib and the wall. Sure enough, there were all the socks. By which I mean about a dozen socks, some in complete pairs, some loners, but still rendering the pair of socks to which they belonged unwearable in their absence. No wonder I can't find a pair of socks to put on the kid! She's been squirreling them all away!

What cracks me up about this is that in order to get all those socks down there, Kate has to have been waiting until I leave the room, thinking she's drifting off to sleep, and then taking off her socks and standing up in her crib to drop them down the chute. I don't know what ever gave her the idea to do that, but she's been very quiet about the whole thing, and very efficient too. So this afternoon I pat myself on the back. Maybe I am no Donna Reed, but I bet I could give Nancy Drew a run for her money. Thus is solved the Mystery of the Missing Socks. Here is the cute little culprit with some of her stash.

Kate's Nana and Papa Dubovik (her great-grandparents in Chicago) gave her a big pink hooded bath towel for Christmas. The hood part of it looks like the top of a flower, and Kate loves to wear it. Actually, it has solved a little problem for me. Kate loves to take her bath so much that she doesn't ever want to get out when the water starts getting cold. But now all I have to do is wave the magical bath towel and she's all for ending her bath so she can look at herself in the mirror with her cool bath hat on. Thanks to Nana and Papa, and to Grammy, who boxed it up and sent it to us from her house in San Antonio, since it was too big to fit in our suitcases!

As you can see, she doesn't see why she should have to stop wearing the towel once she's got her pajamas on for the night. This makes for a lot of tripping over the towel when she tries to turn around, but at least she is looking as fabulous as she wants to look.