Natalie has discovered her first fear. It was the oddest thing. Nothing's ever really scared her before (except being out of my presence of course), so I was really surprised to hear her make a definite "scared/surprised" sound ("aauugh!") this afternoon, as she backed up and pointed toward the wall.  I looked, and there was one of our big nasty spiders (black with white spots and thick hairy legs - yuck!) climbing around a baseboard. She started signing "spider" (moves her hands like in the song Itsy Bitsy Spider) and kept backing up as I got a napkin and squashed it. For the next little while she kept eyeing the area warily and making the spider sign. I just kept telling her that the spider was all gone, but she wasn't convinced until I brought her over there and went over the whole area with her.  Then, later this afternoon as we were playing outside, she saw a bumblebee flying around her and she made the same sound and acted the same way, except this time, she made a "pinch" between her first finger and thumb and moved it up and down across her chest. (Sort of the way a bee flies, actually.)  Later on she saw another bee flying around and she made the same sign. I think this is the first sign she's made up on her own; the book I read about baby signs that kids eventually end up doing this once they know that their signs make them understood.  Natalie may not be saying too many words yet, but these days she's certainly communicating!

There is one other thing I wanted to mention today. Sometime between yesterday and this afternoon, another tooth popped through. This is one of the other two on Natalie's left side of her front top. The two on the right came through last week, and these two on the left have been trying to come out since then. One is out; the only one that remains is the "missing" eye tooth - what was supposed to have come out before her four molars. She just wanted to do things differently! Maybe after that tooth pops through, we'll have a little break in the joys of teething! Maybe?

May 25, 2003 - Wow, I think this is almost just about as long as I have ever gone without writing. At least, that is when I have had a computer and after Natalie's newborn weeks. Lots has happened in the last two weeks, and I just haven't seemed to be able to find the time to turn on the computer and type. 

Instead of writing a book about the last two weeks, I'm just going to try to summarize what's been going on around here and hope I don't miss anything. Let's see - Natalie is now picking out books to read and bringing them to us, signing "read". It's certainly better for her to plop a book in our laps and then sign "read" than what she was doing: plopping a book in our laps and then screeching. :-) Last week one time, she really surprised both of us at book time. Every night, Phil reads at least one book to her that has something Biblical in it - basically, getting her in the habit of having a devotional time with him. So when Natalie said she wanted to read, Phil told her to go pick out a book about Jesus (not really expecting her to, of course). As she was walking over to her bookshelf, he said to me "wouldn't it be funny if she picked out "Paul Meets Jesus"? (It's a tiny little square book that often gets lost among her bigger board books.) Well, wouldn't you know it. She walked right over to her shelf, looked around for a few seconds, and pulled out "Paul Meets Jesus". Phil and I looked at each other astonished and just laughed. We still don't know if it was just coincidence, but it sure was funny.

Natalie is pretty much on her way to running these days. I'm beginning to have trouble keeping up with her, especially when we go outside. She loves to go running around the front of the house and toward the driveway and sidewalk, which is the one area that of course I don't allow her to go without holding my hand. She'll be happily playing around out front (we have an enclosed cement area in front of our house) and then suddenly she takes off toward to driveway. She hasn't gotten there yet before I catch her, but it won't be long. Natalie has gone through another growth spurt recently, when all she wanted to do was eat and nurse.  Just when I think that maybe Natalie is self-weaning (because it got to be that she only really wanted to nurse in the morning and at bedtime, and maybe one other quick "snack" during the day) but then she goes back to wanting to nurse around the clock again. So who knows when it will be...I went to a meeting with the lady who will be sewing our bridesmaids dresses for my friend Jaime's wedding, and she asked me if I'll still be nursing by November. Who knows. I guess I'll just have to get my dress fitted to the size I am now, and if Natalie decides she's done after my alterations are completed, I'll just have to stuff my bra or something. :-)

