Meechigan

While Kate was to go on the ski trip that was unfortunately canceled, Natalie and I went to Michigan to visit our family. This did involve my flying alone with Natalie for the first time, which was far easier than I had feared. Natalie was wearing a shirt with a cat on it, and she enjoyed walking up and down the isle of the airplane, making eye-contact with each person, pointing at her shirt, and saying "kitty cat." That went over pretty well. I didn't take very many pictures in Michigan, but here are a few of the pictures that my parents took:

The vacation that wasn't

So, a few days after the snowy day in our previous blog, Mike and Natalie were supposed to fly out to Michigan and I was supposed to fly out to meet the lovely Miso for a ski weekend in Colorado. My first baby-free weekend! My first night not sleeping beside the static hum of the baby monitor!

Guess which one of those flights didn't happen? Yeah. So Mike and Natalie's plane left on-time as scheduled.(He'll be blogging about that separately at some point)

And, after a frustrating, heartbreaking day at the airport, I drove back home and spent the weekend alone in my house. At least there was no static baby monitor noise or something, right?

But instead of this:

(photo: Crested Butte Mountain Resort)

I got this:And then it snowed again. And then the Super Bowl happened. And then everyone was nuts. And the less we ever speak of the weekend-I-spent-alone-wiping-down-the-shelves-of-the-fridge-and-organizing-drawers-in-Texas-instead-of-skiing-in-Colorado, the better. I'm over it. Clearly. (My grandmother: "You should write a blog post with your free time this weekend. I love your posts!" Um, yes. Alas, I am not so interesting without the baby or life in Japan, so, uh, no.)

I'm also over the part the following week where simultaneously, my work and home computers failed. World out to get me, etc. (I'm still basking in awe of the part where my amazing husband and our super-good friend electromagically fixed the home computer. As for the work computer, hey, they pay me hourly. Kidding. All is fixed there, too.)

Okay, now to look at something somewhat beautiful! Here are some socks I knitted for my mom. They were a gift, so I couldn't post pictures when I finished them a few months ago.And now here are some Natalie pictures from the first snowstorm. It feels especially appropriate to post these today as it may or may not have been 75 degrees outside (80 in the house!) and we may or may not have turned on the air conditioning.This picture may or may not have been taken yesterday:Here are some other cute pictures. Although Natalie's wearing her "ki-kah" shirt, Mike thinks that doggies may be the current reigning favorite animal. However, this is a hard determination to make when you only have two animal words in your vocabulary, you know? I've been trying to teach her what bunnies are by looking at our various story books, but so far she keeps gleefully identifying them as doggies.

That said, though, her comprehension is really, really amazing. Just today I finished reading her a story only to have her request it again. I explained that we'd already read that book, and that she should put it back on the shelf and pick another one for me to read - and she ran right over to the bookshelf and put the book there and then clapped for herself!

In the imaginative play spectrum, she's also progressed beyond talking on the (pretend) phones, to giving us little items (cheerios?) in her pincer grasp and then taking them back. Totally adorable!

Natalie is also always very busy - things have to be moved, put in tote bags, taken out, piled, put back, pushed around, etc. Lately, her target has been my bedside table. Missing are my hand cream, hairbands, book and bookmark, and several New Yorkers; in their stead, I have one wind-up frog bath toy, a plastic ball with a jingle bell inside of it, one New Yorker subscription card, one of her books, and my alarm clock (set to something approximating the current time in ParisIranistan).

Natalie is also a climber. I think she gets this from me.

Snow day meandering

So, TCU has had two consecutive snow days. Currently the temperature is 17 degrees Fahrenheit, with a "real feel" of 2 degrees. Natalie has enjoyed having both of her parents around to play with her. Here is a four minute video that capture's Natalie's play style. Wandering around, picking up things and putting them on her head, etc.:

The last week

Lots of excitement and new things in the last week.

First, though, the promised picture of Natalie wearing one of our hats. New Natalie things: she's now "giving kisses". She'll come up and put her cheek or lips on your face. It's totally cute. I've even caught her doing this with her dolly (whom she calls "ba-ba"- for baby, we think) and stuffed dog.

She's also using a fork! She's less consistent with the spearing of the food, but she's great at putting it in her mouth getting it off the fork.Here are some random cute photos:Last week I also took Natalie to the Fort Worth Stock Show. We went with a mom and a toddler that we'd met at Natalie's swimming class last spring. And, just to be clear, we did not go to the rodeo or any other events in which animals were maltreated. Rather, we went to the petting zoo (so, really, I suppose, "maltreated" is all relative here), the children's barnyard, some of the animal judging areas, and the equine exercise arena. All in all, not too bad. Natalie is now in a real "doggy" kick, so she called all of these animals doggies.(Above: our friends, not us)
This weekend, we went to the park. It was 7o degrees on Saturday.This is the scene from our driveway this morning.Yes, work and music class were both canceled.