Natalie’s Blog

Natalie is getting smarter, bigger, more active, more social, cuter, etc., etc. by the minute! Last week she started giving kisses—more like open-mouthed, slobbery head-butts—but it melts our hearts just the same. I was reading one of Natalie’s favorite animal sounds books to her and she kissed the cat each time we read it. Later that day Chris was reading her the same book and she kissed the cat and the dog. She’s getting to know some of her books and will look at us with anticipation when we get to her favorite pages—she especially likes the ssssss sound of the snake and the pffffffff sound of the elephant (I learned to do a really good elephant imitation!).

Natalie has mastered crawling quite fast these days and pulling herself up on everything. She’s become an expert in getting up and down the two steps between the kitchen and playroom without falling. Unfortunately, she still hasn’t learned that she can’t crawl under the table or chairs and stand up.

In terms of solid food, Natalie recently tried broccoli, cauliflower, and corn-on-the-cob and loved them all. She’s not too keen on being spoon fed, which is not surprising given how independent and determined she is. We’ve been giving her cut up fruit or large pieces of veggies to gnaw on and she’s done really well with everything.

Here she is pulling herself up by my pant-legs:

Trying to escape:

Feeding herself:

Wearing overalls:

And going through her new tunnel (wearing a hair clip!):

I almost forgot to mention the cutest part about Natalie’s new kissing skill—she kisses herself in the mirror! When I put her in the carseat, she reaches for the mirror (so we can see her while driving) and gives herself a big wet one!

Natalie has already gone through a variety of styles of sleep-wear in her young life. Initially, she wore “sleeping gowns.” I dressed her in them mostly because I got a lot of them at my baby shower and many more experienced moms espoused their virtue, which is that middle-of-the-night diaper changes are easy because the gowns don’t have snaps or pants. The other advantage of sleeping gowns is that they have little cuffs that fold over newborns’ hands to keep them from scratching themselves. Natalie managed to scratch her face quite a bit anyway.

Actually, I hated those sleeping gowns! When ever we picked Natalie up, the gown would ride up practically to her neck—we were constantly adjusting those stupid gowns. In the old days, the gowns had a draw-string at the bottom so that riding up wouldn’t be a problem, but since strings on baby clothes are a strangulation hazard, the modern versions have elastic at the bottom. I think once the draw-string was banned, the usefulness of the sleeping gown went out the window.

Not it’s obvious, but here is a picture of wee little Natalie in her first sleeping gown. This photo was taken the day she was born:

See how scrunched up the gown is in this picture?

At some point (maybe around 6 weeks?) we realized that Natalie slept better when she was swaddled with two blankets. So she really didn’t need more than a t-shirt onsie underneath, which is how she slept until we stopped swaddling her around 4 months. Swaddling was fun because when we unwrapped her in the morning, she was all cute and stretchy. Here’s couple of photos of swaddled Natalie, around a week old:

Next we tried a sleep sack, which is like a wearable blanket. They have the advantage of easy changes because they have no legs, but don’t ride up because the bottom is closed.

The sleep sack didn’t last long because once we started co-cleeping the velour sleep sacks were too hot for Natalie. Since then we’ve been alternating between footed pajamas and t-shirt onsies, depending on the weather.

Here she is in some footie PJs:

Snuggled up next to Mama at Aunt Elaine’s house:

And here she is in a onsie with her “Flock of Seagulls” morning hair:

Now Natalie has outgrown all of her footie pajamas and most of her t-shirts, so I decided it was time to buy her some proper “pajamas.” That is, sets of pants and shirts (short or long) that are designed to wear at night only. Footie pajamas are cute, but Natalie is tall and outgrows clothes length-wise well before they are too tight, so she gets more wear out of separates than one-peices.

Much to my disgust, all of the “girls” pajamas (ie pink and purple with hearts) at Babies r Us had ruffles or lace around the collars of the shirts! That’s much too itchy to sleep in, so I bought her some “boys” pajamas (ie blue, red, or white with animals or transportation themes) that looked much more comfy. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that clothes for baby girls are already priming them to sacrifice comfort in the name of fashion, but somehow I still find it shocking.

Here is Natalie looking super-cute in her new transportation-theme “boys” pajamas:

Chris and I enjoyed a night to ourselves on Tuesday while Auntie Diane and Uncle Dave babysat. Natalie had a great time hanging out with her friend Clara and playing with all her toys. Our plan was to see The Borne Ultimatum, since we haven’t been out to a movie since before Natalie was born. Unfortunately, when we got to the theatre, they informed us that that film wouldn’t be showing due to technical difficulties! So we opted for dinner at the Blue Bottle in Hopewell instead. I wanted to take pictures of the food and post them a la Andrea Harner, but we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to whip out the camera. Take our word for it—the food was delicious and pretty. It felt good to get out reconnect as a couple. Of course when we picked up Natalie, we wanted the blow-by-blow of everything she had done in our absence! Thanks for giving us the night off, Diane and Dave!!

Natalie turned 8-months-old on August 7. Our daughter is quite a feisty girl! She learned to climb stairs…starting with the two steps between our kitchen and her play room, then she mastered going up a full flight. Her biggest entertainment right now is crawling around and getting into trouble. In an attempt to keep her safe, we installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, and between the kitchen and play room. We also installed a special magnetized cat door so the cats can get into the basement, but Natalie can’t. Special thanks to Grandpa Charles, who hung the new basement door and installed the top-of-the-stairs gate, and to Grandpa Smoky, who installed the bottom-of-the-stairs gate.

Even with all that child-proofing, Natalie still manages to get a lot of boo-boos. A week or so ago I noticed that she had bruises on both of her knees, her ankle, her face, and her butt. Today she hit her head trying to sit up under a little table, then got her finger caught under the screen door, then fell with her head wedged between the toilet and the tile wall. All these things happened with me close by. I’m thinking about making her wear a helmet….

Here’s a picture of Natalie on her 8-month-birthday, which was also my birthday and Grandpa Smoky’s birthday. We celebrated at the shore. Natalie wasn’t thrilled when a huge surprise wave hit us while I was holding her in shallow water, but she didn’t seem to mind having sand covering her entire body!

Here are pictures from our weekend in the Catskills with Margaret, Sofia & David.

Natalie and David drumming together:

Chris reading to Natalie:

Natalie was so excited to be there that getting her to sleep was a challenge! Here I am trying to nurse her to sleep:

One day it rained, so we went to the mall. Natalie & David had a blast going on (chewing on) the rides:

The next day was nice and we had a great time at Lake Superior:

Natalie spent the weekend clapping, a skill she had recently mastered: