Recent Natalie-isms

Natalie continues to entertain us! Here's some of what she's been up to!

* We're learning body parts. She can show us her hair, ears, toes, and feet. I've been working on nose; I point to my nose and breathe in and she mimics me, but still won't point to her nose or do it by herself.

* She gets in and out of her cozy coupe no less than 2 times a day. Sits in the seat, closes the door, turns the key, then exits and repeats.

* She can reach things on the table and often brings us whatever we leave there.

* Natalie loves shoes. She will bring us her shoes, or will try to play with ours. I have a habit of taking mine off after 2 steps inside the door (ask my dad..I've always done this..leaving them right in the way for the next person). The other night, Natalie brought one of my red shoes and one of my black ones into the living room. We told her they were not toys and to take them back. She took the red one right away. Then David reminded her that she needed to take the other one back too, so she came back to the living room, dug the black one out of her car and took it to the shoe spot. Incredible what she understands.

* Also with the shoes, she loves to put them on. She'll bring me hers in the morning, and I tell her to sit so we can put her shoes on. She plops down on the floor and puts her feet out. I often hear the Velcro opening and closing in the car, but she usually leaves the shoes on.

* She loves to sit in our laps. When we sit on the floor, she will bring us a book and back herself into our laps. Of course she only wants to read the book for 10 seconds, but that's a whole separate issue!

* The vocabulary continues to improve! We've got Dog, Milk, Dada, MAMA!!, Bath (ba), Again, No No, and she tries to say Hailey (our friend's dog) and it sounds like Hay-yee. Tonight I asked her if she wanted to go play with Ryan this weekend and she ran to the door saying "Rah! Rah!" We've also heard Up once or twice.

* Natalie is like a whirlwind. I was trying to clean in the spare room (nursery??) this weekend, and she was tearing apart the rest of the house. She found gift bags, toys, papers, etc and took them one by one from the bedroom to the hallway and living room. Then, she found an open package of diapers in her room and proceeded to empty it out and bring them to me 2 and 3 at a time.

* She's also discovered the bathroom drawers. Apparently it's fun to empty them out. I'm constantly finding my brushes, lotions, headbands, etc. all over the house! She likes to bring them to me.

* Bedtime has been moved back to 8pm. We had a great routine where she would be tired and wanted to be in bed by 7pm. A week or so ago we were having a really rough time getting her down, so I just let her run around until she was tired. A few nights that meant she was up until 8:45 or 9pm. Waayy too late for her, but she continued to whine and cry if we even mentioned the word "bed" or "tired". She's either napping too long, or just doesn't want to go to bed as early. The past 3 or 4 nights she's gone down easy at 8, so 8pm bedtime it is. Kinda nice because I get some post-work Natalie time in.

* Food-wise, Natalie has decided she is more picky than before. She refuses to eat pasta some nights. If we drown it in sauce, she might eat a few bites, but other than that, it is a no-go. Along the same lines, we can't get her to eat Mac n Cheese. We give her chicken nuggets sometimes, but she won't eat them if we cut them up, she wants the whole stick.

* She expects her animal crackers after dinner. We usually give her 2 or 3, and now when she's done eating, she leans towards the pantry and points.

* When we are out and about, we use baby wipes to clean her face. Sometimes she'll open her diaper bag, get the wipes out and use one to "clean her face". She mostly just smashes it against her mouth and sorta rubs it around.

* This girly looooves her books. At any given time there are easily 3 or 4 strewn across the living room floor (see whirlwind explanation above!). She constantly brings us books, but after a page or two, she's done and goes to get another one. Maybe someday she'll sit still long enough to finish the whole thing?

* She also loooves her dolly. She will dig her baby doll out of the toy box and carry her around (by her neck or an arm). She brings us the blankie to put over the baby. She also gets the plastic soda bottle from her kitchen set and "feeds" the baby; she holds her correctly and everything! The baby also gets to use her pacifier sometimes. Where does she learn this stuff?

* We try to contain the pacifier and blankie to the crib / carseat (only at naptime). She loves her crocheted blankies. She saw me put her favorite two (from her grandmas) in the laundry basket and take them to the washer the other day. She came running over and tried pulling them out. She cried when I took them away to wash. (I substituted with another, but she was definitely not happy!). I'd love to do away with the pacifier, but the few times I tried she had a meltdown.

* A few weeks ago she started doing this random outburst of laughing. I got a video on my phone, but that requires effort of connecting the phone to the computer in order to edit and upload. Maybe some day I'll have the time?

* We got another video tonight of her running to the bathroom. We say "Natalie, do you want to take a bath?" and she starts saying "Bah" and runs to the bathroom. Again, gotta find some time and energy to upload!

* Notice I said "running" above..she's definitely moved past the crawling business. I don't think I've seen her crawl in the last 3 weeks, at least. If she falls while walking, she just stands back up and continues. She is sooo fast at walking now, and I was even commenting to David tonight that she rarely falls anymore.

I need to get better at taking pictures. We haven't taken very many the past month or so...maybe even longer than that! Natalie is fascinated by the camera and thinks she should get to touch it, so it's much harder to catch her in action doing any of the above. I've been meaning to blog for at least a week now, so I guess next time, I need to make sure I get some pictures (and/or videos!) to post! Baby steps!