Kati Kragtorp's blog

My little baby is turning two!!! It is hard to believe, and yet absolutely wonderful. We are having so much fun getting to know the little person we named Rosalie, so I wanted to do a blog just for her.

I suppose it is the natural way of things, but I am still amazed and somewhat chagrined that it has been over a year since I last posted an update! I will try to rectify that to the best of my ability. Our girls are growing up fast (of course!) and we had the opportunity to make some wonderful memories this holiday season.

Greetings!

It’s been a whirlwind of a year for us, and it is hard to believe the decade is really coming to a close. In the last year, our family has grown by one member, and in many ways our time is simply spent keeping up with the chaos that two lively children create.

Life in the Kragtorp household has been trucking along at the usual break-neck speed. Somehow Rosalie managed to turn 7months old, and Addy seems more like the 3-year old that she'll be in January.

Addy's obsession with food continues unabated. She helps make a lot of her favorite foods and is actually quite, well, helpful! Her stirring technique has been refined and rarely results in a spill. She is a pro at building a sandwich or filling up pita bread. And she's got the recipe for her morning cereal down pat - she'll often let me know if I've forgotten an ingredient!

Well, in true second-child fashion, I’m afraid I’ve been quite behind in writing a blog about Rosalie. Let it be understood that in many ways this is a direct result of the wonderful nature she has: she is so little trouble and so generally delightful that I’ve been having difficulty coming up with something to write without sounding too much like a Pollyanna! But she deserves a blog as much as her sister, so I will ask you to bear with me.

Like so many other parents, we've been discussing possible future occupations for Addy every since she was born. Our earliest suggestion was opera singer, due to the volume she could achieve, more than it's musicality! As her personality unfolds, we've come up with a few more ideas that I thought we would share. So - here are our top five careers for Addy:

• #5 - Plumber - She loves water, has already managed to dismantle a faucet screen and a drain stopper, and her pants always seem to be falling down . . .

It seems that more & more Addy is keeping us in stitches with her very unique way of interacting with the world. I thought I’d share some of our recent favorites.

Addy has developed a fascination with her reflection. But this isn’t confined to mirrors at all (though she loves making faces at herself when she’s supposed to be brushing her teeth). Some recent conversations I’ve witnessed have involved the chrome knob on the side of the toilet paper roll: “Hi! I sitting on potty. Nothing happen yet.”, and the bathtub faucet: “Hi! Nice to meet you! I taking bath. Um . . . um. . . um . . . ok bye!” I guess the faucet-reflection Addy wasn’t too interesting to talk to.

Hi there! I thought it was time that I told you a little about myself, now that I've been in the family for six weeks!

I'm around 21 inches, somewhere over 10 pounds, and have dark hair and dark blue eyes. Some of my most striking features include my very long, tapered fingers. Mom thinks they look a lot like my Aunt Kristi's, and others have suggested that I might have piano playing in my future. We'll just see.

Just when we were starting to get a little bit of a handle on Rosalie's eating (she's a very 'relaxed' nurser, and needs a lot of help to get everything she needs!) and sleeping schedules, we found ourselves with a sick Adeline on Monday morning. She had been up on & off all night and along with a cough she seemed to be having a bit of trouble getting a good, deep breath. The point at which she sadly directed me to 'take cereal away' and 'take milk away' before even sitting down to her breakfast, I realized this was more than just your average cold.

Along with the unusually early spring this year came our slightly early little Rosalie. She was due at the end of April, and I had often asked her for just a few more days so I could finish up my teaching and also sing for Easter Sunday. However, she decided that the time was up early on the Thursday morning that was to be my last day teaching. So, I sent off a 3am e-mail to my substitute and we rushed off to the hospital, leaving Addy in the care of her Nana, blissfully unaware of what was going on.