Natalie’s Blog

Lately Natalie has been babbling with much more complicated combinations of syllables. Sometimes she babbles so urgently, like she’s trying to communicate something very important—but we can’t figure out what she’s trying to say. If you have any ideas about what the following phrases mean, please clue us in!

da-doo
ah-eee
na-nuu
ba-dub ba-dub ba-dub
we-o we-o we-o
ma-num ma-num ma-num

She’s also been experimenting with making her voice extremely nasal. Nasal like Fran Drescher with a bad cold. When she sounds nasal, she makes funny faces, like this:

Natalie sure keeps us laughing!

Or “Day-day,” as Natalie calls him…David looks very happy to be turning 1, doesn’t he? What a cutie!

“Read” is Natalie’s latest word, so I thought it would be a good time to list her favorite books. She’s loved books ever since we started reading to her, around 8 weeks old (why didn’t we start sooner?!?). So, here are Natalie’s favorites, in no particular order:

1. Anything by Sandra Boynton, especially Barnyard Dance, Moo Baa La La La, and But Not the Hippopotamus.

2. Books about animals. Natalie loves to make animal noises and also enjoys pointing out the animals and having her parents make the sounds. Some stand-outs are First 100 Animals, Touch and Learn Baby Animals, and Who Says Quack?

3. Mama Loves You

4. I Love My Mommy Because and I Love My Daddy Because. These two are a bit gendered in what Mommy does compared to what Daddy does, but not so much that it bothers me. Each page has a different parent/baby animal pair, which Natalie really likes. Grandma reads Natalie the spanish versions.

5. Owen and Mzee, the true story of a baby hippo who befriended an old, giant tortoise.

6. Jamberry. Natalie got this book as a gift when she was first born, but just started really liking it recently.

7. That’s Not My Lion

8. Here are My Hands

9. Andy Warhol’s Colors

10. Time for Bed. More parent/baby animal pairs…

11. Who is…Peekaboo! Adorable cloth book by Jelly Kitten that doesn’t seem to be available anymore. I bought it at Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred, a local toy store that doesn’t appear to have a website. Imagine!

12. Baby Cakes. Very rhythmic.

There are probably some we forgot…We’re excited to introduce Natalie to some of our childhood favorites (many of which we have tattered copies of!) as she gets older. It will be fun to see if she likes the same books as we do!

I realized that we never did a post explaining how Natalie got her first name. I’ve been thinking about it lately because Natalie is named after my late father, Nathaniel Weintraub, who died 18 years ago this month. Even after all these years, it’s still a difficult time of year for my family. Natalie is aptly named, as she embodies much of my Dad’s sweet and funny spirit. I’m sad she’ll never get to meet her namesake, but I’ll be sure to show her pictures and tell her stories about her Grandpa.

Here’s a picture of me with my Dad and David. It looks like I’m around the age Natalie is now:

We took Natalie for her 1 year check-up a month late…between her birthday and the holidays and her being sick, it got pushed back. She had her blood drawn for a blood count and a lead level. We haven’t heard from the doctor’s office, which means she’s fine. Whew—all the reports about lead in toys had us a little worried, even though Natalie didn’t have any of the recalled toys. Here are Natalie’s latest growth statistics (I’m not sure why the statistics are less precise):
Weight: 21 pounds (between 25 and 50%)
Height: 31 inches (between 75 and 90%)

I just looked back and realized that Natalie has only grown by 1 pound and 1 inch since her 9 month visit. I think she actually may have gained weight around Christmas—she was all of a sudden feeling really heavy. Then she may have lost weight due to her illness-induced low appetite and her learning to walk. It’s also strange that she’s only grown 1 inch, because she seems so much taller than she did at 9 months. But again, maybe that’s due to walking and standing up straighter. Funny how she seems so much bigger than she did 4 months ago, but in reality this is the least amount of growth between doctor visits yet. I also just noticed that she’s tripled her birth weight and grown 10 inches in 1 year!

