Natalie’s Blog

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I gave Natalie a nosebleed. In an attempt to clear her clogged nose with saline and a bulb syringe, I gave my daughter a nosebleed.

Chris, bless his heart, keeps telling me how easily noses bleed and to let it go.

In reality, as guilty as I feel for Natalie’s prolonged ear infection and mom-induced nosebleed, I really feel lucky and grateful. Overall, Natalie is extremely healthy. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to cope with caring for a child with chronic health problems.

Let’s hope tomorrow is trauma-free and poor Natalie gets a break from people sticking things in her ears and nose.

Poor Natalie. We went back to the doctor’s office this morning after another sleepless night and discovered her ear is still infected. The last doctor we saw didn’t think it was necessary to check her ears after the last infection, so it’s possible that it’s a new infection, but we’re guessing this is a continuation of the last one. She seemed to be getting better…she was in a good mood, no more ear tugging, sleeping okay, although her nose was still yucky/runny. Then we were trying to get her schedule adjusted to getting up earlier before starting daycare, and her sleep patterns got completely out of whack. Or at least I thought that was the problem. Now that I look back, her sleep became a problem as soon as she finished the course of antibiotics, which was also the same time that she began rebelling against diapering, bathing, and dressing. My guess is the medicine was enough to make her feel almost better, but she must have still been in pain when lying down. Poor Natalie. I feel so guilty.

To make matters worse for a sick, cranky, tired girl and a tired, frustrated Mama, the doctors visit today was horrific, thanks to Dr. McConlogue. We saw her once for Natalie’s 6 month check-up and I didn’t care for her, but I didn’t think we needed to actively avoid her either. This is the 6th time we’ve gone in to have her ears checked and it has never once been a problem—Natalie’s never fussed or cried. That’s because none of the previous doctor’s have ever required that Natalie be physically restrained during the exam. Dr. McConlogue wanted me to hold Natalie in a bear hug while she looked in her ears, which caused Natalie to fight a whole lot harder than she would have if we had just let her be. Natalie was already quite hysterical when the doctor announced that she couldn’t see past vast amounts of earwax, and she would need to clean her ears. I had to hold Natalie down and pin her arms above her head while the doctor shoved a sharp plastic instrument in her already infected ear. Natalie was in such a state I feared she might throw up and I was near tears myself. Needless to say, we will never see Dr. McConlogue ever again. I am kicking myself hard for not being more assertive.

After we left the doctor’s office, Natalie recovered pretty quickly and fell asleep in the car on the way home. She was so zonked that she didn’t stir at all when I transfered her from the car to her bed. I was even able to take her sneakers off without disturbing her.

Speaking of footwear, how adorable does Natalie look wearing Daddy’s big shoes? (Nothing like a cute picture of Natalie to lighten a post and put a smile on my face!)

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this new antibiotic will clear the infection. And I will bring Natalie back to the doctor at the first sign that it isn’t working. I’m adopting Lindsay’s mantra: “I will never attribute anything to teething, only to ear pain.” If only I had listened sooner!!

We finally got some decent snow this winter! I was feeling guilty because Natalie doesn’t have a snowsuit, but we didn’t let that stop us from playing outside. We put her in her warmest pants, put plastic bags over her pants and boots, then put Baby Legs over the bags to keep them in place, and voilà…homemade snowsuit! Natalie had lots of fun crunching the snow with her feet and watching Daddy throw snowballs. We worried that the plastic bags would make her shoes too slippery, but she was actually able to walk just fine (meaning she didn’t fall down any more than usual).

Natalie’s hair is getting longer and harder to control. I’m not sure I could articulate why, but I don’t want to cut it. Maybe it’s the story my mom tells about my brother’s first haircut…As she tells it, he had the most beautiful blond ringlet curls in the back of his head and after his first haircut, his hair was straight. The beautiful curls never returned. I guess I’m afraid of altering or even of damaging Natalie…I already feel guilty as hell for the scar on her nose from her fall at 3 months. It’s faded, but still there. I know she’ll need a haircut sooner rather than later, so I’ll have to get over my issues!

