Archive for September, 2008
No Cake!
A week or so ago, Natalie and I were in the car listening to the Laurie Berkner version of the song “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” During the verse where Laurie sings “We will all have cake and ice cream when she comes, yum yum…” Natalie started urgently saying, “No! No! No!”
I turned the volume down and said, “What’s the matter, Natalie? You don’t like this song?”
Natalie, “No! No cake! No cake…Nah!”
Mommy (who took a few minutes to realize Natalie’s meaning) said, “Oh! That’s right, Natalie doesn’t like cake!”
Natalie, very pleased that she was understood, replied, “Yeah! No cake…Nah!”
A few minutes later, Natalie smiled and exclaimed, “Mommy, cake!”
Mommy, ruefully replied, “Yes, you’re right. Mommy does like cake.”
Natalie gets a kick out of repeating this conversation each time we listen to “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.”
“Oh, I’m Brushing my Teeth…”
That’s a lyric to a Barney song about oral hygiene. I can’t help but sing it every time Natalie brushes her teeth.
21 Months!
Natalie is getting closer and closer to turning 2 years old and it’s freaking me out a little.
Lately it seems like Natalie learns so much in one day it’s hard to keep track of it all. She’s using more and more 3-word pseudo sentences. These phrases tend to contain nouns and sometimes adjectives, but she often leaves out verbs and connecting words. For example, this morning when I offered her toast, Natalie replied, “no…toast…Nah.” (“Nah” is what Natalie calls herself, although lately she sometimes says “Nanny.”) The pauses between the words let me know that she’s aware that more is needed to make a full sentence. Either way she gets her meaning across. A few more examples:
“Mommy, Daddy…home”
“Mommy…blue shirt”
“Tillman…mess…rug”
“no, no, Tillman…Nah’s” (Tillman often tries to eat Natalie’s food)
“Nah…shoes…off”
“No…cream…butt!” (Natalie has developed a strong aversion to diaper cream)
One of our recent conversations illustrates her ever increasing ability to communicate her thoughts and wishes:
In the car, Natalie asked, “animal crackers?”
Mommy, who has never bought animal crackers, replied, “We don’t have any, honey. We have pretzels or raisins. Do you eat animal crackers at Melissa’s house?”
Natalie answers, “Yeah!….Animal crackers…Nah’s…house?”
Another “big girl” milestone—drinking out of a regular cup! She has been able to do this for a while, but we just started letting her have a non-sippy cup more often.
Natalie has been doing a lot of pretend play lately. One of her favorite games is to take a bag, and say, “bye-bye” as she leaves the room. Then she comes back and very grandly says, “HI!” When asked where she went, Natalie says “Shopping!” We usually say, “Oh! What did you buy?” Natalie usually reports, “crackers!” or sometimes, “Banas!” (bananas) or “boo-bayees” (blueberries) or “bed” (bread). Then she goes around to each person in the room and pretend feeds us whatever food she’s bought.
Here she is getting her (reusable of course!!) shopping bag ready:
She’s also added a few “jokes” to her repertoire. Not jokes exactly, but things she says that show her sense of humor. A couple examples:
Mommy, pointing to something green, asks, “Natalie, what color is this?”
Natalie, snickering, says, “Blue!”
Mommy replies, “Really? That’s blue?”
Natalie says, as if Mommy is completely absurd, “No! Green!!”
Daddy, pouring himself a cup asks, “Natalie, do you want coffee, too?”
Natalie, looking at Daddy like he’s crazy, replies, “No!”
Daddy says, “Oh, Natalie doesn’t drink coffee?”
Natalie replies, “No! Daddy…Mommy…coffee.”
This morning, Chris took these picture of Natalie trying on some of Daddy’s shirts:
