Fun with weeds!

Ah, the joys of spring! Natalie received a kite as a “goody bag” from her friend Nick’s birthday party. She and Chris took it down to the park as soon as we got home from the party to try it out. Natalie was delighted to see her kite flying through the air, but was also happy to blow dandelion seeds when there wasn’t enough wind to fly the kite for more than a minute at a time.

Big Sister Natalie

Natalie is proving to be an awesome big sister. Before Miranda was born, we had been worried about her regressing in any number of areas: sleep, potty, eating, etc. We worried about jealousy and Natalie acting out to get attention or out of confusion, frustration, and anger. We worried about her insisting on Mommy’s attention while I was nursing or otherwise attending to the baby. Our heads were filled with stories of older siblings trying to sell or throw out their new, unwelcome family members.

But like the strong, amazing girl she’s always been, Natalie has accepted the challenge of becoming a big sister with grace and enthusiasm. She has been willing to share her toys, loves to hug and kiss Miranda, and wants to be involved in taking care of her. In fact, the only times Natalie has gotten upset haven’t been when she’s not getting attention. Rather, she gets upset if we deny her access to her sister, i.e. “Miranda just fell asleep, so now isn’t a good time to hug her.”

What’s even more impressive to us is that Natalie seems to be embracing not only that she has a baby sister, but that she is, in fact, a big girl. Instead of regressing, she’s become even more independent in terms of the potty, eating, and playing. She’s been sleeping in her bed all night almost every night. Miranda is only 3 weeks old, and so far we’ve loved watching Natalie’s relationship with her sister develop, as well as see her growing maturity.

Rocking out Notice her pajama shirt says "I like to be LOUD!"

Big sister and little sister

Sisterly love

We have a couple of stories to share that illustrate how well Natalie is taking to the new member of our family. The first happened while she visited us at the hospital and Miranda started fussing. Natalie, who was across the room at the time, came running over saying, “I bet she needs her big sister!”

Today when we came home, Natalie was excited to hold Miranda right away. Then we were all upstairs getting Miranda changed when Natalie ran into her room and came running back with her once beloved lovie, mousie. Natalie, who hasn’t been as attached to Mousie since she was about 2½, very proudly gave it to Miranda to hold.

So excited to have baby sister home!
Miranda with Natalie’s mouse

Let’s hope this trend continues!

When we took Natalie to her 2½ year well-visit in July, Dr. Stephen encouraged us to begin potty training since Natalie appeared ready and because it would be helpful to have potty training established before baby #2 arrived. We knew that Natalie was ready but had been dragging our feet. Labor Day weekend seemed like a good time to start since we could hole up at home for three days. We planned on taking diapers away entirely and expected a lot of accidents until Natalie got the hang of things.

But the weekend before labor day, Natalie decided that she was done with diapers and wanted to wear pretty underwear instead. Although we weren’t fully prepared (we only had a few pairs of underwear and no potty training books or videos as we had planned) we decided to follow Natalie’s lead. I ran out to stock up on underwear and stickers and tattoos for rewards.

The first day went as expected: lots of accidents! She actually got the hang of pooping on the potty fairly quickly, but had some trouble with peeing. My suspicion is that the diapers are so incredibly absorbent that Natalie had no clue what it even felt like to pee. At one point during the first day, she angrily said, “HEY!!! These underwears keep peeing on me!!!”

Luckily, it didn’t take very long for Natalie to make the connection that she could control the peeing. After a week or so, she was making it to the potty most of the time. She would mostly have accidents if she was too distracted by something fun to stop and use the potty. She was successful with the potty at Melissa’s and while out and about too. And she was covered in temporary tattoos! At some point we had to start putting tattoos on the tops of her feet because there was no space left on her arms.

But then she started resisting sitting on the potty, especially to poop. At first, we used upped the rewards….every time she produced something on the potty, she could have a lollipop. One day while Meema was watching her, she went to the potty twice in quick succession and asked excitedly, “After my pee lollipop, can I have a poop lollipop?”

I was worried that we’d never be rid of the lollipops, but we were able to phase them out fairly easily. First, I started setting some limits, like no lollipops after dinner, then she only got lollipops for pooping, then only for keeping her underwear clean and dry for the whole day. It wasn’t long before she stopped asking for lollipops altogether. But for a while, she looked like this much of the time:

Sometime in the fall, Natalie started regressing in terms of pooping. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but we finally realized that every fall, Natalie starts struggling with constipation, probably because we are eating less fresh fruit. Unfortunately, constipation quickly turns into a vicious cycle for kids as they start withholding because they associate pooping with pain. For Natalie it also caused a lot of problems with potty training.

We tried a few different interventions (including miralax) and finally settled on what seems to be the best solution: cutting down on milk, pushing more fruit, and sitting in the bathroom, telling stories and/or reading books with Natalie for a long time before she actually goes.

After a few rough months, we seem to be settled into a good, regular schedule and Natalie has been virtually accident-free. We’ve noticed that she is much more likely to wake up at night (sometimes crying) if she hasn’t pooped that day, so sitting on the potty for 15-30 minutes has been incorporated into our bedtime routine most nights. Makes us wonder if constipation has been at the root of her sleep problems all along.

Overall, the experience was positive, and Natalie is very proud of herself for learning this new skill. Dr. Stephen was right to encourage us to accomplish this before the new baby arrives. One because it would be difficult to devote the amount of attention the process took whilst caring for an infant. And two because it’s one of the ways that Natalie identifies herself as a “big girl” because “only babies wear diapers.” We are so proud of our big girl, too!

We took a trip to the aquarium on a very chilly day in early January. I was 36-weeks pregnant at the time and by the end of the trip I was having a little trouble walking. I’m carrying this baby much lower than Natalie, which causes a lot of pain in my pelvis and that classic pregnant-woman waddle. Despite being uncomfortable, the trip was a very nice thing to do with Natalie before her baby sister arrives. Natalie especially enjoyed all the touch tanks.

Here she is touching the rays:

And making funny faces:

Brave girl in the shark tunnel:

After the aquarium, we went to Target. When I asked Natalie which was more fun, she immediately said “Target!” But I don’t think that’s really true….

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I was going to link to Natalie’s first trip to the aquarium when she was about 8 months, but couldn’t find any blog entries about it! So these pictures are really, really late, as in circa August 2007:

Natalie petting Tillman’s doppleganger, who Chris’ Aunt jokingly named “Stillman.”

Recently (November maybe?) I overheard Natalie and Clara talking about Tillman.

Clara (looking down the hole in the door to the basement): Where’s your kitty?

Natalie: Tillman “dived” so we can’t see him anymore.

Clara: I think he ran away.

Natalie (very upset by this notion): MOM!! Tillman dived, RIGHT?

Me: Yes, that’s right honey. He died and so we can’t see him anymore. Let’s go play in the playroom!!!

I didn’t really want to explain death to someone else’s child, so I went for the distraction.

Story Telling from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.

Here are pictures (and a video!!) of Natalie’s 3rd birthday, celebrating family-style!

We recently learned the new baby’s gender, but I’ll let Natalie tell you, if you haven’t already heard. Judging from this video, I think Natalie will be an awesome big sister. Of course, it will be a transition and we’re prepared for it to be challenging in ways that we can’t even begin to anticipate. We will likely be making some changes to the blog so that it reflects our whole family.

So, without further ado, listen to Natalie’s announcement about the gender of her new sibling:

“Adorable!” from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.

We went into her room to choose an outfit. Natalie rejected a few things we suggested, then told us that she wanted to wear her “blue tank top with the flower on it.”

I said, “Sorry, honey, but that shirt is dirty. You wore it the other day and it’s in the laundry basket.”

“You mean my tank top is dirty?” Natalie hates it when we (or anyone) uses a general word to refer to something for which there is a more specific term. Heaven forbid you call her flip-flops “sandals.”

“Yes, your blue tank top with the flower on it is dirty. You’ll have to choose something else to wear.”

Natalie buried her face in my lap. Then she stood up, looking forlorn. “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!”

I could empathize completely with having a specific, perfect thing in mind to wear, only to find that it’s dirty, or otherwise unavailable. “I know honey, it’s very disappointing when the thing you want to wear is dirty.” I really didn’t think that Natalie would be so emotional about clothes this young.

Natalie said again, “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!” She looked like she might cry.

Chris also expressed his condolences about the tank top and promised to wash the it that night so that Natalie could wear it the next day.

Then I spotted a suitable replacement dress in Natalie’s drawer. “Look, Natalie! What about this dark blue dress with light blue flowers? It’s soooooo pretty!!”

Chris exclaimed, “Oh yeah, that dress perfectly matches your blue eyes!!”

Oh how we miss the days of pulling any old outfit out of the drawer and dressing Natalie without protest or hassle. Luckily, Natalie caught on to our enthusiasm for the blue dress and happily put it on.

As I looked at the dress more closely, I noticed there were some spots on it. I wondered why the spots didn’t come out in the wash, then touched one. Ew. I realized that the dress must have gotten back into the drawer instead of in the hamper after Natalie wore it last, because it had splotches of crusted yogurt on it. At this point, getting Natalie dressed had already taken 20 minutes. I knew that telling her that the dress was dirty would likely incite a tantrum and make both Chris and I late to work. As much as it pained me, I didn’t say a word. So, after all that fuss, Natalie ended up wearing something that was probably dirtier than the blue tank top that she wanted to wear in the first place. Oh, the irony.