We’ve started putting Natalie’s hair up in the “Pebbles” pony-tail at night. The first couple of nights, she slept for longer stretches than usual, which had me hopeful that hair tickling her face was the cause of all her night-waking. I was so excited that I didn’t blog about it for fear of jinxing it. Unfortunately, it must have been a fluke, because she’s back to her usual sleep patterns. Oh well, it still looks cute, and does a good job of keeping hair out of her eyes…

Today, Natalie insisted on wearing ALL of her hair clips:

I thought I’d share how sweet Natalie is, just in case my last post had you thinking we had a terror on our hands! Aside from our battlegrounds, Natalie is kind and loving. Some examples:

Every morning, Natalie finds Chris’ glasses on the windowsill in the bathroom and brings them to him.

She blows Daddy kisses when we drop him off at the train station.

The other day at play group, Natalie found her friend Robert’s sippy cup. I asked her to give it to him, which she did. For the rest of the afternoon, whenever she saw his cup, she would run over to give it to him.

She says “please.” We’re working on “thank you.”

Last night we were looking at pictures of family we have on the wall. Natalie looked at a picture of Nama, said something close to “Nama” and did the “more” sign. (Nama has been away for the last couple of weeks and Natalie clearly misses her!)

She kisses her favorite characters in books.

She likes to share her food.

When we pick up Daddy from the train station, she gets very excited and says “Dada!” over and over. Then she says “Dada! Mama! Dada! Mama!”again and again. The inflection in her voice is so sweet, she might as well be saying “I love you.”

And how much does she look like Daddy!?!?!?

Looking extra stylish:

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping babe:

I like to think of myself as a pretty easy-going person. Flexible. Not one for bullying. I don’t think of Chris or myself as “authoritarian” in any way, but especially not as a parents. We’ve long since given up the sleep battle—we’ve accepted that we cannot force Natalie to go to sleep. She’s a strong-willed girl and sleeps only when she’s good and ready. We’re okay with that. Natalie is pretty free to do what she wants, as long as it’s not dangerous or disrespectful. We follow her lead. But there are limits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that changing diapers, getting dressed, and bathing are not optional activities. These are our battlegrounds.

As an infant, Natalie was never more happy than when she was on the changing table. Oh, how I long for the days when we’d lay her on the changing table and she would reward us with coos and smiles. The smiles have been replaced with an arched back and stiff legs; the cooing with annoyed grunts, cries of protest, and shrieks of anger. We’ve tried distracting her with toys, books, singing songs, tickling, making funny faces etc. Sometimes she calms down, but usually not for long. The funny thing is that Natalie often tells us that she needs changing using sign language. Today, she actually came up to me and said “poopy” (I’d been teaching her that word in another failed attempt to distract her on the changing table). But even when she initiates the diaper change, she still ends up in tears. Once we’re done changing her, she’s fine.

Same thing with getting dressed. It goes a little better when we involve her in the process, including letting her choose between two shirts, but sometimes we have to just strong-arm her into her clothes. It feels horrible to shove her (while being as gentle as we can) into her clothes while she’s upset and crying. But the way she carries on, you’d think we were trying to hogtie her. And it’s not like getting dressed is a new thing—we’ve been dressing her every morning since the day she was born. I keep reading that routines make children feel like their world is safe and predictable. But every morning Natalie reacts to getting dressed as if it’s some new form of torture.

Bath time is great fun for Natalie. She’s so eager to take a bath that she tries to climb in the tub with all her clothes on. Everything is lovely until we break out the washcloth. As soon as she sees it, she starts crying and tries to climb out, while frantically signing “all done.” So in order to get her clean, we have to force her to stay in the tub while we wash her. She never really minded getting washed before, so I thought maybe the soap was irritating her skin. But we’ve used the same Burt’s Bees baby wash since she was born, so I can’t imagine that all of a sudden that’s the problem. Washing her hair is even more of a struggle. We bought this special bucket to keep the water out of her eyes, but she thrashes around so much that we’ve taken to dumping water right over her head to get it over with as fast as possible. While she was never crazy about getting shampooed, she’s never taken her protests to this level before. I felt slightly better when I read that other babies around Natalie’s age go through this phase.

