Weekly Natalie - Week 60

This has been a pretty interesting week here at Casa de Smith. Natalie is still a great nap-taker. She takes two naps during the day, and for the most part, she does it without too much of a fuss. She usually wakes up from her afternoon nap around 3pm and she's ready for dinner at about 5pm. For the past week, her bewitching hour has started like clockwork at 4:30. We're talking full-on meltdown mode. Crying if I hold her, crying if I put her down. Crying as she plays with a toy, crying as she carries a book to me so I can read to her.

Needless to say, it's darn near impossible to fix her dinner while she's hysterical and hanging on to my leg (as if for dear life). I've got to do better about having her dinner already made before 5. I like to feed her what Lee and I are eating, but given this recent string of hysterics, she may very well get her own super-quick dinner.

I made some pulled pork for dinner tonight (it's an amazing recipe ... thank you, Tyler Florence!) It's yummy enough to bring me out of any funk I might be in. But Natalie? No. She cried the whole time while she was eating it. Sorry about that, Tyler. Don't take any offense. She's a weird kid.

After her bath tonight (which, by the way, she still hates. Hates. Haaaaaates.), I was reading Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs. I pointed out to Natalie that Nana Downstairs had on black shoes and Tommy had on white shoes. And what does Natalie do? She crawls out of my lap, goes over to her shoes, and holds them up! It's probably a fluke, but I'll take it! Hello, Mensa? Yeah, you might want to keep an eye on my kid. She knows what a shoe is.

Using her 4 wheeler as a walker

Thinking she's big stuff

All those toys, and she chooses to play with her shoe

I have to teach her that nibbling on a penguin's beak isn't polite

Yay!

Big blue-eyed pumpkin

My little drool bucket

She's smiling because compared to the hippo on her bib,
her cheeks don't look quite as humongous

Big smiles!

She started signing back to me!
This is her sign for 'more'.
She wants more food, not for me to take more pictures.
Too bad for her.

Ha!

Weekly Natalie - Week 59

Gracious sakes. The girls of Team Smith were sick again this week. Thankfully, mine didn't get much worse than a mild head cold. Natalie was a different story. She had a fever almost every day, was coughing non-stop, and could have probably filled up a few five-gallon jugs with snot. I think Team Smith had had its fair share of snot to last us a few lifetimes. So I didn't get many pictures of Natalie this week.

 

Waiting for Daddy to get ready for the Father/Daughter Valentine's Day Dance

My two loves, all fancied up real pretty-like

Me and my pitiful, sick child at the park. She didn't want to play, she just wanted to lay on me.

Seriously - can you get much more pitiful-looking than that?

Grumpy, because her silly mom bought her some silly, oversized sunglasses

More pitiful-ness

Weekly Natalie - Week 58

Ahhh ... what a relief it's been to have a week where nobody's sick. Team Smith's world is a much sunnier place when it's not covered in tears and snot.

Looks like she's almost doing the Hook 'Em Horns sign

"Look at me! I'm so sweet and innocent and never do anything wrong
and always in a good mood and never ever throw a tantrum."

Sniffing the MEGABLOK flower I made for her

Big beautiful [deer caught in the headlights] eyes

Still sticking her tongue out

My smiley pumpkin

HA! This picture makes me giggle.

Gappy teeth and bits of Cheerios in her mouth -
a definite Kodak moment

Any moms of toddlers: Do your living rooms NOT look like this?
If so, what's your secret? Because really. This is ridiculous.
This took approximately 5 minutes for her to do.

Mom's water bottle > silly sippy cup

Such a drool bucket

Using her 4 wheeler like a walker

My little love

Purposefully looking away so she can't see how much
of a goofball her mom is

Uh oh ... this doesn't look good ...

... there she blows!!

Trying to sit on her 4 wheeler in the most
complicated way possible

4 wheeler FAIL

Frustrated at not knowing how to properly use
her 4 wheeler

"Mom, you're a dork. That is all."

Every girl should wear Christmas antlers in February.

Oh, and workout #4 - done!

Workout #3

Workout #3 - checkity check!

I still can't get through it without stopping, but I think I'm taking fewer breaks. And I feel a bit stronger doing certain exercises. Of course, I still feel like I'm going to die when the workout is over, but perhaps that feeling will pass someday.

This DVD has confirmed that my lower body is much stronger than my upper body, even though my upper body looks more toned than my lower body. I'm hoping that after 30 or 60 days, I'll be able to do a full-fledged, non-girly push-up.

I like that Lee and I are suffering through this together. He's a really good workout partner - his strength is enviable ...

Fantastic Book

Hi, my name is Suzanne. And I'm a grammar fiend.

My parents and my sister are the same way, so I come by it honestly. The misuse of apostrophes is something that drives me especially crazy. And God bless Lynne Truss, because she wrote a children's book addressing this very issue.I mean, really. "Cute" doesn't even begin to describe it. The book has 15 or so sentences, with two pages devoted to each sentence. One page has a picture of what the sentence is really describing; the other page has a picture of what the sentence says if the apostrophe is in the wrong place.

For instance, "The Giant Kids' Playground" shows a picture of a huge playground. "The Giant Kid's Playground", however, shows a humongous child swinging on one swing, while beside him, three regular-sized kids are all sitting together on the other swing.

Hysterical, no?

Workout #2

Last night: 30 Day Shred, Day #2

My legs and shoulders were on fire during some of the exercises. There are two women doing the workouts (in addition to Jillian Michaels). One is doing modified exercises (I love her), and the other is doing the full-blown, no holds barred exercises (I envy her).