Last weekend, Natalie finished getting her top side teeth on the left, and started really working on the two on the right. It was funny because my sister Sarah spent the weekend with us, and Natalie was going through teething, and the last time we spent the weekend with Sarah, Natalie was getting her four molars. She gets to see Natalie's HAPPY side!!! The two teeth on the right side aren't through yet but they are very close. Natalie's been dealing with that this week plus the after effects of her MMR (her doctor said it usually hits about 10 days after) so she's had a bit of a fever and just in general crankiness. To be fair, though, we've also been putting a lot on her plate lately. Last Monday, after spending the whole weekend with Aunt Sarah, we drove up to Cleveland with our whole family to see my other sister, Nan, graduate from Ursuline College with her Master's in Art Therapy. (She's finally DONE with school! Yay!) It was a good trip, and we got to eat at a Czech restaurant up there (we had chicken paprikash - yum!!) but it was also a long day, since we stayed up there all day and then drove back home the same night. We got home around 1:30 am, which pretty much then threw off our entire week; even the marginal "schedule" that Natalie maintains was all out of whack. Then this weekend, we had our friends Gary and Marcia Kirchhofer and their two cute kids stay with us because we had a Chi Alpha reunion this weekend. (The Christian organization at college, which is where Phil and I met.) The church we used to go to organized a "homecoming" for all of us who have been scattered, in order to see each other and also celebrate their new building. We had a cookout last night with both old and new Chi Alphans, at the house of the campus pastor. It was a good time seeing everyone, and it felt like no time had passed.  It was a little bit chilly, and we sat around outside in circles talking about all kinds of things, and sometimes it felt just like the early fall bonfires and hayrides we used to go on in college.  There was a MASS amount of kids running everywhere. Almost all of us have had at least one (and most about two) children by now, so there were lots of kids around. Natalie doesn't ever know quite what to think when she's around a bunch of kids. It felt really good just to see so many people that you don't realize how much you miss until you see them again. Looking around the place, it felt like we could have all been back in college again - until we saw the current college group who was there too, and then we realized, oh - we're the old people! We did warn them though, to look around at the older group of people there. There was only two or three people there who were not married to someone they met in Chi Alpha. We joked that Chi Alpha was really a secret dating service. It felt good seeing old friends, and catching up. The friends of ours who couldn't make it -mostly because they are so far away (Joe and Tricia, Edwin, Renee S., Jaime, and Rance, for a few) were definitely thought about a lot the whole night and really missed. Today we went to a special service at the new building of our old church and then we went out to lunch with some of them. By the time we left, both of the Kirchhofer's kids and also Natalie were really aching to take a nap. Meltdowns were beginning all around. They took off to go back home, so their kids probably got a nap, but we decided to push ourselves and Natalie just a little bit longer and go to another cookout with some family friends. We only stayed for a little while, and then mercifully, Natalie fell asleep on the way home and then stayed asleep. We all got a much-needed nap!

That pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks. I also finally got to the doctor to get checked out (everything is fine now) and this week, on Tuesday, I get to go to a one-hour massage! (Phil got one for his birthday through his chiropractor, and he gave it to me. Isn't he so very wonderful?) OH - here's one more thing I forgot. We got some more fish! Real fish this time (not feeder fish) and a real fish tank too. We found one at a garage sale, with an aerator this time. So far it's going...almost good. They seem to like water that has oxygen in it, for some strange reason. We did lose one fish, Spike, within the first two days, but because our water chemicals tested fine it just must have been the fish, so the store replaced him with another. His name is Spikee (pronounced Spikey, and meaning, basically Spike 2) and he's a yellow fish with a bright orange tail. He's a little bit aggressive,  always chasing our other fish, Rosa, around the tank. Sometimes Rosa chases back but most of the time she takes a break by hiding under a shell. Rosa is all red with a black tail. I really like this fish. Even when we had Spike the First, Rosa has been doing just fine. She eats all the time, and whenever I put my face near the tank and say "hi, fish!" she comes right up and looks at me. She's lasted a full week now, so here's hoping I can keep these guys alive longer.  That oxygen-infused water thing should help, I hope. :-)

May 14, 2003 - Natalie had her 15 month check up today. She had her first MMR shot and also a Prevnar. We gave her some Advil before we left for the doctor and she slept some of it off this afternoon, but she's been pretty fussy and clingy. She was NOT happy this whole time the doctor was checking her out today. She started to scream when he looked in her ears and tried to listen to her heart and lungs. Well, I don't know if he was able to hear her heart but he sure heard that she had strong lungs! She continued to scream when she got the shots, more than she has for shots in a long time. It's never a pleasant experience, but boy she really had a hard time with it today!  He was really happy to hear about all the things she is doing right now, and told us she was doing especially well cognitively. As I've said before, she has a big brain! Her head circumference is now 19 and 1/4 inches, which is the 97%. Her length is now 32 and 3/4 inches, which is also 97%. On the other hand, her weight has definitely slowed down! After being off the charts or above 90% ever since her one month check up, she weighed in today just barely an ounce short of 25 pounds -  75th percentile. That's normal though, since she has most definitely lost some of her baby fat, particularly on her legs, since she started walking. Dr. Kern also felt around in her mouth (oh yeah she really loved that) and said that not only are those two "missing" teeth on the top actually there even though they don't show any signs of coming out yet, but the two next to those on the top (the canines) are popping out. He found two new teeth before we did!

Her next check up is scheduled for August, when she will be 18 months. AND, that will be the last time she needs any shots until she turns five! Maybe Natalie will start to like Dr. Kern again by then. :-)

One more thing I wanted to mention that I forgot yesterday. I knew there was something I wanted to comment on about our chinese buffet dinner last Thursday, and Phil reminded me last night. Natalie always likes to try some of our soup (usually egg drop) when we have chinese food, and that night Phil got Hot and Sour soup instead. Phil warned Natalie that it was a little spicy, but she insisted, so he gave her a spoonful. Her eyes got as wide as saucers, then she smacked her lips for a second, and then right away pointed to her cup of milk for a drink. She had a LONG drink and then didn't ask for anymore of Daddy's soup.  It's too bad we didn't have a camera to catch that "WHAT is THIS?" look on her face!!

May 13, 2003 - Well, we did it yesterday. At 15 months and 3 days old, Natalie has had her first haircut. We trimmed up her hair (just her bangs) last night after her bath. I got MOST of it even...it's not perfect, but it is also a lot cheaper and quicker to cut it ourselves than take her into a salon just to cut a few bangs. We just couldn't put it off any longer; she insists on pulling off her hair barrettes and her hair was just constantly falling into her eyes. She looks like such a little kid now! Here's her first post-haircut picture:

I tried to tie up the strands of cut hair with a pretty pink bow, but I kept losing some of the baby fine, thin hairs in the process. There weren't all that many hairs to start with anyway, so I didn't want to lose half of them just trying to preserve them. So, I had to put those that remained wrapped up in plastic wrap, and then I tied the pink bow around that. I just wanted to record that so that, years from now, Natalie won't wonder why her first hair snippets are wrapped up in plastic. There just weren't enough hairs cut to tie them up in a pretty bundle.

Natalie learned something very new and exciting this morning - she figured out how to get up to standing without using anything for support. She was playing and reading books this morning, when suddenly she just got up and sort of "tripoded" using her legs spread wide and then pushed up on her hands, and then stood up! I was so proud of her. She then continued to practice this over and over again. Now she doesn't have to scoot around on her knees to get over to a chair or something to pull up. She's still squatting on her feet though to sit. 

We had fun, fun, fun this weekend, starting with Phil's 30th birthday on Thursday, and it just kept going all weekend. We went out to a Chinese buffet for dinner on Thursday (that's what Phil wanted - actually he wanted sushi, but the closest to that I would agree with was at a buffet). Then when we got home, we watched Survivor (of course) and ate the Dairy Queen ice cream cupcakes that I'd stashed away earlier that day. I even added a little more frosting on top, because I had baked his birthday cake (for eating at his real party on Friday) the day before and had some buttercream frosting left over. On Friday afternoon/early evening, we had a picnic party out at Blendon Woods park. Sarah and I got there early and staked out a really nice shelter house in the park. We had hot dogs, brats, hamburgers (I forgot to bring the cheese), baked beans, chips (lots of chips, thanks to the variety that Sandy brought! She also brought me a really pretty bouquet of mini carnations!) and pop, and of course then Phil's birthday cake. The cake almost didn't make it. Sarah and I hurriedly packed up the car in order to get to the park early. As I was driving out of my neighborhood, a lady in the car behind me honked and motioned toward my right side. I thought, great, do I have a flat? She pulled up next to me, and when I rolled down my window, she said, "You have a CAKE on your roof!" Fortunately the cake survived its ride on my hot car roof and the cake made it to the picnic in one piece!  We had a really good time, and the rain even held off the whole time we were out there! On Saturday, we really wanted to do some serious garage saleing, but it was raining buckets all day. We did find a couple churches that were having indoor sales so we stopped by those. We didn't find too much, but the fun is just in the going. :-)  Then in the afternoon, the rains finally ended and we went up to Hoover Dam in Westerville. Phil had never been there but had been talking about going for a long time, so we went.  Natalie really liked all the WHOOSHING water. (And it did definitely WHOOSH with all the rain we've had!) So then Saturday night, we went to the drive-in movies for the first time this year, and the best part was that Natalie fell asleep before the movie was over. And stayed asleep all the way home. AND stayed asleep when Phil took her in the house and into her crib!!! Yes, it was a milestone I was beginning to wonder if Natalie would ever hit. I considered that my early Mother's Day present from the little bean, because after putting her to bed, I then had the rest of the evening to myself. I ate a piece of leftover cake, all by myself, and read a magazine, all by myself. I contemplated getting on here and writing an update that night too, because I generally don't get to write without one eye always over my shoulder to watch Natalie play in the kitchen (like I am now - she's finally discovered the joy of pots and pans); either that or holding her in my arms while she sleeps/nurses and I type one-handed. But then I decided I just wanted to sit and enjoy doing nothing at all baby related in the time she gave me. I went to bed Saturday night completely surprised and amazed that I had actually gotten an evening!  Sunday was my second Mother's Day. After church, we went over to my mom's, where Brett and Phil made Brett's yummy tacos while all the moms did nothing but wait to eat. We spent most of the afternoon there but then decided to go home for awhile to take a nap. Natalie fell asleep in the car AGAIN and then stayed asleep when Phil brought her in to her crib. Who is this kid???  After an hour or so of napping, our little alarm clock in the next room woke us up. We then ate some dinner (leftover brats from the picnic) and then went back over to my mom's to watch the 3-hour Survivor finale with her. (We were all hooked on it.) And that was our whole fun weekend! Natalie gave me (literally did - she handed it to me with a big grin on her face) a card for Mother's Day that she colored. Daddy helped her trace her (and his) foot on the card, and he helped with the words, but she added lots of her own art using crayons. I'm sure Natalie will see it again someday because that's the kind of thing a mom (well, someone like me especially) just can't throw away!

