Weekly Natalie - Week 17

She likes grabbing her feet with her left hand. Wonder if she'll be a lefty ...

she particularly likes the piggy who stayed home

Daddy Couture

Me: Hey babe, can you change Nat while I put my contacts in?

Lee: Sure.

(5 minutes later)

Lee: Suze!!! Hurry up! I gotta go to work!!!

Me: *rushing in to the living room*

Was Lee, in fact, rushing to go to work? No. He just wanted me to hurry up so I could see the accessories he picked out for Nat.

I love that guy. He always makes me laugh.

More Daddy Couture

A New Discovery

This just in: Natalie has a left foot.

Yesterday was the first day we saw Natalie grab her foot. It's really cute - she grabs onto the toes of her left foot (we're not sure if she's aware of Righty just yet) and straightens out her leg, like she's doing some ballet move.

We love watching her discover new things. It's so much fun.

Almost!

Natalie was thiiiiiiiiis close to rolling over last night. She's an avid hand-sucker and her hand was keeping her from rolling over all the way. So the lower half of her body rolled over while the top half was only half rolled over. She's quite the little contortionist.

Weekly Natalie - Week 16

Goodness gracious, how we love this little face.

Lee and I hope she keeps her beautiful blues. Not that there's anything wrong with brown eyes, but we think it'd be cool if she kept his eye color.

I got a really nice phone call last night. Nat's pediatrician called to check on her! I thought that was so thoughtful. I mentioned to her that Lee and I had decided to hold off on Nat's upper endoscopy, especially since it seems like she's getting better. Lee and I are really wary of having her put under for a procedure that may or may not find anything ... and if they do find something, there's no guarantee that we wouldn't hear "Well, we found X, but she'll outgrow it in a few months." If Nat hadn't been improving or the doctors were worried about something specific that could be wrong with her, we'd consider the upper endoscopy. But since she seems to be feeling better, we'll hold off. And her pediatrician fully agreed with us.

Weekly Natalie - Week 15

The bunny ears were on Target's $1 aisle. I love them.

this picture makes me giggle ...

doing a ladylike curtsy

Weekly Natalie - Week 14

Some self portraits (and I'll admit it ... these were taken just moments before the camera fell out of my hand and onto Natalie's head ...)

Disconnected

It's amazing how lost you can feel when your computer dies. Ours met its maker two weeks ago but it feels like it's been 10 times that long. Stupid, stupid virus.

Tomorrow, I'll upload some super-cute pictures of Natalie to make up for the time lapse.

Weekly Natalie - Week 13

It's hard to compete with Daddy snuggles.

My love and my little love

March 2009 - Recap

Woo hoo! Peace out, March 2009. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. And don't let the door hit you on the way out.

To say that this past month has been overwhelming would be a slight understatement. This reflux has taken its toll on you, baby girl. Thankfully you're spitting up less (though you've still gotten your dad and me pretty good on several occasions), but you still seem like you're in pain. And I can't begin to tell you how hard that is. Just know that if your dad or I could take your pain away, we'd do it in an instant. A nano-instant. A micro-nano-instant.

High points:

• Your smile. Oh my GOSH, you have the cutest little gummy grin that we've ever seen. You smile like you yawn - it's a fully body experience. Your eyes crinkle up, your little feet start dancing, and you make hysterical noises. Most of the time you smile open-mouth smiles and stick your tongue out. It's awesome. We haven't gotten a giggle out of you yet, but I can tell it's coming. And what a great day that'll be.
• You like Eric Carle's book "Opposites". Almost without fail, your eyes light up when I turn to the page with the sunshine on it. And you also seem to like Richard Scarry books. I think you're interested in more than just things that are black, white, and red. His books have a lot going on, but you're usually intrigued by them. At least for a few minutes anyway. The only problem is that you're not a lot of help when I'm trying to find Goldbug on each page.
• You're a dream to put to sleep at night - and I'm so thankful for that. You'll learn this about me eventually, but I like schedules. I like knowing when things are going to happen. And you, my tiny love, are anti-schedule right now. So sometimes we put to you bed at 7pm. Sometimes it's 8pm. Sometimes it's 10pm. Who knows? But almost without fail, you go to sleep extremely easily. Perhaps I shouldn't be nursing you to sleep, but it's not that much of a concern to me because you can fall asleep other times without needing to nurse.
• You can hold your head up so well now. (You still hate tummy time and pitch quite a fit when we do it.) But if someone's holding you, you can lift your head off their shoulder and look around. It's so fun to watch you grow.

Low points:

• Driving to Crestview and back to get you to stop crying and go to sleep.
• You didn't have a growth spurt this month, but you nursed like you were having one. Come to find out I had supply issues. (High point: my supply is finally back to normal!)
• The pain of reflux. You'll be happy one second and absolutely miserable the next second. There's rarely any warning ... just, BAM! (And not a good BAM like Emeril ... this is a painful BAM)

How crazy is it that you're already three months? The 'fourth trimester' is over! It's hard to believe how far we've come in just three short months.

You are such a joy to us. Your smile melts away our stresses and bad days, and your contented sighs remind us that we're doing a good job of taking care of you. And those reminders are wonderful.

We love you,

Mommy and Daddy