They Call Her Katie (sung to the tune of "Flipper")

Five fun things about Kate.

1. She can clap. Sometimes she'll spend several minutes practicing it. Sometimes she'll do something she's proud of, like crawl across the room or play something on the little piano, and she'll stop, sit up on her knees, and clap happily. As if she's applauding herself for what she's just done. Yes, I did that! Yay, me!

2. When she's hungry, she throws her mouth open wide for food. When she's not hungry, she kind of half opens her mouth and looks at me with some mild curiosity, like I'm a bug or something. I put the food to her lips and get some in, and she kind of absently smacks her lips at it. Hmm. This is OK. I guess.

3. Almost since before she could sit up, she kind of sits like a hurdler, or a cheerleader -- like she's doing a split. One leg is bent at the knee, the other is stretched out behind her. She balances like that, and I've never seen her fall from that position. It's pretty impressive.

4. She frequently disregards the toys we give her -- you know, the baby toys -- in favor of the toys we want to keep from her, Jack's toys. So I give her a big old plastic ring, and two seconds later she's tossed it aside (literally, I might add) and is making a beeline for one of Jack's tiny metal cars. Usually the tow truck, with a big metal hook extending from the back. Excellent, Katie.

5a. She's crazy about Jack. When she sees him in the morning, from her crib when he and I hear her and go in, she claps without clapping, then big smiles, then crawls quickly over to the bars to look at him up close. He puts his hands on the bars outside, then does something silly to make her laugh. She smiles from ear to ear. If he's in the living room and she's on the carpet, she crawls over to be near him. Wherever he is, and however many times he gets up and runs across the room. She seems to sigh internally, shrug, then get into crawling pose and determinedly crawl after him.

5b. Tonight I was reading them a story, and Jack stood up for some reason. She gazed up at him, eyes bright, mouth open, on the verge of laughing. It was exactly as if she was thinking, What wonderful thing is he going to do next?