Is it bad that I get some enjoyment out of seeing that the woman doing the full-blown exercises struggling at times? It makes me feel better knowing that even super fit people think this workout is difficult.

30 Day (or you know, not really) Shred

I have no problem admitting how incredibly nonathletic I am. I have zero coordination, I stumble into anything and everything, and I don't have much of a competitive spirit. It's a Suze Trifecta, if you will.

Pair that with being a complete wuss if the temperature rises above 75 degrees, and it's easy to see that I'm an indoors kind-of-girl.

That said, I so want to be a runner. I did it for a few months, and got into really good shape. But I never loved it. Heck, I never even liked it. But I tried to keep it up until the weather got warm, and then I had to hide away indoors until the Fall. I also worried about my knees - they never felt good after I ran, so that kind of scared me from pushing myself too much.

I feel terrible in the summer. It seems like I get a headache every day, and I'm highly turned off by getting sweaty just from walking to the mailbox. The humidity here is outrageous; my goal during the summers is to go from one air conditioned place to another as quickly as I can.

But I want to get in shape. I don't necessarily care what the scale says - I'm 5'11" and will never be 130 lbs, so I choose to not harp on the numbers. What I want is to feel better, to have more energy, and to fit into my clothes a bit differently.

And I have a good motivator. One of my very best friends is getting married in April. I'm her matron of honor (side note: could "Matron of Honor" possibly sound any more, um, matronly? Ew.) and get to wear a beautiful, strapless, turquoise gown.

I did Pilates a few years ago, and while it helped me with my flexibility, it wasn't a good cardio workout. After reading a lot of good reviews on the 30 Day Shred, I decided to go with that.

So that's what I'm doing to get in shape. In order to hold myself accountable, I've decided to document my progress on my blog. Maybe if I post my workouts, then I'll guilt myself into sticking with it. Maybe?

I don't plan to do the workout every day. My goal is 3 days a week. Back around November, I did Level 1 for a couple of weeks. It was okay, but I never could get through the 20 minute workout. On a goof, I decided to try Level 2. And while I can't finish that one either, I like it better than Level 1.

So yesterday, I started back with the workouts. I'm sticking with Level 2, and hopefully it won't be too long before I can get through a workout with stopping.

Jillian Michaels, you are one tough cookie.

Weekly Natalie - Week 57

Ugh. What a rough week. Having a sick baby has got to be one of the toughest things ever. She can't tell me what she feels like, what hurts, and how bad it hurts - all she knows is that she feels terrible. I hated not being able to do anything for her besides giving her alternate doses Tylenol and Motrin. That, and sucking out her nose with a bulb syringe. Parenting = way glamorous. So needless to say, I didn't take any pictures this week. I don't think she would appreciate it if I posted a picture of how she looked earlier in the week. Teary-eyed, snotty-nosed, and drooly-mouthed does not a pretty picture make. She seemed to feel a bit better yesterday, so we went to the park. I snapped this picture with my camera phone - it's the only documentation of her 57th week!

I hadn't seen a smile from her in a few days, so this just melted my heart

My mom gave me a copy of this cartoon yesterday. Love, love, love it.

January 2010 - Recap

Really? January is already over? Hmm ... that's odd.

Well, honey bunny, your mom has just proven (yet again) to you that she has very little concept of time. And, no offense, but it's all your fault. There are many days that go by when I have no clue what day of the week it is. And now, I've let a whole month go by without my noticing.

You are quite the little walker! You started a few days after your 1st birthday, taking a few Frankenstein-y steps. You're not 100% coordinated yet (but you're my daughter, so that may be an unreachable goal), but you're really close. You'll now take steps unprompted by my or Daddy's outstretched arms. You're gaining a lot of independence, and though scary, it's such a gift to be able to watch you grow.

January was chock full of sickness. You were graced by the presence of a virus, croup, and then another virus (which you are still trying to fight off. You poor pumpkin). And I was adorned with mastitis. For the few days where our sicknesses overlapped, we were quite the duet. You would cough like a pack-a-day smoker, then I would moan about feeling like I got socked in the chest, then you would sniffle, then my teeth would start chattering because it was FREEZING in
my mastitis-y body, and then you'd bring about the finale by sneezing on me. Ew.

Thankfully our sicknesses waited until we were home from our first three-membered Team Smith Road Trip Extravaganza. Daddy and I were nervous how you would handle being cooped up in your carseat for so long, and while you had your moments of head-spinning hysterics, you were great. We got to eat some delicious food, visit with some wonderful friends, and spend some excellent one-on-one-on-one time with each other.

I started back to school this month. I began my Masters a few years ago, often referred to as BN (Before Natalie). My plan was to finish up before I got pregnant, but surprise! God had other plans. So I took five semesters off while I got the hang of this mom thing (though I've realized that I'll NEVER get the hang of it. It's a lifelong OJT situation ...). I put off going back for long enough, and I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. So now, barring any ill-forseen events, I'll have my Master's by the middle of December. I'm trying to get used to working in short bursts while you nap, but that doesn't always work. You are quite demanding of my attention and get royally upset if I even THINK about opening up my stats book to glance at while you play. It's like you have this little alarm that goes off right when I'm about to do something productive and/or educational. Must. Interrupt. Mommy. NOW.

I can hear you half crying/half babbling in your crib, so I'm blaming the shortness of this letter on you. (Are you seeing a pattern yet?). I can't believe you're 13 months old. I can't believe how wonderful you are. And Daddy and I can't believe our fortune at getting to be your parents. You rock.

Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy