Natalie’s Blog

[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.

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:

Wow, does time fly. Seems like yesterday we were writing about Natalie turning nine months old…

Chris took a series of pictures yesterday evening, so they are a bit blurry due to low light. I just love the expressions he caught, so I don’t care. Natalie was very happily playing on the new toddler slide Grandma got her. Thanks, Grandma!

Natalie standing on top of her slide, looking like she’s on top of the world:

Here is a close-up of Natalie mid-laugh:

In this photo you can see how vigorously Natalie likes to wave. It looks like she’s frowning—not sure why:

I love this picture, because Natalie looks so happy and content. Plus it was really humid so you can see her beautiful ringlet curls. Looks like she’ll have Dad’s blond hair with Mama’s curls:

Natalie turned nine-months-old—she’s now been in the outside world as long as she was in the womb!

Here’s Natalie in utero, at her 20-week ultrasound:

And Natalie now, at nine-months-old (notice her 4 top teeth!):

Natalie turned 8-months-old on August 7. Our daughter is quite a feisty girl! She learned to climb stairs…starting with the two steps between our kitchen and her play room, then she mastered going up a full flight. Her biggest entertainment right now is crawling around and getting into trouble. In an attempt to keep her safe, we installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, and between the kitchen and play room. We also installed a special magnetized cat door so the cats can get into the basement, but Natalie can’t. Special thanks to Grandpa Charles, who hung the new basement door and installed the top-of-the-stairs gate, and to Grandpa Smoky, who installed the bottom-of-the-stairs gate.

Even with all that child-proofing, Natalie still manages to get a lot of boo-boos. A week or so ago I noticed that she had bruises on both of her knees, her ankle, her face, and her butt. Today she hit her head trying to sit up under a little table, then got her finger caught under the screen door, then fell with her head wedged between the toilet and the tile wall. All these things happened with me close by. I’m thinking about making her wear a helmet….

Here’s a picture of Natalie on her 8-month-birthday, which was also my birthday and Grandpa Smoky’s birthday. We celebrated at the shore. Natalie wasn’t thrilled when a huge surprise wave hit us while I was holding her in shallow water, but she didn’t seem to mind having sand covering her entire body!

On 7/7/07, Natalie turned 7 months-old! To celebrate we went to some fireworks, which Natalie really enjoyed. As you can see, she wasn’t scared at all!

I can’t believe our girl is 6 months old already! Natalie is truly a joy, as you can see:

Natalie’s half-birthday also falls on our wedding anniversary—Happy 4th Anniversary to us!

Today I’m reminded about how the number 7 keeps popping up in our lives…Normally I don’t take much stock in lucky numbers or coincidences, but take a look:

Chris’ birthday is 7/8/77
My birthday is 8/7/78
Our anniversary is 6/7/03 (I know, we planned that one!)

And Natalie, who has 7 letters in her name, was born on December 7, in room 7, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces! Shucks, if only she’d been 7 lbs, 7 oz…maybe the scale was off by on ounce. I doubt this phenomenon really means anything, other than it makes important dates easier to remember. If we forget, we know at least that there’s got to be a 7 in there somewhere!

Natalie turned 5 months this past Monday, May 7. With each month that passes, we’re amazed at how fast Natalie is growing and changing. Here are some (okay, MANY) updates:

• We’ve decided to accept co-sleeping entirely, since we all get better sleep that way. Tuesday I “side-carred” her crib to our bed. Basically, I took one side of the crib off, lined up the two mattresses so they’re the same height, and used bungee cords to attach the crib to the bed. The bed and the crib are very securely attached together, so she can’t get wedged in between the two. Having the extra surface of the crib makes having the three of us in bed not feel so cramped. Plus, I figure that getting her back into the crib at some point will be a little easier.
• Natalie had her first taste of solid food! Fittingly (since we affectionately call her our “little monkey”) she had banana. It was fun to watch her—she was very excited to put the banana in her mouth (well, really she puts everything in her mouth) but then wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. It didn’t seem like she liked the taste too much, either. Tonight we gave her some unsweetened applesauce, which she appeared to like much better.

