Natalie’s Blog

We had a great time visiting the Philadelphia Zoo! It was hard to tell whether Natalie was interested in the animals, the people, or just being outside—but she was happy to be there. There are tons more pictures on flickr, but here are some favorites:

Natalie making a funny face:

Muddy tortoise friends:

Natalie and Clara in their sun hats:

Peacock butt:

Natalie with Nama & Grandpa:

Wet Elephant:

Natalie chewing on Chris’ finger:

Giraffe:

Zebra:

Natalie totally tuckered out at the end of the day:

What do you think of our redesign? Notice the new buzzfeed widget at the bottom of the sidebar!

Now that they’re older, Natalie and Clara are so cute together! They’re much more interested in each other than they were when they were younger. Not that you can tell from the following video, you’ll just have to trust me. Before the video was taken, they were patting each other’s butts! I guess dogs sniff and babies pat. Natalie had a great time playing in Clara’s pool—her first “swimming” experience.

Natalie and our two cats have become increasingly more aware of each other lately. If Natalie gets fussy, sometimes all it takes to make her smile is to show her one of the cats. Tillman is still pretty scared of Natalie and only shows some curiosity from a distance. Cat (technically Uncle David’s cat, and yes, his name is “Cat”) on the other hand, sometimes likes to get close to Natalie and snuggle. Cat, unlike Tillman, is de-clawed and doesn’t ever bite, so he’s a good starter cat for her. Since it’s more likely that Natalie will hurt Cat than vice versa, we’re trying to teach Natalie to be gentle. Heh heh.

In their first close encounter, Natalie really wanted to touch Cat. I had to put a lot of muscle into restraining her—it was like she was in a bar fight and I was holding her back! As you’ll hear, she was pretty mad that she couldn’t get to him. This video was taken on April 27, 2007.

The next encounter, Cat snuggled against her for a minute, but then kept his distance. These pictures and video were taken on May 22, 2007.

Hurray!!!!! Natalie cut her first tooth last Friday, May 18, 2007. The lucky tooth to pop through first is the bottom front left. We would have posted this earlier, but it took a week to get a semi-good photo of the tooth. It’s still hard to see, but it sure is sharp!

It’s the same blanket and the same socks… but is it the same Natalie? The first picture was taken when she was two days old. The second was taken today at five and a half months old.

I think the biggest change is in her thighs…they’ve gone from spindly to chubby! Pretty cute both ways, I think.

Changing Natalie’s diapers has become quite a challenge since she’s gotten to be a rollin’-over, toe-grabbing gal. Luckily, Great-Aunt Bonnie got Natalie this cute pink elephant that plays “twinkle twinkle little star” when you squeeze the tummy. You can also sing “the alphabet” to the same tune. Since the pink elephant is the perfect distraction and allows us to change her more easily, we’ve been singing a lot of “the alphabet” and “twinkle, twinkle little star.”

Bored with these two songs, we made up this little ditty:

Elephant, oh elephant,
How I wonder where you went

Elephant oh elephant,
How I wonder where you went

Here she is with her favorite little pink elephant-friend. We love her messy morning hair!

NIP = Nursing in Public

Since Natalie was born, I’ve never had a big problem nursing in front of people. I started breastfeeding in front of family and close friends right away, and before long, I was nursing in restaurants and on airplanes. My friend Jodi helped me get comfortable pretty early on while we were shopping with Natalie in tow (Natalie was about 2 weeks at the time). We were in a maternity boutique in PA and I anticipated Natalie being hungry soon. Rather than get in the car and have to stop half-way home, I said I was going to ask the store clerk if she minded me feeding the baby before we left. Hearing this, Jodi pointed out that I had the right to nurse my child and that I didn’t need “permission.” Right on.

Frankly, when Natalie is crying from hunger, my concern is getting her fed—in those moments I couldn’t care less about accidentally flashing someone, although I try to be discrete. I hope I’m successful at least most of the time.

Natalie and I have been going for walks in Veteran’s Park with some other Moms and babies from our breastfeeding group. Natalie has yet to make through an entire walk without needing to stop and nurse—even if I’ve just fed her before-hand. So I’ve gotten used to nursing her on park benches. All the benches in Veteran’s Park are in groups of three. The last time we were there, I was just about to lift up my shirt when an elderly gentleman sat down on the bench next to mine. Since Natalie was quite hysterical there wasn’t much I could do besides feed her. Luckily, either the guy was trying to be respectful or he was just very sleepy but he just sat there with his eyes closed the whole time. I was in the clear until Natalie started making very loud and obvious slurping and sucking noises as she nursed! Oy vey…

My hope is that as breastfeeding is encouraged more and more, people will start nursing in public more often, nursing will become more mainstream overall and Natalie will not understand what the big deal is when she has children.

My first Mother’s Day! It’s still hard for me to believe I’m a mother, but at the same time I can’t remember (nor do I wish to go back to) life before Natalie. The feminist scholar in me wants to read all my Women’s Studies books and examine concepts of identity, motherhood, and family. But what little zen I have in me wins out, so instead I’m trying to have fun and enjoy each moment with my daughter.

Anyway, we had a great first Mother’s Day. Chris got up early that Sunday morning, took care of Natalie while I slept in, and made delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I got a card from Natalie, with her first crayon drawing—I think she has her Dad’s artistic sensibilities! Chris gave me a beautiful locket with Natalie’s picture in it.

While Natalie napped, we planted our first square foot garden! Many thanks to Aunt Elaine for putting us on the path to vegetable gardening. Last time we visited CT, we asked for some advice about starting our garden, and within days of our returning home, a package arrived from Barnes & Noble—two books from Aunt Elaine: Square Foot Gardening & Four-Season Harvest. Woo Hoo! We planted peppers, eggplant, lettuce, zucchini, and cucumbers. We also have pots of basil, thyme, oregano, and dill. The next square foot box will definitely include tomatoes, and some other veggies we’ve yet to decide on.

Then we went to Sayen Gardens in Hamilton. Neither of us had been there before, but I’d heard from folks at work that the Sayen Garden Azalea Festival is the place to be on Mother’s Day. It was beautiful!

We had our Moms over for dinner last night to celebrate their first (Grand)Mother’s Day. We feel so lucky that we live close enough for Natalie to have such close relationships with both of her Grandmothers. And we’re incredibly grateful that they’ve each generously dedicated one day a week to being with Natalie. That time allows me to work and more importantly, it fosters a loving bond between them and Natalie. Each Wednesday and Thursday, Natalie greets them with a huge grin and I’m able to go off to work knowing that my daughter is being cared for with love by two women that we infinitely trust, are proud to call our mothers and who we are sure will be two of the most important people in Natalie’s life.

The evening was wonderful—Natalie kept us all entertained with her coos and smiles. She was happy to sit in her high-chair during dinner, clearly proud to be sitting at the table with the adults. She spent quite a bit of time sucking on an ice cube through her baby-safe mesh feeder. Then a game of peek-a-boo had Natalie laughing hysterically, which delighted us to the point we were practically in hysterics ourselves! Unfortunately there are no pictures to share—we were all enjoying the moment too much to think about the camera. I’m sad that we didn’t video-tape Natalie’s belly-laughing, but I know it won’t be the last opportunity to capture those funny moments…

Natalie also has 3 living GREAT-grandmothers who love her very much. Talk about a lucky little girl!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the best Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers ever!