firsts, revisited

Kate had a few firsts on our vacation. One of the greatest ones was her first word: Daddy. I think she learned this while we were in Seattle, but we got to hear her say it a few times when we returned, and I think she knows what it means. She's getting better at calling me Mama and Tim Dada or Daddy. Her second word was 'hiiiii', which she greeted me with one morning when I went into her room to get her out of her pack n play. I always say 'hiiii' when I go into her room after she wakes up, and she has taken notice. After we returned to Arizona, she also said 'baby' (just a couple of times) and has now learned 'bye-bye', which she reserves for very special occasions that only she can explain. She has a very cute voice.

A not-so-fun first was her first trip to the ER a week ago. That cold she had come down with on the way to Oregon finally settled and seemed to be causing an ear infection. Tricare of course recommended that we go to the Salem Hospital ER, where they triage and we got to wait in the waiting room for just a hair over 4 hours. This was during naptime, and again created crabby baby who didn't want to sleep in our arms. Once she had been asleep for about 30 minutes, they called us into our room to see the doc. He came in pretty quickly, looked in both of her ears, diagnosed ear infections in each (is it bad to say 'at least she was sick'?), and left telling us that he'd be back to give us a prescription. Just a hair over 45 minutes later, when I was certain he had forgotten us (he had), I stuck my head out the door and hailed a nurse to remind her that we were still there. Waiting. Finally, prescriptions in hand, and 5 hours after arriving, we left on a quest for our meds. I think we only had to go to 2 pharmacies to find what we needed, but I can't remember for sure... So, another mostly-napless day for Kate. But she started getting better right away, which was good since we were flying out 2 days later.

Kate at the ER. What is this thing on my toe?

The next night we had Kate's family birthday celebration. She got her own cake (chocolate) and was the star of the show. She loved that. She also loved the cake.

And of course, now that I am trying to upload more photos, blogger refuses to acknowledge my requests. So I will continue this later. Grrr.