  

  

• We’ve been using sign language, in hopes that it will make communication easier until Natalie can talk. Research has shown that if parents start signing around 6-7 months that babies start signing back around 9-10 months. So far, we’re concentrating on the signs for milk, change (as in diapers) and more. As Natalie eats more solid food, we’ll add the sign for eat.
• I can finally say with confidence that Natalie and I no longer have thrush! I think it’s been gone since she was 3.5 months, but I was so scared that it would come back that I’ve hesitated to call us “cured” for fear it would jinx us. It was a LONG battle (started when Natalie was 2 weeks old) and I’m so glad we were able to beat it and keep nursing. It took lots of medication, vitamins, herbal remedies, gentian violet, and a very strict sugar-free, carb-free, and dairy-free diet to overcome it. The pain for me was intense and for the first few months of Natalie’s life, I absolutely dreaded having to feed her. I had a lot of support from many of you who read this blog and I’m so grateful—otherwise I’m certain Natalie would be bottle-fed by now. I’m especially lucky that both my Mom and Chris’ Mom breastfed their babies and could offer understanding, advice, and encouragement. Not many women my age have that. I also regularly attend a breastfeeding support group that’s run by a wonderful lactation consultant. Anyway, THANK YOU to all who helped us through that difficult time!!
• The severe teething symptoms seem to come and go, but so far, no teeth have appeared. We’ll keep you posted!
• Natalie seems to be getting more dexterous by the minute. She reaches for things with such intent and determination. We feel so proud watching her explore the world and figure things out. Lately, she seems frustrated by the fact that she can’t yet crawl or sit up by herself. When I put her on her back, she rolls onto her stomach, pushes up on her arms and bends her knees. Then she usually whines and screams because she can’t go anywhere! If I flip her back onto her back (which she can do very well herself!) she will go back onto her stomach and do the same thing. She still loves to stand and can support all her weight. She just needs to learn balance.
• We’re very happy about our decision to cloth diaper! Laundering the diapers isn’t a hardship at all (only a couple of extra loads of laundry a week) and we don’t have any issues with leaks or diaper rash. The only “blow-outs” we’ve had have been with disposable diapers. Plus, cloth diapers are so much cuter!
• We’ve discovered that (no surprise) Natalie LOVES music. Grandpa Charles has been entertaining Natalie with bluegrass guitar playing—a video will be posted soon!

Phew, that was a long one…if you’re still reading, you get a GOLD STAR!! I’m sure it’s clear that we couldn’t be having more fun with our incredibly lovely daughter!

We saw the pediatrician this morning for Natalie’s 4 month well-baby visit. She is now 26.75 inches and 15 pounds, 11 ounces. That’s the 90th percentile for weight and she’s “off the charts” for height!!!

The doctor was impressed by Natalie’s head control and to see her doing her stomach “crunches.” Dr Labian said crunches are a 9 month skill! Given this, the Dr. thought that Natalie might be developmentally ready to start trying some solid foods. Nutritionally Natalie is getting all that she needs from breast milk, so starting solid foods would be more to develop the muscles needed to chew. The doctor said developing these muscles is important in terms of speech development, too. Who knew? We’re going to follow the doctor’s recommendation and watch for Natalie to give us cues that she is ready, including looking interested in the food adults eat.

We feel very lucky to have such a healthy daughter!

Since she now is 4 months old, Natalie is mature enough to use her exersaucer! Natalie was unsure about the exersaucer at first, but now likes it a lot. It’s great to put her in it while we cook dinner. Thank you, Vivian & Richard for handing the exersaucer down to us!

Unbelievable….3 months has passed since Natalie was born. Ya’ll know we’re not ones to believe in miracles, being scientifically-minded and logic-oriented people. Yet every time I look at her I think “where did she come from?” Yes, I know TECHNICALLY where she came from, but it still seems like some sort of miracle to me.

Natalie is a very happy girl and smiles, laughs, coos, and “talks” more and more as she grows. We’re falling more and more in love with her every day.

Chris took a whole series of beautiful pictures for the occasion of her 3 month birthday. View them here.