Natalie’s Blog

A couple of tidbits…

I’ve found that there are lots of things to feel guilty about on this parenting journey. The latest pangs of guilt had to do with Natalie’s shoes. She’s been wearing the same size shoes for a while, and since I was still able to put her shoes on, I didn’t think much of it. Last Saturday, Natalie started pointing to her shoes and crying. We went to the shoe store, where her feet measured a size and a half bigger than the shoes she’d been wearing. Oops.

While I was changing Natalie’s diaper this morning, she was talking about the two pink bracelets she was wearing. She can’t quite pronounce “bracelet” correctly, so it took me a few minutes before I understood what she was trying to say. Chris overheard the conversation and said, “it sounds like she’s saying ‘bullshit.’” Anyone want to guess what Natalie then started saying next??

We’re going camping in Massachusetts next week—Natalie’s first camping trip! Wish us luck…

Even though the “Great Tomato Scare” is over, we’re thrilled to be growing our own tomatoes this summer! I enlisted Natalie’s help to pick some ripe ones for dinner the other night. To help her distinguish the ripe ones from the unripe ones, I asked her to identify the different colors. First, I pointed the red one and asked “what color is this one?” Natalie replied, “red!” Then I pointed to a green one and asked the same question. Her reply? “Apple!” Despite my attempts to teach her about unripe and ripe tomatoes, she insisted the green ones were, in fact, apples. Finally, I relented and said, “Alright, honey, just don’t pick the apples, okay?”

Natalie is quite the little helper in the garden! She loves to water the tomatoes:

She loves to help pick them…

and gathering them:

And eat them! (only I didn’t get a picture of her eating them)

Pictures from Chris’ cousin Louisa’s HS graduation party!

Despite her loathing of baths, Natalie still likes to hang out in the pool:

Especially with Grandma:

The mango sorbet for dessert was a big hit:

Natalie, I’m sorry for the future embarrassment this post will likely cause you…but I have to report that our girl pooped on the potty this morning!!

We actually bought her a potty about 4 months ago when Natalie started reporting what was in her diaper. As soon as Chris took it out of the box, she carried it around the kitchen shouting, “Poopy! Poopy! POOPY!!!!!” Here she is trying it out:

She’s been sitting on the potty almost everyday since then, but with her clothes still on. Recently she started taking bits of toilet paper to wipe herself with.

This morning, we were playing in her room just after waking up when Natalie said, “Poopy!” I thought she was reporting that she already went, but when I got her to the changing table and opened her diaper, it was empty. So I asked her if she needed to go and if she wanted to sit on the potty. She nodded, so off to the bathroom we went. And she went! In the potty!! We made a big fuss, congratulated her, gave high-fives, etc. She liked helping transfer the goods to the big toilet and saying “bye-bye” as it got flushed away.

After all the excitement was over, my first thought was (of course!) “what should I title the blog post?”

Chris caught this funny picture of Natalie and her Grandpop making identical faces at each other:

A list of 19 points of interest from the past month:

1. Natalie officially knows all the basic colors: blue, red, purple, orange, green, pink, black, brown, and white. Yellow is still tricky—she mistakes it for orange sometimes.

2. Natalie learned to pick her nose. It’s cute and gross at the same time.

3. She’s beginning to learn letters. She knows B, I, H, and T really well. Starting to get M, D, N, R, G, K & S.

4. Her communication skills continue to flourish. Chris was remarking today that Natalie’s speech has gotten much more conversational. She’s saying more and more two-word phrases and putting adjectives in front of nouns. As in, “big truck!” She also knows to put an “s” on the ends of words to make them plural or possessive.

5. Natalie got her first skinned knees this month after wiping out pushing her stroller on the sidewalk.:

6. She wore her hair in a pony-tail for the first time:

7. She likes to discipline Tillman by wagging her finger at him and saying “no no no” when he tries to drink out of someone’s glass.

8. Since recovering from her illness, Natalie is once again tolerant of bathing, diapering, and dressing.

9. She’s exploring opposites. She likes to shout “up down,” “on off” and “yes no” over and over and over…

10. Natalie became obsessed with bracelets this month. Last week she got upset when she couldn’t fit her hand through the hole of a bagel to wear it around her wrist.

11. She likes to discover new places to admire her reflection:

12. I never thought this would happen with our sweet child, but like a lot of toddlers, she answers almost all questions with a resounding “no!” The other day I offered her a cup of juice…Natalie shouted “no” and then grabbed the cup out of my hand and drank it happily. Go figure.

13. She finally learned to say her Aunt Kary’s name. Sounds like “dah-ree”

14. Natalie played her first card game with Grandma:

15. She went on her first solo carnival ride. Pictures soon.

16. She’s gotten really into playing with puzzles. We got her this new puzzle and she had it figured out in about 2 minutes.

17. Natalie started transitioning into the toddler room at daycare. It’s not going well. We’re investigating other childcare options. More on that later. For now, here’s a picture of her in the new classroom:

18. Natalie is loving the books Mother, Mother, I Want Another, Zoo Clues Animal Alphabet, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

19. Finally, Natalie really likes to make this pucker face:

Last Thursday Natalie and I drove into Manhattan to have lunch with Aunt Cynthia and go to a party. I was nervous about driving in on a holiday weekend, but luckily all the traffic was going out of the city. Natalie fell asleep within 15 minutes and slept the entire way to Chris’ office on Canal Street.

Here we are with Great Aunt Cynthia at FAO Schwartz. Chris wanted to take away her bottle for the picture, but I thought that a picture of Natalie screaming in protest would be worse.

Then Chris and I took Natalie to a party. Natalie and her buddy Josie were psyched about their party hats (for about one minute, which is one minute longer than I thought they would wear them):

Natalie’s been very wary of strangers lately, so she’s reluctant to walk in strange or crowded places. Since she’s been wanting to be carried more, I got out the beco, which I thought she’d never want to go in again. I was glad to get more use out of it. I think she’s making a teething face…she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek.

The whole day was so exciting that Natalie was completely zonked 5 minutes into the ride home. Thank goodness, because we got caught in the holiday traffic and it took us an hour just to get out of the city.

We took Natalie to the Blueberry Festival at Terhune Orchards, where she enjoyed her first puppet show. I wasn’t sure how much she would like it, considering we were pretty far from the outdoor stage. Despite all the possible distractions, Natalie was mesmerized by the show! She especially liked the cow puppet, as you can see in this video:

Natalie’s First Puppet Show from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.

Natalie and David also got to meet cousin Michael’s bearded dragon, Rex!

After discovering that Rex liked to eat clover flowers, Natalie got to feed him:

Natalie was reunited with her cousin David last weekend and they had a blast swinging together! At one point, David got off the swing and Natalie very sadly called after him, “Day-day? Day-day? Day-day?”

We tried to get a photo of both of them smiling, but we got these pix of them making funny faces instead!