Natalie’s Blog

Lots of communication firsts today!!

Natalie woke up fussing this morning and when I asked her what was wrong, she replied, “I wet.” Sure enough she was soaking, but the exciting part is that it’s the first time she’s used the word “I”! Then I put her on the changing table and she told me that she was “cold.” Natalie’s talked about objects being hot or cold, but today was the first time she’s ever expressed feeling a certain temperature herself. This evening, we were sitting at an outdoor pizza place and witnessed a man yelling at his kids. Natalie came over to me (she had been running around with some of her play group friends) and said, “scared.” While I wasn’t happy that Natalie felt afraid, I was ecstatic that she was able to communicate what she was feeling.

It’s amazing to watch the wheels turn as Natalie learns new words or figures out new concepts. It’s equally incredible to witness these leaps that seem to happen overnight.

I’m late in writing a monthly update for the first time in 20 months…but rather than let it slide, I’ll tell you about Natalie at 20.5 months. She can count to 10. She learned to say “sorry” in the right context. Natalie loves saying the phrases “let’s go!” “come on!” “good job!” and “oh no!” We introduced the book Where the Wild Things Are, and it quickly became a favorite. She imitates the wild things roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth and showing their terrible claws. Natalie always asks to read the book again while we still have 1 page left to read.

On July 22, Natalie said “I woove woo” for the first time.

Now that Natalie has gotten through her bath aversion, we’ve settled into a routine of nightly baths. Natalie insists on washing herself! If we try to do it for her, she fusses—she prefers if we put soap in her hands and she wash each body part herself. Chris usually bathes her, which is a nice way for them have some daddy/daughter time. As much as I hesitate to jinx us by saying this, getting Natalie to sleep has been much easier and more consistent since starting the routine.

I scored a turtle shaped sandbox on Craig’s List for $20! Personally I hate sand, but when I saw how long Natalie was happily occupied at the beach, I knew it would be a good toy for her. She got so engrossed that we couldn’t get her to look up to take a picture.

We had a great time with Grandma, Diane and Clara at the Philadelphia Zoo!

Natalie and Clara had a great time playing in the big fountain:

Natalie enjoyed these 3 modes of transportation:

Natalie didn’t believe that this was a rhino:

Hippo!

Roaring like Cheetahs:

Taking a snooze break:

And the best picture of the day…

I absolutely love this picture of Diane holding Natalie!!

And this one of Clara!

We actually went to this carnival back on June 20, but only recently got the pictures because we were using a friend’s camera. Natalie had lots of fun looking at all the flashing lights, going on her first solo carnival ride, and riding the carrousel with Chris.

We were lucky to have sunny weather almost the whole time we were camping. On the one day it rained, we took the opportunity to visit the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. When we arrived, it was pouring rain and we got all wet. We left the galleries to discover the sun had returned. Natalie enjoyed looking at all the art, and was only frustrated at times when she couldn’t touch it. She and I took a nap on a big bean-bag chair in a Jenny Holzer exhibit.

As parents, we don’t want our personal dislikes to limit the things that Natalie experiences. So, parenting has really encouraged Chris and I to do things outside of our comfort zones. On our camping trip, Chris took Natalie swimming in the cool lake water—something he normally hates to do. And I played with Natalie in the sand, the texture of which kind of disgusts me.

As you can see from these picture, Natalie loved spending time at the lake while we were camping, even with the cool water and gritty sand!

I should start by mentioning that we’ve long since given up cloth-diapering and Natalie’s been wearing Seventh Generation Disposable Diapers since she was about 7 months old. We’ve always been happy with the diapers, until a couple of weeks ago, when they started leaking. The only other time her diapers leaked was around when she was a year old and needed to move from size 3 to size 4. She’s been wearing the size 4 diapers for the last 8 months. The leaking was beginning to drive me crazy, especially because it would often happen when she was sitting in her car seat, which meant the car seat needed to be cleaned as well. One particularly frustrating day, I think I changed her pants 4 times. I figured it was time to move her into size 5.

But then I looked at the sizing chart:

Stage 1: 8-14 lb., 44 diapers
Stage 2: 12-18 lb., 40 diapers
Stage 3: 16-28 lb., 35 diapers
Stage 4: 22-37 lb., 30 diapers
Stage 5: 27+ lb., 26 diapers
Stage 6: 35+ lb., 22 diapers

and I realized that at 22 pounds, Natalie is at the very lowest weight for size 4 and still well within the weight recommendation for size 3! We also realized that the leaks didn’t seem to be a problem of absorbency—it was more like Natalie would sit a certain way, causing a gap between her leg and the diaper, and pee would just soak into her clothes. We got some size 3 diapers, which seemed small after she’s been wearing the size 4s, but we’ve haven’t had any more problems with leaks! As a bonus, the size 3 diapers include 5 more diapers per pack!!

So, is Natalie shrinking? Probably not. I think she’s just gotten taller, but not gained much weight, which means that her legs are not as chubby as they once were.

Natalie uttered her first full sentence while on our camping trip! Since she’s always liked cleaning, what she said was especially fitting.

Natalie said…drumroll please…

“Oh no, it’s dirty!”

Here’s a picture of one of Natalie’s favorite camping activities: washing the storage bins!

Natalie and David are at an age that makes picture taking pretty difficult. For most of the trip, they were much too busy running around the camp site to capture a photo of them together. But on the last day, I caught some of them coloring together in this amazing light.

And I couldn’t resist pulling out these pictures of the “driving cousins” from last summer for comparison’s sake!

Look how much they’ve grown and changed in a year’s time: