Jorgensen Sandwich: clapping, sitting, sleeping

I believe I have started measuring the passing of my own life and my success as a parent by Kate achieving different milestones. As of late I feel like we're doing well. Milestone #1: clapping her hands. Technically her Father got her clapping this Sunday - however I don't think 10 months of me playing pat a cake should go totally ignored. I don't know why but I think it is so darling. Well, except may be for this morning at 4:44 am when she was up in her crib clapping away. She must have known it was her Grandpa Paul's birthday today. She just couldn't wait to get the party started. Happy Birthday from all of us!

Milestone #2: getting up to a sitting position on her own. This one is huge for me. Some days I felt like half my time was spent rescuing a floundering fish kicking and squirming - stuck laying on her back or stomach frustrated with her immobility.

Milestone#3: for the first time in her life Kate slept through the night. I'm not breaking out the champagne quite yet though. On Monday night she went to bed at 8:30 pm and was up for the day around 5:30 am. So she only slept around 9 hours - which is still a record for her. We're working on weaning her and so far it's going okay with an unexpected benefit of longer sleep periods.

Kate and I now have our eyes on the crawling prize. I am really starting to see potential; for a very long time I saw none at all. Terrible to say - I know. I want it so bad though! My girlfriends have all warned me that the 10 - 12 month range is a hard one as the babies are so frustrated - all the time. Well Cody and I are in the depths of Kate's disagreeableness and we want out. Crawling and maybe a few more teeth would help so much. She used to love us and now I sense a little hate. I have gone on a bit but wanted to share the good-ish news.

Here are a few pics of our Christmas elf: