September 29, 2002 - It's almost the end of September already! The weather has turned cooler and I'm finally back on here, finally posting a new entry. I'm not doing this at home; the three of us went on a field trip to Phil's office tonight, so Phil could get some paperwork done and I could check my email and write an update. I actually do have a computer at home now, because a couple of weeks ago my Grandpa Hedrick gave me their old computer, but it has an external modem and it needs a cable to hook it up that I don't have, so I'm still pretty much computerless. Now that Natalie is quickly heading toward her 8 month birthday, I have to go back three weeks to think about what I was going to say for her 7 month! Let's see... on September 9, we weighed her again. (At home though, we don't have another doctor appointment until November.) She weighed in at 24 pounds! (More than some one year olds I know.) I knew she had had another growth spurt because after a couple days where all she really wanted to do was eat and sleep, eat and sleep, the last of her 6-9 month clothes had suddenly gotten too tight. A friend of ours from church gave us a bag of 12 month clothes. Even now though, many of those have already gotten too small! About a week ago Natalie and I went out shopping with her grandmas (Grandma Matthews and Great Grandma Hedrick) and they each got Natalie a bunch of new clothes, size 12-18 months, and these are fitting perfectly. We thought some of the pajamas that were size 18 months would be a little too big on her, but those are even a little tight. (Which is okay, I guess pajamas are supposed to fit more snuggly anyway.) I just couldn't believe how many clothes there AREN'T for Natalie's size. The infant clothes only went to a size Large, which was 6-9 months, and according to a size chart at Kohl's there was supposed to be an extra large which was 12 months but we saw none. From there we had to move up to the toddler clothes section. There were some cute things, and eventually we found a whole bunch of really nice stuff, but the toddler clothes are much more fussy than the stuff in the infant section. I'm still wanting mostly simple stuff- like pajamas with no plastic feet! I don't think there's all that much new to say about stuff Natalie is doing, except that she is pulling herself up to standing now. Whenever she does it she then gets a big grin on her face and looks very proud of herself. :) I think she may be getting really close to crawling (she takes nose dives off of my lap or toward a toy or a kitty or whatever else she sees that she wants) and Phil even got her walking using her little kicking gym thing as a walker (with him holding on to her of course!) A couple weeks ago it was really cute, I was sitting on the floor with Natalie and I had spread out some of her toys JUST out of her reach, to see if she would go after them. We were sitting on a blanket (we have really horrible carpet in our living room that we needed to replace when we moved into the house in 2000, and it's just gotten worse since then) and I had the toys on the blanket too. Natalie reached forward for them but couldn't reach. She tried a couple times, and then proceeded to grab the blanket and pull it toward her, thereby bringing the toys within her reach, and she then picked up the toy she wanted. What a resourceful child. She may not want to crawl but at least she's learning how to problem solve!  She's also making a lot more different kinds of sounds these days. I've heard the beginnings of a "da da" but not a full one yet. Her favorite thing to say is still "ma ma ma ma!" when she starts getting upset or hungry. I keep telling myself that I need to borrow my mom's video camera for a couple days so that I can get Natalie on tape again with all her sounds and her cute facial expressions. We take photos but that doesn't really show her how she really is (she tends to just stare at the camera curiously as soon as I get it in front of her), and I haven't gotten a video of her since we left the hospital! 

One thing that has definitely changed now that she is completely off the Zantac is that she sleeps a LOT less. I don't know how the kid does it, but except for when is having a growth spurt she generally sleeps for about 7 hours a night, and then doesn't take more than a couple 15 minute "power naps" a day. I always heard that babies are supposed to sleep a lot, but not our miss Natalie!  I've read that Zantac can make babies sleep more often, so maybe we were just repressing her natural inclinations until she went off of it at 6 months. For the past month or so, her new pattern is definitely one of needing less sleep than mommy or daddy! Maybe she's just a genius; didn't Einstein only sleep like four hours a day or something like that? She sure didn't inherit her sleep patterns from us; Phil and I could sleep 12 hours a day pretty easily. Natalie, on the other hand, could easily EAT 12 hours a day! THAT is HER favorite activity! Oh, that reminds me of noting what her favorite things to do at 7 months are. Besides eating, which is very much number 1, she likes to read books, like Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon, and likes to play with her little toy piano (the xylophone kind) and lots of different stacking toys. She likes to unstack whatever Phil and I stack up for her. (I like to say that we construct and she "de-constructs".) Usually she goes for an item in the middle of the stack. She also likes it when we play with toys like her My Pal Al with her. We shake them or make them rattle or whatever they do all over her belly and that makes her giggle. Her grandma just got Natalie her first cell phone (the Elmo phone) when we went shopping last week, and she really likes that. It makes all kinds of nice beeps and noises... fortunately we don't have too many beeping, singing toys yet. :) 

I guess that's all for now, I'm sure there was a lot more I've wanted to say over the last couple weeks but it's hard for me to remember everything in one big entry like this. Hopefully I'll get my own computer going very soon. It's driving me pretty crazy not being able to send or get emails, post updates, or keep up on the other journals I read too!

September 5, 2002 -  This may be my last entry for a little while, not for too long hopefully, but maybe a while because Phil's computer (our old one) has melted. Specifically, his hard drive. The computer itself is still operable but the hard drive is gone. Unfortunately Phil had about four months of work data stored on it that he hadn't backed up (though at least he does have hard copies of all his work). So he'll be taking my computer into his office tomorrow and I'll be computerless again until we can get him a new hard drive. Hopefully I'll have it back by this weekend, because Natalie will be turning 7 months in just a few days (unbelievable!!) and I want to be able to record her weight and the stuff she's likes to do, as I have in the past, on the 9th.

I just can't believe it's September already. Ten years ago I was beginning my senior year of high school. Ten years ago this fall I went through the most dramatic change in my life. It was in September, after a traumatic event at a senior band sleepover, that I finally put into words into a prayer to a God that I wasn't even sure existed, that I had a big emptiness in my life and I didn't know how to fill it. I'd tried all kinds of things to try to fill it but I just got more and more unhappy. This year November 5th will be 10 years since I attended a youth Lock-In and really met for the first time in my life and then gave my life to Christ. Wow, ten years. I just can't believe it.  I can't even imagine where I would be right now if I hadn't made that decision. Or if I'd even be here at all. 

Natalie is doing some really cute things these days. She's about THIS close to either crawling or at least scooting around on her bottom. Yesterday we were sitting together on the floor playing, and one of her books was just out of her reach. Before I could react, she suddenly took a nose dive (she does that a lot these days!) forward and then proceeded to reach, reach, reach to get the book. She had to squirm forward a little in order to reach it, but she kept trying and then she got it!  Her sleeping has gotten a little better since the last time I wrote, although for some reason ever since Labor Day (Monday) her sleep schedule has been way off: she's been falling asleep closer to one or 1:30 am and then wanting to sleep late into the morning. This morning I decided to break this little habit by getting her up earlier (even though I was still really tired too!), but then she fell back asleep after her morning feeding, and slept for another hour and a half. I just couldn't wake her up though, she was sleeping peacefully in her own room (a rarity for naps - she usually just takes 10-15 minute power naps and so I never even get to put her down) and I got the entire upstairs bathroom cleaned while she slept! She's seemed pretty tired though still tonight, so hopefully she's still fall asleep at a decent hour. I haven't weighed her yet (I will on the 9th) but I think she's had another growth spurt. She had several days when all she wanted to do was eat and sleep, and now she's feeling suddenly heavier and even less of her clothes fit. We really need to head back to Once Upon a Child again soon, we're especially out of jammies!  It's also now been three weeks since we went off Zantac, and I think we're off of it for good. She is doing so much better! She still has some incidents here and there, but nothing at all like it was. Yay! That's one part of her growing up that I'm NOT going to miss. Now we just need to work on getting her tear ducts to open up. No matter where I go, people always look at her and say "aww, have you been crying?" and I have to explain no, I didn't just pinch her, she just has blocked tear ducts! 

We just got a couple music CD's from the library (our favorite place - everything's REAL cheap there!) the other day, and one that we got I just can't stop listening to it. It's a CD of lullabies by Twila Paris. Natalie really loves it - she calms right down, and it has the same effect on me also!  One song in particular, the first time I heard it, it just made me bawl; it just completely put into song everything I pray about for Natalie every single day. It's called "Your Whole Life Long". I love it so much that I thought I'd record the words here since songs and CD's come and go, I probably won't have the disc for her to listen to when she gets older but at least she can read this and know what her mommy prayed over her all the time.

I pray the Lord will hold you close - And keep you through the night - That you will wake up smiling - In the early morning light - That He will always comfort you - And make you brave and strong - I pray that you will follow Him - Your whole life long ---- I pray that you will grow up - To be wise and good and true - I pray that you will please the Lord - In everything you do - I pray that you will hear His voice - And learn to sing His song - I pray that you will follow Him - Your whole life long ---- I pray the Lord will bless you - With His presence every day - And I pray He will protect you - Every step along the way - Help you love what's right - And lead you far away from wrong - I pray that you will follow Him - Your whole life long!