Hard to believe our girl is eleven months old! She's changed so much - from being a little, helpless newborn to being such an animated, active baby. She's really a lot of fun right now!
We've been branching out a bit beyond baby jail, and I've set her down both in the (baby-proofed) kitchen and the laundry room.
She pulls herself to standing when given the opportunity, but she hasn't quite figured out that you can move both feet when standing. I've seen her move one, and balance on one leg, but , so far, no cruising.
She does pull herself to standing in her bed, but this doesn't interfere with her sleeping, and she will eventually settle down and go to sleep. She has the funniest sleeping position, though. Her favorite, which we call "doing the Natalie Beth", is on stomach, with her legs bent at the knee and tucked under her, her ankles crossed, and her rear high up in the air. Hard to believe this is comfortable in any way, but she'll spend hours like that.
Lately, she's started to imitate us when we make sounds. We can have whole "conversations" that just involve making noises (clicking, raspberries, kk-kk, and changing the sound by putting your hand in front your mouth). Usually, we play this game first thing in the morning when she comes to our bed for a little snuggle. This cuddling sounds sweet - and mostly it is - but the other day we were snuggling and Natalie went still and then suddenly lunged for my nose! I barely escaped serious damage from those sharp teeth of hers - I definitely felt her lips graze my nose as jerked my head back.
The other day, Mike was mowing the lawn and Natalie and I came out to say hi. Natalie was so excited to see her daddy that she waved excitedly for several minutes and let out a few excited yelps. She's actually become a very good wave-r; she'll often wave to the one of us who isn't holding, reserving her most enthusiastic waves for when one of us returns after being gone for a while.
She's eating more new foods - watermelon, peaches, cheese, chopped veggies, raspberries, etc. She loves all berries. We've moved past the magically dissolving puffs, and are now firmly in the land of cheerios.
She likes books, both to eat and to read. Her current favorites include
Pat the Bunny and
Little Polar Bear (this book has a finger puppet through the center of the book, and Natalie has been known to show that polar bear who's boss using her own teeth - ouch!). Natalie also enjoys the old favorites of
Brown Bear and
Snuggle Puppy. Tomorrow, we're going to check out an all-ages story time at the library near our house, so I hope that that's another fun literacy experience.
She also likes music. I've been using
Pandora to find fun music for her, but Mike often just plays her jazz. Last week our babysitter brought her guitar to play some songs for Natalie. Natalie apparently liked it - until she realized she wasn't getting 100% of the attention. Game Over! We've also signed Natalie up for a
kindermusik class starting in the fall, so that should be big fun.
She's become a total wigglepotomus when getting her pants changed (and, yes, we're still using the cloth diapers, and, yes, it's still going just fine). It used to be that it took the
diaper cream to keep her still. However, when she figured out how pop the pop top on that, we switched to a screw-top toothpaste tube. That works sometimes, but not always. Also, the toothpaste tube is covered with little tooth marks (as if you'd given it to a puppy to chew on) - I know we're courting disaster there, and that one of these days we're just going to end up with toothpaste everywhere.
She hates: getting her teeth brushed, getting her hair brushed, getting her nails filed, and when one of us laughs. The last one is a bit weird - and it's hard to remember not to laugh sometimes - but the best we can hypothesize is that laughing is, from her perspective, a loud, unpredictable, and unexpected noise. She likes laughing, and she'll even escalate her laughing if you laugh second, like a little laugh "conversation", but she has to be the one to take the initiative. For example, the other day when Mike was watching the World Cup, he laughed at a poor shot taken by one of the teams, and Natalie promptly bawled.
Mike was gone for part of Father's Day in order to attend a wedding in New York. He was back Sunday afternoon in time for some Father's Day snuggles. Daddy (and mommy) also got a new espresso maker last month, so that was a good (and necessary!) gift.
To this:
Crazy, right? I mean, of course, totally expected and normal and lucky, but, still, wow, you know?
And, yes, there was cake:
And Natalie enjoyed it very much, thank you!
(major thanks go to my friend Alex - a super-experienced dad - who jumped right in and cleaned Natalie up - boy, did we luck out!)
