Natalie’s Blog

Thanks to Rhoda & Henry for giving Natalie this great outdoor toy!

As you can see, she’s very protective of it:

Likes to open and close the door:

And LOVES to drive it:

For our little turkey…

…on her first (unseasonably warm) Thanksgiving!

Natalie took six unassisted steps today!! She looked somewhat surprised, but so proud of herself at the same time.

So we were out this morning having a birthday brunch for Grandpop. Natalie was in a good mood, but toward the end of the meal was in need of some new entertainment. I suggested we let her play with the basket of butter, jelly, and syrup packets. Chris immediately raised his eyebrows and looked at me like I’m crazy.

Chris, says cautiously: “I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”

Me, slightly defensive: “Why not? She loves taking things out of containers and then putting them back in. It’ll be fine.”

Chris, irritated: “There’s going to be syrup all over the place!”

Me, humoring him: “Okay, take the syrup packets out just in case…”

Grandpop, trying to be neutral: “Yeah, she’s not that dexterous yet. She can’t peal open these packets.”

Chris, now looking worried and annoyed, says exasperatedly: “Alright…”

Natalie very excitedly goes about digging in the basket, taking stuff out and putting it back in.

A couple minutes later…

Grandpop, who was holding Natalie: “Uh oh!”

Chris, looking over and seeing the broken jelly packet, with jelly oozing out all over Natalie’s hand and Grandpop’s pants: “See! I told you so! No one ever listens to me…”

Me, sheepishly pulling out the last wipe in the diaper bag: “Oops…Who knew she could squeeze hard enough the bust open the packet?!?!?!”

Chris: “I knew. She’s very strong!”

Me: “Yes, honey, you were right.”

Chris finally sent me pictures he’s taken on his iPhone over the last couple of months. I’ve seen iPhone photos that aren’t blurry, but I’m not quite sure how people do that.  

Natalie was sleeping so soundly the morning Chris took this picture! We had to practically shake her awake:
 

Before Natalie developed her full-on fridge obsession, she liked to steal beers from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door:

Peas are one of Natalie’s favorite foods:

Natalie in her new red hat that only stays on temporarily, despite the velcro:

Natalie trying to get down the stairs:

Handing Mama a sugar packet at Zorba’s Brother:

One of Natalie’s other favorites, corn on the cob:

Playing “catch the straw” with Grandpop:

So we’re in the midst of a hellishly bad sleep phase (please, please, please let it be a phase). No sooner than I hit publish on my last post (where I foolishly wrote that Natalie’s sleep was undisturbed despite teething) did she wake up crying. That night was by far the worst night we’ve ever had. I tried to get her back to sleep for 2.5 hours, then Chris got up and drove her around in the car for another hour until she finally fell asleep. Since then she has been waking up in the wee hours (between 4 and 5 am) and having a hard time settling back down.

One sleep problem (in addition to teething) we’ve identified is giving her infant motrin in the middle of the night. Our hypothesis is that the sugar keeps her awake. She stops crying once we give her the medicine, signifying that her teeth no longer hurt, but then she enters this weird wired state where she looks like a red-eyed insomniac zombie.

Walking, or rather, working on walking is the other thing keeping Natalie awake. Apparently working toward developmental milestones interferes with babies’ sleep. I seem to remember a similar problem right before Natalie started crawling. Thank goodness for Ask Moxie (my favorite parenting site) and her post about babies practicing walking and not sleeping, which verified our suspicions.

So last night continued on the bad trend…Natalie went to sleep fine initially, did okay going back to sleep when she woke up around 12, but then woke up again at 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. If we weren’t so tired it would be almost comical…she gets up on her hands and knees, then flops herself face-down on the bed trying to find a comfortable position. Often, she will fall asleep for 30 seconds, then wake up and try to reposition. Chris got her to sleep walking her, only to have her wake up as soon as he put her down. Around 4:45 am, I decided to give up and just get up with her. So we went into the hallway and Natalie gleefully walked (holding my hands) up and down the hallway several times. Then we went downstairs and read books for a while. Then she got fussy and started rubbing her eyes. Back upstairs we went…I tried nursing her in the glider—no sleep.

Then it hit me—her mouse! (You know I was going to get to the subject of this post eventually.) I received this mouse for Natalie at my baby shower (thanks Judith, Jess & Janine!). A while back I started giving it to her while she nursed, because otherwise she pinched me. Really hard. So I wanted her to have something in her hands, plus I like the idea of her having a lovey. But lately, while nursing to sleep, she’s been throwing the mouse, then sitting up and crying until I get up, locate it in the dark, and hand it back to her. I tried holding on to it so that she can’t throw it, but then she got frustrated and cried anyway. Since it’s rather annoying to go through that several times before she falls asleep, I decided to not give her the mouse in the first place. Bad choice, it seems.

Anywho, back to early this morning…after being up for over an hour and not getting her back to sleep by all the usual methods, we gave Natalie her mouse and she nursed completely calmly and went back to sleep for another 3 hours. Maybe we’ll start calling the mouse “mighty.”

Hopefully, Natalie will grow more teeth and learn to walk. Soon. Did I mention that she’s gone down to 1 nap a day? Sorry to ramble on and on in this post…it’s hard to think clearly while sleep-deprived…

Natalie with her mighty mouse:

Mark your calendars, because the countdown has begun! Only 30 days until Natalie’s first birthday…

Natalie has been teething the past week or two, which means she’s cranky, clingy, and crying a lot. Oddly enough, she’s been sleeping okay, which is a miracle. But the poor thing can’t seem to get comfortable when she’s awake. One minute she’s begging to be picked up, then struggling to get down, but then crying as soon as she touches the floor. Repeat, repeat. Today she was in slightly better spirits, thank goodness. Come to think of it, last week Natalie was the opposite, with disrupted sleep but in a good mood during the day. Yikes—how many teeth do humans have?

Natalie also seems to have just gotten frustrated with the fact that she can’t walk yet, whereas a week ago she couldn’t have cared less. Lucky for my back, she’s tall and I’m short, so she can walk holding onto my fingers and I don’t have to bend over at all. She also likes to walk behind a couple of push toys she has, although they slide a little too easily on our hardwood floors and tend to get away from her. Hopefully her new found motivation to walk will help her learn the skill quickly and end her frustration.

When she’s not in pain from teething or frustrated that she can’t walk (or can’t play with the electrical sockets) Natalie is absolutely delightful and adorable. She is really into books right now and will sit and hand us book after book for an hour. She also loves being outside and playing with her slide and her cozy coupe (which I need to take some pictures of). Natalie is ever observant—yesterday we were outside playing when she pointed to the back of the yard and said “cat!” Sure enough, the neighbors cat had come into the yard for a visit.

Here are pictures of some of Natalie’s current favorite activities.

Playing in the kitchen cabinets:

Natalie has a love affair with the dishwasher! If she hears it creak open, she crawls just as fast as she can to get to it and sometimes cries bitterly when we close it.

Eating grapes:

Playing “so big”:

And finally, playing in the refrigerator. Not wanting to waste electricity by having the refrigerator door open for any longer than necessary, we held out for a long time before breaking down and letting her explore. We’re hoping that the novelty will wear off soon. She figured out how to climb up the shelves pretty fast:

So Big! from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.