Natalie’s Blog

Here’s some photos from our trip to Ithaca, NY to see Uncle David graduate from the Finger Lakes School of Massage. More pictures here.

Here he is in the commencement processional:

Family pics:

At Taughannock Falls:

At Robert Treman State Park:

Next time we travel anywhere more than a couple of hours away, I think we’ll do the driving at night while Natalie sleeps. She was a trooper, but now that she’s almost crawling, she really doesn’t like being strapped in the car. Natalie wants to be on the move! She napped some of the time, but the rest of the time it was challenging to keep her entertained and not crying. We sang songs, presented new toys, played peek-a-boo, and resorted to using sugar!

Here’s a couple of still shots of her blowing raspberries…we can add these to her catalogue of much blogged-about funny faces!

Since Natalie’s first taste of banana on April 30, she’s enjoyed a variety of solid foods:
oatmeal
pear
mango
nectarine
watermelon
pickles
avocado

Here’s an early video of her eating oatmeal—since then she’s gotten much neater! Last night she ate avocado for the first time (she LOVED it) and hardly any of it got on her face.

We’ve been trying to get this on film for about a week…
Without seeing for yourself in the following video, would you have believed Natalie was doing this if we told you?

I decided to buy Natalie her very own kiddie pool after she had such a good time in Clara’s pool. Babies R Us had two choices: a $5 small, hard plastic pool or a $19.99 large, semi-inflatable pool that springs open and closed (kind of like those circular sun shades for your windshield). Since I didn’t know how I was going to transport or store the hard plastic one, I opted for the “fancier” one.

Next I bought Natalie a bathing suit. It disgusts me how bathing suits for babies are sexualized. Many of the suits, even the one-peice ones, are cut in such a way as to suggest cleavage! And don’t even get me started on the bikinis…it’s ridiculous, especially since the suit has to fit over a big diaper. It was a challenge to find a suit that was appropriate for a baby and didn’t include a huge advertisement for a TV character on it, but I finally found a yellow one with a nice blue fish on it:

As you can see, the “fancier” kiddy pool turned out the be a little silly, because in order for the sides to stay up, it needs to be filled with A LOT of water. Too much for Natalie, who’s happy with an inch or two. But if we want, at least we have the option of getting in the pool with her. Natalie did plenty of splashing, even in a couple inches of water, and didn’t notice a bit that the sides were collapsed:

It just made it easier for her to get to the grass:

What fun! Here she is drying off after her “swim”:

Big hugs and kisses to Aunt Katy, who’s in China right now. Check out her blog here. We can’t wait to see more pictures!

I can’t believe our girl is 6 months old already! Natalie is truly a joy, as you can see:

Natalie’s half-birthday also falls on our wedding anniversary—Happy 4th Anniversary to us!

Today I’m reminded about how the number 7 keeps popping up in our lives…Normally I don’t take much stock in lucky numbers or coincidences, but take a look:

Chris’ birthday is 7/8/77
My birthday is 8/7/78
Our anniversary is 6/7/03 (I know, we planned that one!)

And Natalie, who has 7 letters in her name, was born on December 7, in room 7, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces! Shucks, if only she’d been 7 lbs, 7 oz…maybe the scale was off by on ounce. I doubt this phenomenon really means anything, other than it makes important dates easier to remember. If we forget, we know at least that there’s got to be a 7 in there somewhere!

We’ve only been using the playroom since Saturday, and already it’s made a huge improvement in our lives. Natalie has been napping in her swing really well in there—I think when the swing was in the living room, she was too busy checking out what mom and dad were doing to sleep.

Since the playroom is out of sight (and hearing range) from anywhere else in the house, Natalie can relax and sleep. I scored a monitor for $10 at a yard sale, so I don’t have to worry about checking on her and possibly waking her up.Chris hooked up an airport and speakers, so we can play music in there from our laptops. Music seems to help Natalie sleep longer and make her less susceptible to waking up when random noises occur (like the neighbor’s construction work).

Yesterday, Natalie napped for 3 hours in the morning and then took a 2 hour nap in the afternoon! I seriously doubt she would have been able to sleep that long anywhere else in the house. I knew she had slept enough because she woke up happy and babbling, as opposed to whiny and cranky, which is how she’s been waking up from naps lately.

The best part is, as Chris pointed out, the playroom makes our home complete. It’s certainly a better use of the space than storage!

The hardest thing about co-sleeping has been trying to get myself ready for bed before Natalie starts screaming because she’s so sleepy. Usually I’m rushing to brush my teeth while Chris has the unfortunate job of trying to distract her from crying. Lately, I’ve been able to put her to bed and sneak away, so you’d think this would no longer be a problem.

But, alas, Natalie seems to wake up each night as we’re getting ready for bed. And poor Chris has to hold her while she screams and I rush to get myself ready. Chris tries hard to comfort her, but nothing works—she just needs to nurse. Or so we thought…

Last night, while I was furiously brushing my teeth while trying to take my contacts out at the same time, I realized Natalie wasn’t crying. I went in our bedroom to find Natalie asleep on Chris’ lap in the rocking chair. Now I know that rocking a baby to sleep in a rocking chair may not seem shocking to most people, but Natalie has never taken to being rocked. So when I saw this, my jaw nearly hit the floor!

It was such a sweet sight, I wished I had a camera handy. I was so glad Chris got to experience the serenity of having a sleeping baby on your lap, something he hasn’t experienced since Natalie was a wee one.

Even more shocking, he actually was able to put Natalie in her crib and she stayed asleep!!! Hooray for Dad!