Kate's Baby

Jack has never really had a favorite toy. I mean, he had his "sheep" for a while, which was actually a fleecy dog in a "World Champion Red Sox" T-shirt. He has his stuffed puppy, which he's slept with most every night for more than 2 years. But he's never been so attached to any one toy that he cried when it was taken away.

And then there's Kate, with her baby. On her first birthday, Grandma gave her these plastic dolls, twin babies, one in blue and one in pink. For a little while Jack liked them more than Kate, and then they were forgotten for a while, and then recently Kate started carrying them around. And then for the last week it's just been the pink one. And she brings it everywhere. Downstairs. Upstairs. To school (they said it was OK). She keeps it locked into one arm, hugged tight against her. Try to take it from her, and there's a scene. Set it down for her when it's time to eat, there's a scene. "My baby!" she wails. "My baby!!!!"

Ground rules have gradually, painfully, been established. If you tell her where to put it down -- on a chair near the table when she eats, on a step stool near the tub when she takes her bath -- she grudgingly accepts. Even this took a while.

She sleeps with her baby. When I go in in the morning, she's standing up, baby locked under her arm. When I pick her up at school, she's standing there, baby locked into an arm. Evidently she doesn't let it go much.

That's just one example of how expressive Kate has become in recent weeks. She plays with Jack's dinosaurs and makes little throaty growls while doing so. The fits she pitches are quite remarkable (not as much fun as the growling dinosaurs). She talks more, often loudly. She laughs and runs and plays Jack's favorite game, which basically involves chasing her around the house, her laughing the whole way. Today she was actually out of breath after it. Jack too, I think.

Of course, it's tiring for her to run everywhere while carrying her baby.