I have sympathy for Natalie. It’s hard to be a baby. As nice as it is to have people catering to their every need, babies also have people trying to control their every move. It must be frustrating to have activities imposed on you that you don’t like. I understand that Natalie doesn’t enjoy getting dressed, having her diaper changed, or being washed and that she had limited language with which to express her thoughts and feelings. At the same time, I feel frustrated when she acts as if by forcing her to do these things that I’m trying to sever one of her limbs. I’m not sure how to handle her protests, either. About half the time I try to acknowledge that she’s unhappy while reminding her of the routine and reassuring her that it will be over soon. The other half the time I ignore her crying and try to distract her. I always try to finish the torture as quickly as possible. All the while, I try to reassure myself that it’s just a phase…and I try not to think about the battlegrounds we have to look forward to when Natalie becomes a teenager!

Who wouldn’t love a face like this?

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

If I believed in that sort of thing, I might think that reading Ellie’s latest blog post jinxed us…

Yesterday Natalie was grumpy all day, even after taking a 3 hour nap. I attributed her lousy mood to teething, since I noticed right before her nap that she just cut two more teeth—the top molars. She has had a mildly runny nose since last Friday, but again, I thought it was teething…

Then last night Natalie was awake and tugging on her ear from 1 am to 4 am….the only thing that kept her from screaming uncontrollably was watching sing-along videos on TV. Normally she doesn’t watch TV at all, but when she’s been sick, it offers a comforting distraction from her pain.

We went to the doctor this morning, who confirmed our suspicions—another dreaded ear infection. Luckily, this cold is more mild than the last one, so during the day, Natalie’s symptoms are much more manageable. I think we caught this ear infection earlier than last time, too.

The doctor gave us a ray of hope by saying that most babies outgrow the “getting an ear infection every time they get a runny nose” phase by the time they’re 2. She said we just need to get through this winter and hopefully next winter won’t be as bad. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. In the mean time, we’re stocking up on Infant Motrin.

Natalie tripped yesterday, fell into the edge of her bedroom door and got a nasty bump on her forehead. Luckily, we had just given her some Tylenol for teething pain and by the time we took this photo several hours later, the swelling had already gone down.

Natalie is 14 months old this month! She wants to walk all the time and refuses to hold our hands, which makes walking anywhere near cars or streets (pretty much everywhere) difficult. If I pick her up, she arches her back, raises her arms and kicks her feet in an attempt to get down. I used to think they were cruel and stupid, but now I totally understand why someone invented leashes for kids. I may break down and get one, but in the meantime, I’m trying to teach her to stay on the sidewalk.

Natalie is always happy to go for walks:

She gets very excited when the wind blows:

Five of the six teeth she’s been working on since she was 11 months old have popped, so she now has 13 teeth, including her first two bottom molars. She seems to be teething again still, so she may get even more teeth soon. According to this chart, Natalie’s teeth are coming in way ahead of schedule. With 13 out of 20 teeth popped already, maybe there’s hope that she’ll be finished with teething sooner rather than later.

One of the things we love about Natalie is her sense of humor and infectious laughter. We never know what is going to cause her dissolve into hysterics. Lately, she’s laughed hardest over unexpected things like dirty water pouring out of an outdoor planter, watching Daddy spinning a basketball on his finger, me trying to balance a giant exercise ball on my head, or kicking a rock on the ground as we walk. Since Natalie’s laughing fits take us by surprise, we never have the camera ready. By the time we try to recreate the situation for the camera, the joke is old and Natalie doesn’t laugh.

This month Natalie became very adamant about using utensils to feed herself. Since she’s no longer content to pick up food with her fingers, mealtime has become very messy and long (it takes forever for her to get things onto spoons and forks). We started by giving her sticky foods (like yogurt and guacamole) so she could practice with the spoon and have some success before having to learn the actual scooping motion. She never liked yogurt before because she didn’t tolerate being spoon-fed, but now that she’s doing it herself, she’s a big fan. Now she’s practicing stabbing food with a fork.

Getting yogurt all over her face:

Enjoying guacamole:

Eating pasta with a fork like a big girl: