Happy Halloween!

The end of October was pretty busy in the McCammon household. The weekend before Halloween, we spent Saturday afternoon at the New Orleans Art Market, which is held the last Saturday of every month at an uptown park. Cate got to show off some of her Halloween clothing and John and I got to check out some local artists and eat yummy Nutella and banana crepes.

John and Cate at the Art Market.

On my birthday, John, Cate, and I went over to James and Donna’s for dinner. Cate enjoyed seeing her cousins Jordan and Colin as well as Papa Mike. Jordan decorated a beautiful birthday cake and the whole evening was the perfect end to a wonderful birthday!

Cate helps me blow out the candles.

Colin and Papa Mike enjoy the cake.

As you may have heard by now, Cate was a peacock for Halloween. I tried to get as much mileage as possible out of the costume (although it was so big for her that she will probably still be able to wear it when she is 3!), so Cate wore her costume to playgroup on Tuesday and Gym Rompers on Wednesday. I think she ended up wearing it much longer on those two days than she did on Halloween!

Cate trying on her Halloween costume.

For Halloween, we dressed Cate up in her costume and walked up the street to our favorite sushi restaurant for dinner. Cate had skipped her afternoon nap and was consequently pretty fussy, so she only wore her costume for about ten minutes, but that was long enough to get lots of compliments!

Happy Halloween!

Cate hasn't quite mastered sitting up!

On the solid food front, we continue to make progress. Cate is now eating bananas, avocados, and oatmeal. The oatmeal seems to be much more palatable to her than the rice cereal, especially when it is mixed with bananas. However, as Cate has become more interested (aka excited) about solid foods, feeding her has become increasingly messy. Half the time, I just take all of her clothes off of her before she eats and put her in the tub afterwards. Fortunately, we have Ford around to help clean up.

Note, if you can't tell what's going on in this picture, Ford is licking the avocado off of Cate's bouncy seat.

Yum Yum!

We are pretty sure this is what Cate would say about rice cereal if (1) she could talk and (2) her verbal skills were sufficiently advanced that she had mastered sarcasm. Yes, much to Ford’s delight we recently started solid foods. Five months old was a little earlier than I had planned to start feeding her solids, but we have been looking for ways to get additional calories in our little munchkin. We followed the tradition of starting with rice cereal, but Cate does not seem pleased with the taste and/or texture. Fortunately, bananas and avocados have been much more successful!

Cate is suspicious of her first taste of rice cereal.

Bananas are much better!

Other notables since our last post include Cate’s first illness….it seems that Cate managed to pick up Fifth Disease (also known as Slapped Cheek), a common childhood virus. Her cheeks were bright red for about a week and while she wasn’t too sick, she was definitely out of sorts. Overall, it wasn’t too bad as far as first illnesses go, but it was pretty sad that Cate obviously didn’t feel so hot and there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Cate continues to roll over (still mostly front to back, with the occasional back to front roll) and her ability to grab objects has increased noticeably in the last month. John and I put her exersaucer together a few weeks ago and she has been busy mastering the various toys. Of course, the exersaucer, like most toys, isn’t really made for children in the fifth percentile for height, so her feet didn’t exactly touch the ground when we first starting using it….nothing a phone book couldn’t fix, though!

Cate enjoys playing in her exersaucer.

Too bad her feet don't touch!

At this point, Cate isn’t showing any signs of sitting up. Although she enjoys being on the ground and enjoys standing up (with assistance, of course), something about sitting seems to make her uncomfortable. If you try to make her sit, she makes her whole body straight as a board and puffs out her stomach. As you can imagine, this makes putting her in the car seat lots of fun!

Cate looks cool while spending a Saturday downtown.

My Awesome Husband

Today we found out that John passed the Louisiana bar exam! Cate and I are very proud of him. Our regular baby-sitter Sam was already schedule to come today, so I got to join John for a celebratory lunch downtown with some of his co-workers. Now that Cate is down for the night, we are continuing the celebration by sitting on the couch, drinking beer, and watching football...this is what counts as excitement when you have a five month old!

Rolling Over

In this picture, Cate is all ready for the Saints game with her Saints onesie and Saints socks. If you look closely, you can also see Ford pouting in the background!

At Cate's 3-month checkup (she was actually closer to 3 1/2 months), the pediatrician asked if Cate had shown any signs of rolling over. At the time, Cate was showing absolutely no interest in rolling over. After all, she is perfectly content to be on her back and when she is on her stomach, she is generally too hysterical to even consider rolling over (Cate HATES tummy time). However, Cate suddenly rolled over on Sunday morning!

We were having morning playtime on the floor and when I put Cate on her stomach, she immediately rolled to her back. I thought maybe I had just put her in a funny position, so I put her on her stomach again...and she immediately rolled over! After she did it one more time, I decided this was the real thing and woke John up. Of course, once John was up and watching, Cate wouldn't roll over again. However, she rolled over several more times on Monday morning and John caught the action this time.

On Wednesday, Cate had her 4-month old checkup (she is actually about 4 1/2 months). The pediatrician said that although Cate remains on the petite side, she is doing great. Her stats this months are:

Height: 22.5 inches (5th percentile)
Weight: 11 lbs. (5th percentile)
Head Circumference: 39 cm (5th percentile)

Cate right before rolling over (we have yet to catch her rolling over on film).

Cate enjoys staring at herself in her mirror... notice the large stream of drool coming out of her mouth. So ladylike.