We think Natalie may be getting another tooth. I was expecting two more to pop through on the top (that's the next set that generally appears), and the last few days she's been experiencing all the same signs of teething. So we were surprised this evening during dinner to see what looks like a tooth, not on the top, but popping through on her lower jaw, right side. If this is a new tooth, it will be pretty funny to see 5 (or maybe 6, they come in pairs within a couple days of each other) teeth on the bottom and only two on the top still. Or maybe this is just another false alarm like we had with her first tooth; a white area on her gum that we thought might be a tooth popping through but wasn't. We'll see; in any case, she is almost certainly teething again. If it's not a cold, it's teething these days! (Currently, Phil is recovering from his latest cold. I had some kind of stomach virus last week - yuck - but other than that, there's no more colds in sight. We're praying that continues - one or more of us has had a cold continuously since Christmas!)

February 20, 2003 - Natalie is so, so, so close to walking. She's cruising around the furniture holding on with only one hand, and getting much faster and sure of herself. On Tuesday she took two steps all by herself. It's just a matter of time now. I wonder if she'll walk at 13 months like I did. We have no idea when Phil walked since his dad doesn't remember those kinds of things. :-(  I really wish I knew; it's one of the many reasons why I think all the time about how much I would have liked to meet Phil's mom. One day I will, and I'll have lots of questions for her! 

Natalie is so smart and she just amazes me with new things every single day. Last night I got tears in my eyes when we were reading books before bedtime and she was pointing out things and recognizing things I didn't even know she knew the name of. When I asked her, not even thinking she'd actually respond, "Natalie, where's your nose?" she pointed right to her nose. Then she did the same with her feet and my nose too. She knows how to use a brush now and knows where her shoes go (even if she can't get them to quite go on yet), signs "all done" to let me know she doesn't want any more to eat, and, this is really cute, when we turn off the TV, she waves bye-bye, and then sometimes directly follows that with pointing to her head (our sign for "smart"). She even did that when she was drifting off to sleep a couple of nights ago. She was falling off to sleep in my arms after nursing, and we turned the TV off to go to bed, and very sleepily, eyes still shut and cuddled in, she said bye-bye. (Makes me doubly cautious about what we let come into our house through our television - she's listening to it even when we don't realize it!) 

When did I get a smart little kid when the last time I blinked I had a tiny, helpless baby in the house?

February 16, 2003 - I cannot believe this snow we are getting right now! It's definitely the worst snow I can remember. The news people are saying this is the worst storm since 1977. I was only two then, so I don't remember that except in pictures. I have to remember to go outside with Natalie tomorrow and take some pictures of this. On the news a few minutes ago, they said to expect another foot of snow at least tonight - I guess it is coming down at the rate of 1 and a half inches to 2 inches an hour. 

Speaking of pictures, we went to my mom's to upload new pictures last night. They are at www.clubphoto.com . To see the pictures, type in my email (debbygerth@earthlink.net) at the bottom of the page. There are three albums of birthday and February pictures (I had to upload them in three separate books because I had so many pictures and they wouldn't all upload at once). I think they are password protected too. The password is just Gerth.

I wanted to mention something else Natalie is doing at 12 months, that I've been forgetting to add. She is really enjoying "cleaning up" things. It's become a favorite thing of hers to do to pick up tiny things she finds on the floor and then give them to me. She keeps reminding me that I need to vacuum more often, but at least she's not putting the random little bits she finds in her mouth! She does this with toys too, like her Fisher Price rings or blocks or other things that stack up. She just likes to stack them up in our hands.  Something else she likes to do is hide and then pop up over the edge of the couch after I say "where's Natalie?" She starts to giggle when she hears my voice and then she pops up with a big grin on her face. She's such a cutie pie.

February 11, 2003 - My little girl is now over a year old!! A year ago today, we drove home with great trepidation from the hospital. I noticed every single cell-phone talking, car-swerving driver on the whole route home. Sometimes I still wonder as I drive around St. Ann's, how many new parents I'm driving by, appraising my driving skills as they transport their newborns home for the first time.

Natalie's party was a big success, and her birthday in general was even better. After everyone had gone home and it was just the three of us for the rest of the evening, Natalie just GIGGLED constantly. It was SO cute; she was just laughing at everything and at nothing for the whole night. I think she had a happy birthday! I haven't been able to get onto the computer to write until now, because my friend Renee Shilling came down to visit for the last couple days. She wasn't able to come to the party because she had to work, but she wanted to see Natalie anyway so she came on Monday afternoon. It then snowed a whole lot last night, so she stayed the night with us. Anyway, so that's why I'm just now getting to this. (Plus the fact that I was completely exhausted on Sunday night and couldn't put two words together to form a sentence.) I also haven't gotten over to my mom's yet in order to upload my digital pictures, but hopefully I'll do that in the next couple of days and then I'll post the link to her pictures. Between my sister and I, I think we took about 100 or more pictures. Okay, so now all about her birthday. A lot has been going on the past few days but I'll start with that.  We got up in the morning and went to church. I had made her an "I'm ONE Today!" badge but she pulled it off within the first five minutes of being at church. Oh well, I should have known. I guess that's why I couldn't find an It's my Birthday badge for a one year old at a store. :-)  We got home from church and called my mom to come over and watch Natalie while Phil and I finished the frantic preparations of cleaning and decorating that we hadn't completed before then. Which actually wasn't all that much, because Natalie gave us the gift of going to bed (relatively) early on Saturday night, so we were able to finish up a lot of the preparations after she had gone to bed - usually she isn't in bed until we're ready to fall over asleep ourselves, so that was a nice change. :-) Her party started at 3, and within a couple hours before it started, we got a few calls from people saying they couldn't come at the last minute. That was okay, I don't know how we could have really fit one more person into our living room as it was! We had a whole house full of people! Natalie probably was a little overwhelmed by everything, because Phil and I noticed she wasn't nearly as talkative as she usually is, but she did very good overall. We sang Happy Birthday, and then I made the mistake of trying to insist that she wear an Elmo party hat. She wanted none of that, and when she went to rip it off of her head, the elastic strap broke and stung her in the face! She started crying a little so I picked her back up from her high chair and gave her a couple kisses and hugs. She was fine again within a minute. The hat stayed off; though Phil and I wore ours proudly all afternoon as did many other people. (Great Grandma Hedrick still had hers on when she was getting her coat on to leave.) When Natalie ate her cake (she had some of the Elmo cake - I made an Elmo cake (white cake), and also a chocolate sheet cake), we were all poised with cameras ready for the cake smush of red icing everywhere, but Natalie ate it oh, so daintily. She picked the cake apart into little bite size pieces and placed each one neatly in her mouth, one at a time. She did make a gooey mess with the sherbet though, as well as the red punch. But the cake, she ate it like a proper little lady!  After that Natalie opened presents. Well, Phil and I opened with her help. She got a lot of nice things, including lots of pretty clothes and several Elmo things, of course! Aunt Sarah gave her a talking Baby Elmo, which we call Tantrum Elmo because it cries and thrashes its legs frequently. She also got a bunch of new books, which is one of her favorite things! We got her really huge purple rubber ball, which she loves. Great Grandma got her a Disney Princess carriage, a ride-on/push toy that is all pink, purple and sparkly and has the various Disney princess characters all over it. Natalie has had a lot of fun with that the last couple of days already. She hasn't gotten it going really well by herself on our living room carpet yet, but she's working on it. She is also getting the hang of walking around the room with it. Grammy (my mom) got her, in addition to a whole bunch of clothes, a shopping cart, but we haven't gotten that put together yet because we need to find a better screw driver. But she'll be pushing that all around the house soon too, I'm sure.  Which brings me to one of the highlights of her party... she did it, she took her first step at her birthday party! It was just one step (so I don't consider it walking yet) and Phil didn't even see it because she stepped toward him and he was looking at the thing she was looking at, but she really did take one whole step without holding on to anything at all! Phil was holding up a present that we just opened, and Natalie had been standing up by herself, and she went toward the present. I don't know if we got it on tape or not, because our tape ran out about three quarters through her opening presents, and I don't remember when it was that she took the step. We'll just find out when we watch her birthday video! After her party was over and ahem... everyone... went home (I'll leave this part unmentioned) we went out to dinner with my mom and sisters. We LOVE Bob Evans these days, they are sooo family friendly and don't at all mind food strewn all over tables, chairs and floors! :-)  We enjoyed dinner and then went home. We were so very tired!  Natalie just played with all her new stuff the rest of the night then, and like I mentioned before, just wouldn't stop giggling, and then went to bed pretty contentedly.  I think she had a good day. Both of my cakes turned out good, our house got really clean, with the exception of the party hat snap Natalie didn't cry, we got to see a lot of people we love and who love our little girl almost as much as we do, and Natalie was all smiles at the end of the evening. It was a good day for all of us. Right before Natalie went to bed, Phil spoke a blessing over Natalie, which is something we are going to do every year on her birthday. He wrote out a blessing and then we prayed it over her.

There is so much I could say at this one year mark, but this journal entry is getting so very long already so I'm going to try to reign myself in. I just wanted to mention a few of the very wonderful things that Natalie is doing right now.  Every day it seems she exceeds my expectations for what I think she should know, she always surprises me by doing something more.  She points to and identifies lots of objects now, when I ask her "where is..", even when it's something I'm not sure she is familiar with the name, many times she points right to it. What a smart cookie. I also haven't mentioned it on here before now, but for the past few months we've been teaching her baby signs, a form of simplified sign language that  babies use to communicate with before they have the language skills to speak lots of words. (This came about because it was found that deaf babies were communicating, and therefore also not tantruming so much because of frustration, at a much earlier age than hearing babies did.) So we've been teaching her a few words here and there, and she's really picking them up. Other things she's made up her own signs for, but it doesn't matter - it doesn't have to be ASL, it just has to serve its purpose, which is to communicate what is in her head. The other day, she was "reading" a book by herself, turning the pages, and she came to a page with ducks and she starting making her "quack quack" sign. Sure enough, Iooked and there were ducks on the page. On Monday, she was looking at Aunt Sarah's watch, and she started signing "butterfly". There aren't any butterflies on her watch, it's the PowerPuff Girls, but some of the shapes do look like colorful butterflies.  We're teaching her hungry, tired, hot, cold. smart, don't touch, and whatever else comes to mind that we think is important for her to be able to communicate. Or, like the animal signs, just what is on her mind. It's so neat to know what is going on in her mind! One thing that I just love that she does right now, is when she spontaneously comes up to me or Phil and gives us a hug and/or a kiss. It just makes my heart feel like it will burst!  It just so amazes me to watch her learn and grow, so much every single day. A year ago today she couldn't even figure out how to find me in order to breastfeed, but now she is eating the same foods we eat for every meal, she just picks up each piece and puts it in her mouth!  It just boggles our minds to think about how much she has grown and changed in what has felt like two blinks. My pastor keeps telling me that in three more blinks she is going to be going off to college and then getting married. I cover my ears when he says that. :-)

ONE more thing I wanted to mention today. (This ventures into TMI territory, but for those who have read my journal since the very start, you're used to this occasionally.) No, I'm not pregnant (yikes) ...but now I know that I probably COULD be again.  Well, it finally happened, I've started a "Day 1" on my cycle chart again, much to my GREAT surprise. In some ways, this is really good.  Many of the books said it could take up to 9 months "or rarely even up to a year" for mothers who breastfeed. As Natalie's birthday came and went, I really was beginning to wonder. It took a year and one day. Apparently my body is not completely shut down forever after all!  After not having a cycle since May 18th of 2001, this is definitely something I'm not used to dealing with!

Birthday pictures will hopefully be coming in the next couple days!

February 7, 2003 - One year ago tonight, we were sent home from the hospital without a baby for the last time. I had been walking around the halls of the hospital, having pretty strong contractions, for several hours, in the hope that it would start my labor going harder. I was already dilated to 4 cm, and I kept thinking, how much more active can it get than this? Every time I had a contraction I couldn't even breathe. Well, one day later I certainly found out how much more intense it can get! But I still think of Feb. 7 as when my actual labor began (not counting the month of preterm labor) and to this day, I still have trouble not thinking of February 8 as Natalie's birthday. After all, I spent the entire day in active labor and only delivered Natalie at 4:20 in the morning of the 9th. I felt like it all happened on the 8th. After she was born, we all went to sleep for a couple hours and when we woke up, it felt like a new day, so it really does feel like the 8th is her birthday! One year ago this weekend, our lives were turned upside down and inside out, and I can't imagine life without her anymore.  I think to myself so many times, goodness I was so selfish before, and I didn't even appreciate having the ability to be so selfish either. :-)  Life seems so much fuller and with more meaning now, too. I can, for the first time in my life, understand how God cares for us like a parent. I struggled with the image of the fatherhood of God my entire life, because that picture in my head is not how it was intended to be. But now that I'm a mom and as I watch Phil with Natalie, the image in my mind is changing.  Yes, I do so much for Natalie every day (and many nights!) but I have been given so much too.  A year ago tonight I had no idea just how much my life would change in about 24 hours. I'm so, so glad it did. "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life, he will be given to the Lord." That was Hannah's prayer after God gave her Samuel, but that has been the verse that has been with me since Natalie was conceived too.  She's my child, but she's not mine for eternity. It's just my job to point her in the right direction. I've been given such a precious gift in my little girl. I pray every day for the wisdom to raise her to be an awesome woman of God. 

I may not get back to writing here until after Sunday, because I have to clean the house tomorrow and get everything ready for her party, but I do plan on touching on some of the neat things Natalie is doing right now. No, she's not walking yet and I doubt we'll  be seeing her first steps at her party, but then again, you never do know! By the way, she is starting to feel better, from when I posted the last time on Tuesday. She had one really awful cold, and it got worse Tuesday night but then she began to improve on Wednesday. Now I have a cold - AGAIN - too, but mine seems to be getting better too. On Wednesday I went through the whole house and Lysoled everything we touch. If you are coming to the party, don't be surprised, though, if I ask you to go back to Natalie's newborn times and wash your hands before you pick her up! I am SO tired of this cold season!

February 4, 2003 - This is definitely the worst cough she's had. Last night she probably slept a total of two hours, for no consecutive 20 minute period, and I doubt I got more than an hour. She's either coughing, sneezing, or screaming non stop. We've tried everything; staying on the couch, walking around the house, rocking in our chair and rocking just standing up (I did that for 40 minutes last night), putting her upright in her old carseat, and propped up on my arm laying next to me in bed. She'll drift off to sleep for a couple minutes and then wake up coughing. The hardest part is that the thing she wants to do most, he only thing that gets her to sleep, is nursing, but then my milk is making her phlegm up even more, leading to more coughing. I don't know what to do, right now I'm just holding her and letting her cough/sneeze/cry and I'm hoping she'll wear herself out to fall asleep for at least a half hour. The poor darling hasn't really slept now in two days since she didn't take a nap yesterday either. The Advil and cough medicine doesn't seem to make an iota of difference. She doesn't even want any other snacks or food or juice or water, she just wants milk, which seems to be making everything worse. My little girl, she feels so bad and I can't seem to help at all.

Well, back to walking around the house.

February 3, 2003 - Today was a rough day for little bean. Starting this weekend, we noticed that she hadn't been acting like she was feeling well again, and this time it came with a really wet, awful sounding cough. The three of us have been passing some manner of cold back and forth for the past month or so and it seemed she was getting oh, about round 4 - sort of same cold, different symptoms. Last night she didn't sleep very well because she woke up coughing all night, and then this morning her cough just sounded even worse along with sneezing and really runny eyes and nose. Plus she's been constipated the last few days too, and has had a small fever. I thought, well maybe it was just the cold that never wanted to end on top of perhaps teething again, but we took her into the doctor today anyway just in case, because her cough sounded so much worse. Well, he checked her lungs and they seemed clear, but as it turns out, she has another double ear infection. So she's back on the pink meddie again. I just hope she is feeling better by this weekend; I don't want her to be sick on her first birthday! Her cough is just awful but as long as it's not in her lungs, it's just a bad cough again. We gave her some cough syrup tonight as well as some infant Advil, so I'm hoping she'll sleep some tonight because that will really make her feel better. She hasn't had but about a half hour of nap today because her cough keeps waking her up. So then this afternoon all of us, including me, Phil, Natalie and my sister Sarah were sitting on the couch together, and suddenly Natalie just LAUNCHED backwards. Natalie was sitting right between Sarah and I and both of us had our hands on Natalie but she just launched too fast and with a lot of force. She flopped right off the couch, back/head first, and landed with a plop on the carpet. She seemed okay though, at least after she calmed down from the scare of what had happened. All four of us were equally scared I think; she hit the floor so hard and landed with such a thud, and I know how hard our carpet is too (thin, old carpet with no padding underneath). She screamed, of course, when she hit and then was inconsolable until I nursed her for a few minutes (always works great) and then she was okay. After our fall on the driveway in October, we do know how resilient that cute little head is! Still, it was a little scary, and it just added to the fact that she's had a rough day. Her little eyes are just red-rimmed tonight, and every time she coughs she gets tears running down her cheeks and she ends with an "uuugghhhhh" cry. It's so sad. Hopefully the amoxi will kick in quickly. And I'm going to go around the house tomorrow and Lysol everything. I'm tired of passing this thing between the three of us, I've had it three times, this is Natalie's fourth, and Phil's had a couple rounds too (though for some reason, not as bad although these days he comes into contact with a lot more people than Natalie and I do...) 

Since we may not get back to the doctor right away for her year checkup (we'll be taking her to a local immunization clinic as soon as she gets better - something we had planned on doing today until Natalie got sick again) we had the nurse take her 12 month measurements today. The oddest one was that she weighed in at 24 pounds, which is down from a couple of the weights we'd taken at home. I don't think our scales are off that much, so maybe her cold lately has made her lose some weight. She really hasn't been eating as much in the last couple days; she's been doing a lot of picking but not much eating like she was a couple weeks ago when she was shoving in green beans by the handfuls. :-) At any rate though, her weight gain is still good and still progressing right from the last doctor's visit, and she is still at 90% on her weight. She's still off the charts on her length and head circumference though. Her length is now 31 1/2 inches, and her head circumference is 19 inches.

That's all I can write for now; Natalie is not feeling well so I didn't want to take too much time on here tonight. She wants mama! I'm going to try to write a couple more times this week though, this is a big week for Natalie. It's a big week for me too, though, I have a lot to get done around here before Sunday afternoon!