Archive for March, 2009
27 Month Quarterly Report (UPDATED!!)
Rather than doing a monthly update, I’ve decided to write quarterly reports. Can you believe Natalie is already 2¼????
Natalie is learning at such a rate it’s hard to keep up. She uses words like “fragile,” “underneath,” “carefully,” “pretend,” and “gently” in the right contexts. During dinner, she almost invariably says, “Thank you for making such a delicious dinner, Mommy!” (or sometimes Daddy). She can sing along to every word of the entire album Whaddya Think of That? by Laurie Berkner. She can spell the words Natalie, Mommy, and Daddy. She can write the letter N.
In terms of her physical development, Natalie learned to gallop like a horse. We are always amazed at her strength in terms of how much she can carry around.
Natalie drew this picture of Meema, complete with eyes, a nose (a letter N), hair, cheeks (straight lines on either side of the eyes), a mouth, and a neck (line going down the middle):
Since giving up her precious baba a few days ago, Natalie’s been eating like crazy! We’re happy that she’s getting more of a variety of nutrients from food rather than filling up on milk. The downside of giving up the baba is that she’s having trouble falling asleep at night. And she’s still getting up in the middle of the night. Chris has taken over all the nighttime parenting, and we think we’re moving in the right direction. Someday she’s gotta sleep through the night!
UPDATE: Natalie slept in her own bed from 9:30 to 6:30 last night!!!! Too bad I kept waking up thinking something was terribly wrong…but I stopped myself from checking on her and waking her up. Not going to make that mistake again!
Natalie eating breakfast, something she was never really interested in doing before we took away the baba. Mmmmmm, apples:
Natalie’s sense of humor is growing more complex. This week Natalie pointed to me and exclaimed, “You’re Natalie!” Then she pointed to herself and said, “And I’m Mommy!” She also likes to look at me with authority and say “Can you say [nonsense word]??”
One of her favorite things to do lately is sing Happy Birthday. She sings to everyone in the room at that moment, then moves on to singing to family and friends, then insists we sing to inanimate objects. So far, we’ve sung Happy Birthday to Natalie’s blue hat, her black beans, her red peppers, and her water. When the song is over, she offers whoever she sang to some cake to eat. The video is dark because before she sings, she has to turn the lights off, of course!
Happy Birthday, dear red peppers! from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.
Happy 2¼ Birthday, Natalie! We love you!
Illness & Opportunity
Natalie got a bad cold that started with her vomiting the contents of her bottle all over us and our bed on Sunday morning. Yeah, we weren’t really happy about having that image in our heads, either. We thought maybe she wouldn’t eat that much, but she was hungry and actually ate pretty well that day, especially for being sick. She kept down oatmeal, peas and goldfish crackers with no problem. She was otherwise miserable, screaming “BOOGIES” every few minutes and then crying if we wiped her nose. She also had a hacking, barky cough that would make her cry, too. And she couldn’t really tolerate me being more than 1 foot away from her. I don’t think she’s been this miserably sick since 2007/2008 New Year’s.
By 4 pm, she hadn’t napped and was pretty tired, so we decided to give her a bottle, since that’s usually how she falls asleep at home (she has no problem taking naps without a bottle at Melissa’s house!). Of course, she immediately threw up that bottle, too. We think that she was so congested that the mucus in her stomach made it impossible to digest milk (cow’s or rice) or that maybe drinking the bottle so quickly caused it to come back up? If anyone has a better explanation, please share, because we found it puzzling.
So that night she had to go to sleep without her baba. And she did! I think it helped that she was beyond tired from having a rough night’s sleep the night before, being sick, and not having napped. She fell asleep around 7, slept for 3 hours, then was up until 3 am before she fell asleep again, so she actually practiced going to sleep twice without the baba. She asked for it a few times, but was easily dissuaded when I reminded her that her babas were making her sick.
The next day, Natalie was still congested and phlegmy, so we held off on giving her milk, in a baba or otherwise. And we realized Natalie’s illness had given us an opportunity we couldn’t pass up: the chance to get rid of her baba altogether! We debated about the best way to approach the issue. We decided to follow Jodi’s advice and explained to Natalie that her bottles were making her sick and so we had to sat bye-bye to them. Then Natalie helped us put all the babas in bag and throw them in the trash outside.
She seemed to take the whole thing in stride, but when it was time for bed she asked for a baba. We just gently reminded her of why we said goodbye to the babas and that they were all gone. She didn’t even whine! We let her choose which cup to have water in and of course she chose one with a soft top and drank it like a baba while we read books. But that’s fine. We’re still keeping her off milk until her congestion dies down….the trick will be to not give into her asking for milk in her sippy cup at night once she’s back to drinking milk during the day. We really don’t want to replace the baba with something else that we have to wean her off of in the future!
So far, she’s two nights sans baba. We’ve been otherwise following our normal routine and she’s doing great. She did ask for a baba this morning, probably out of habit, but was happy to have a drink of water and eat an apple instead.
Her cold is much better and she’s going back to back daycare today!
Nothing More Entertaining…
…than a bowl of dry rice and beans!
It’s fun to stir:
And to squish:
And to pour:
And to wear your rice bowl as a hat:
Who needs toys?!?