Natalie has her 15 month checkup (including some shots!) tomorrow!

May 5, 2003 - Yesterday afternoon, we decided to go to the Franklin Park Conservatory, which is close to downtown. They have an exhibit right now called Blooms and Butterflies, which we knew Natalie would enjoy. There were so many butterflies everywhere! Natalie seemed to really enjoy herself, pointing out all of the "but" that were flying all around. She got to touch a couple of them too. We took lots of pictures of course.  I'm going to try to get a bunch of pictures from the last month uploaded to ClubPhoto pretty soon, but see the picture in the Picture of the Day spot below, it's SO cute!!

Natalie has picked up on a family trait; something that I did (before my -ahem - center of gravity changed too much), that my sister Sarah did, and my mom says my great-grandma Louderback used to do all her life too: she squats down and sits back on her feet. I'm going to have to try to get a picture of it and include it in her scrapbook, because seeing it is so funny and awkward- looking, but yet I know it's not unusual in our family to sit like that. For one thing, it keeps your bottom from getting dirty -something I never liked when I was little-  because you sit on your heels and not the ground! I think Natalie started sitting like that, though, to solve a problem. She still has trouble getting up to standing from being on the floor, but if she just sits/squats down on her feet, she's able to stand right up. If she sits with her bottom on the floor, she has to crawl or scoot over to some solid object that she can use to pull herself up. So unless she wants to sit down for a long time, she just walks around and then squats down to do what she wants on the floor!  Yet another one of those things that makes me look at her and think, yep, she's my kid!

Today I was reading to Natalie from a book about shapes, that my friend April got Natalie for her birthday. Lately when we read books, I'm doing a lot more of "where's the..." instead of just reading the book, and Natalie continues to surprise me by pointing right to the object I ask her to point out. (I don't know why, but I just don't ever think she's actually going to point out the right objects on demand yet.) Well, we hadn't read this book in awhile, and most of the books we read are about animals or babies, so I especially didn't think she would know what any shapes are. When we got to the page about circles, I asked her "where are the circles, Natalie?" and she proceeded to point out every single circle on the page. (Objects on the page that are shaped like circles, like balls and things.) Then when we got to the last page, it's just a "line up" of all the shapes that had their own pages throughout the book. I asked her where each of the shapes was, and the only one she got wrong was the oval. For the oval, she pointed to first the oval then the circle when I had asked her which is the circle. The kid just never ceases to amaze me. Oh, and she's also learned a new sign lately, for "read": you open and close your hands like a book. Right now we're trying to teach her "love" (arms crossed over chest) and "Jesus" (point to both inside palms of hands). 

This week, she turns 15 months old! We have an appointment for her to see Dr. Kern next week. We haven't had an official check up, with height and weight and such, for awhile now (because we didn't have insurance for awhile) so it will be interesting to see how much she has grown lately. I think she's had a growth spurt recently, because lots of her clothes are not fitting suddenly, and she ate practically non-stop, both solids and nursing, all last week. (Which is helping me to continue losing weight too!) This is also a big week for Phil - he's turning 30 on Thursday!!!