Here’s a picture of Natalie doing one of her favorite new activities—picking up rocks from our driveway! A future geologist, perhaps? Wouldn’t Aunt Katy be proud!!

Here’s a picture of Natalie with her Nama at a her birthday lunch. Natalie forgoes food in favor of eating Nama’s camera. Actually, that’s not true—Natalie ate pizza, one of her favorite foods!

Happy Birthday, Nama!

Forgive me…but I am so proud of my girl! Let’s face it, parents like to brag about their kids, and I think coping through all the trials of parenting gives us the right. And what’s a baby blog without a little bragging?

Natalie is really getting the hand of sign language and knows the following signs:
more
eat
milk
done
book
sleep (it’s actually the sign for “bed” but we use it to mean “night-night”)
change
bath
help (she does a modified “help me”)
good

AND, she can do all the following animal sounds:
Cat (actually she says “mao” rather than “meow”—so cute!)
Dog (”bow wow wow”)
Cow (”mmmmmmmm”)
Sheep (”baa baa”)
Elephant (she puckers her lips and blows air thru her nose)
Fish (she makes fish lips)
Monkey (”ooo! ooo! ooo!”)
Gorilla (she pounds her chest and says “ah ah ah”!)
Horse (”neigh neigh”)
Wolf (”ooooohhhh”)
Lion
Tiger
Bear (okay, lions, tigers, and bears all say “roar” but she knows that all three of them make that sound)

Visiting the sheep at Terhune Orchards:

[This entry is written by Chris]

Natalie turned 13 months-old this past Monday. Over the past few weeks she’s been practicing walking a lot, taking a few unassisted steps every day, but usually while clutching one of our fingers or pushing her walker. Before Monday, she’d been very reluctant to walk on her own.

When I got home from work on Monday night, it was like a whole month had gone by. She was walking all over, very deliberately and with much more skill. She toddled over to me with a book and held it out for me to read.

When I asked, “do you want to sit in my lap?”, she climbed right into my lap. She’s always liked sitting in my lap, but I usually have to pick her up and place her there. Then she practically read Moo, Baa, La La La to me, pointing at the animals and making all the right noises. It was surreal to witness such an enormous developmental leap in that short a period of time.

Here’s a video Amy and I put together showing her walking progress over the last few months:

Since we made this video her walking skills have been accelerating exponentially. She’s now much more independent and pushes us away when we try to hold her hand while walking.

I was worried about Natalie and I going stir-crazy this winter because it would be too cold to go outside and Natalie is getting to the age where she’s mobile and wants to explore outside. Some days it has been cold—the whole week Natalie was sick temperatures were in the 20’s. Every day of that week, Natalie went to the front door and said, “bye byeeeee.” And every day I explained, “it’s too coooooold. You’re too sick to go outside!” Not that she really understood that.

So I’m grateful for days like today (66 degrees!) even though it makes me scared abut global warming and the terrible state of the planet that Natalie will inherit. Nonetheless, we enjoyed visiting ducks, chickens, bunnies, dogs, and cats at Terhune Orchards and climbing on the Princeton tigers:

We had another warm day (50 degrees) the day before Natalie got sick (December 30). We had fun visiting the playground around the corner from our house:

Natalie is finally on the mend…things got worse before they got better and she was diagnosed with an ear infection on Friday. Sunday was the first day in a week that Natalie woke up happy.

Natalie’s illness really took a toll on all of us…Chris and I both had mild colds, making taking care of a sick child even more tiring. And Natalie wanted to be held by me all. the. time. If I got 1 foot away from her, she screamed, so it was difficult to do basic things like go to the bathroom, get dressed, or shower. Plus she’s heavy—my back is sore after a week of carrying her around nonstop. Thank goodness for family, who helped us through it!

It’s nice to be able to share pictures of her smiling again…

Natalie prefers to drink from a real cup these days, and I was letting her since she was so sick, even though she spills most of it all over herself:

Smiling and happy to be eating bread with butter on it (and getting grease all over her face):