Month 2 - Recap

My sweet little fuzzy-headed munchkin,
I had forgotten the world of difference there is between a one-month-old and a two-month-old. And now I remember! You've definitely woken up from your 'newborn hibernation thing' that you had going for the first month. You're so alert, and we love watching you check out the world around you. Your favorite things to look at are the ceiling fan, the lamp, and Natalie. I won't say which one, but one of those three is a humongous ham and gives you awesome material to check out. You've started cooing (are you KIDDING me with the cuteness?) and I got your first purposeful smile on Natalie's 3rd birthday!

You're still a Snort Fest when you sleep, but I think you're doing it less than you were last month. Or maybe I'm just getting used to it. It's funny to think that the sound of a herd (flock? group? gaggle?) of feral pigs might not even register with me anymore.

We gave you a bottle for the first time this month. And, if I were more observant, we wouldn't have had such a disastrous time for your inaugural bottle. When the package of bottle nipples says it's for babies who are 3-6 months old, it wasn't kidding. Just because you can wear 3-6 month clothing doesn't mean you can drink like a 3-6 month old. Once I gave you a more age-appropriate bottle nipple, you were much happier. Which means that Daddy and I got to have our first post-you date (you'll soon realize that Daddy and I love our dates).

You had your well-baby appointment this month. Your height is in the 75th percentile; your weight is in the 50th percentile. And, in keeping with the Smithkid tradition, your head is in the 95th percentile. You handled your shots like a champ, but they turned you into a Grumpasaurus for the next three days.

You're sleeping better at night (those dimples of yours were SO your saving grace when you were getting up 3 and 4 times a night). I feed you around 9pm and you usually start fussing around 2. Daddy or I will usually go into your room and rock you in your bassinet, trying to get you to go back to sleep for another hour or so. After that feeding, you sometimes sleep until 6 or 6:30. Other times, you wake up again (totally STARVING, of course [insert eyeroll]) at 4:30. I can totally function the next day with you getting up once a night. My ability to function goes down exponentially with every subsequent time you get up. I hate to put a guilt trip on someone who just learned to hold his head up, but ... well ... there ya go.

I can't express how I love you. You make my heart melt. You like to snuggle, you make awesome faces, and you've only peed on me twice.

Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy

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Headlines for January 9, 2012:

• Alaska town hit by 18 feet of snow
• Excedrin, Bufferin recalled over mislabeled pills
• Giffords leads vigil as Arizona marks shootings
• Locals call BP's feel-good Gulf ads 'propaganda'
• Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Security Prevented Man from Visiting His Twins at Hospital, He Claims
• Joe Paterno's Son Speaks Out

Weekly Smithkids - Week 156 and Week 8

Enjoying her birthday cupcake

Hooray! A purposeful smile!!!

20 Questions from a Three-Year-Old

My sister was perusing Pinterest (our latest favorite time-suck) and she came across a scrapbook page done by a mom who asked her three-year-old daughter 20 questions. Each year, on the girl's birthday, her mom would ask her the same 20 questions. She thinks it'll be cool to see how her daughter's answers change from year to year.

So, in keeping with true Pinterest fashion, I'm stealing the idea.

I asked Natalie these 20 questions on her third birthday:

1. What is your favorite color? Yellow
   
2. What is your favorite toy? Fishing rod
   
3. What is your favorite fruit? Apples and strawberries and oranges
   
4. What is your favorite TV show? Little Einsteins
   
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Cheese
   
6. What is your favorite outfit? Shirt and pants
   
7. What is your favorite game? Hungry Hungry Hippos
   
8. What is your favorite snack? Granola bar
   
9. What is your favorite animal? Doggies
   
10. What is your favorite song? Silent Night
    
11. What is your favorite book? Moo Baa La La La
    
12. Who is your best friend? Eliana
    
13. What is your favorite cereal? Banana and milk cereal
    
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play ball
    
15. What is your favorite drink? Water
    
16. What is your favorite holiday? Easter
    
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Elephant and Lauren Bear
    
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Banana
    
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Blueberries
    
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A princess

I can't wait to see what she'll say when she turns 4. Here's hoping she picks another answer for #20 ...

2011 - Year End Review

Happy 3rd Birthday, my sweet girl!

You just keep getting cooler and cooler, and keeping up with you is getting harder and harder. I can't believe how much you've changed this year! In keeping with last year's recap, I'll now present several Top 10 lists.

Top 10 Things You Love:

1. Bubble Guppies
2. Little Einsteins
3. Playing outside
4. Making up stories
5. Singing
6. Charlie
7. Playing Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Uno Moo, and Hungry Hungry Hippos
   
8. Christmas lights
9. Reading
10. Your doctor kit
    

Top 10 Things You Don't Love:

1. Chili
2. Brushing your teeth
3. Getting your hair brushed (by me)
4. Using your indoor voice
5. Being quiet when someone's on the phone
6. When I don't get you from your nap when you wake up in a grumpy mood (our rule is that if you wake up grumpy from your nap, you didn't sleep long enough. So you either have to go back to sleep or you have to play in your room until you un-grump yourself)
7. Bringing your table and chair into the kitchen for mealtime (you always try to farm out that chore to whoever you can. Except me. You rarely ask me to do it because I (most) always say 'no'. Daddy, Bob, and Pep on the other hand ....)
8. Going to sleep (even though you tell us every day that you don't like to go to sleep, you're usually fast asleep in mere minutes after your head hits the pillow)
9. Time out (duh)
10. Soda (I think this is mostly my doing - I've told you from an early age that you don't like it. And you believed me. Score one for Mommy!)
    

Top 10 Things You're Good At:

1. Singing
2. Going to school (you're not always happy when I drop you off, but you always cheer up quickly and always have a great time)
3. Writing the letter L
4. Spelling your name
5. Memorizing song lyrics
6. Being a big sister
7. Eating
8. Sleeping
9. Using your manners
10. Making everyone around you laugh
    

Top 10 Things You're Not Good At:

1. Sitting still at a restaurant (Daddy and i take turns running around with you outside)
2. Trying new food (you'll do it, but not before making a MAJOR stink about it)
3. Being polite when you're hungry or tired
4. Leaving things at home when we run errands ("Momma, I HAVE to bwing my baseball and my doll stwoller and dis piece of stwing and dis spoon with us to Target! I HAVE to!")
5. Folding clothes (climbing into the basket of clean clothes and throwing underwear around the living room is NOT helping me fold clothes)
6. Keeping a straight face (when you pretend to be grumpy, you last about 2 nanoseconds before you burst out laughing)
7. Sleeping normally (you start out the night with your head on the pillow and your blankets pulled up around you. But you never ever end up in a normal position. You change positions approximately 75 times throughout the night. Sometimes you've got your feet the pillow, sometimes you've got your knees on the floor and your head on the bed, sometimes you've got your body on the bed and your head hanging off the side, sometimes you're curled up into a ball, sometimes you're splayed out at the foot of your bed. Seriously, even IF we wanted toco-sleep with you, it'd be impossible unless there was a mattress size that was 10 times the size of a California king and even then, Daddy and I would probably still get karate chopped in the head.)
8. Okay, so I've run out of things you're not good at. Stop being so smart and maybe I can think of some more.
   

From January 2011 to December 2011, you've gone from someone who only said 20 words to someone with a limitless (and hilarious) vocabulary. (Not two days ago, you came up to me and touched the area between my nose and my lips. You said - and I kid you not - "I just booped you in your filtrum!"). You've gone from someone who had all the potential (and gene pool) to be a nerd to someone who is, in fact, a certifiable nerd. (You talk about how circles don't have any angles; you talk about what things are vertical and what things are horizontal; you often say "Yet's talk about things that are [red/hot/tall/old/happy/other random adjective]). You've gone from someone who fusses and whines when she can't properly express herself to someone who can come up to me and say "Momma, I'm sad. Yet's talk about it." (Granted, you still fuss and whine at times, but I love that you can tell us how you're feeling). You've gone from being an only child to being the best big sister that Charlie Bear (and Daddy and I) could have ever hoped for. You've gone from someone who needed prompting to do just about everything to someone who (sometimes) puts her cereal bowl on the counter without being asked. You've gone from sleeping on the floor to sleeping in an actual bed. You've gone from being ambidextrous to ... still being ambidextrous. We haven't the foggiest idea which hand you'll use.

You're an amazing little girl. You're remarkably tuned in to other people's feelings, you have an uncanny ability to turn ANY phrase into a song (you inheirited that ability from Bob), and, unfortunately, and the ripe ol' age of 3, you're far smarter than either Daddy or me. It's kind of annoying. You're incredibly sensitive, practically becoming inconsolable when one of your friends gets in trouble. You're tirelessly curious, wanting to know what EVERYthing is and what EVERYthing does and what EVERY person's name is. You perhaps have a severe hearing problem because you ask the exact same question over and over and over and over and over and over again. You perhaps do NOT have a severe hearing problem because you hear me grumble something quietly under my breath and immediately squawk "What you say, Momma? What you SAY???!!!". You perhaps have a severe vision problem because you're incapable of finding your shoes when they're 1 nanometer from where you're sitting. You perhaps do NOT have a severe vision problem because you able to find scissors/a lighter/the annoying book we've read 1000 times/cookies even when we try to put them out of your field of vision. Leave our cookies alone, ya hear?

You, you talkative, expressive, helpful, singing, sensitive, curious girl with-or-perhaps-without a severe hearing and/or vision problem are simply astounding. Daddy and I the luckiest parents in the history of the world. To watch you grow and learn is an honor of the highest order. But seriously, leave our cookies alone.

Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy

December 2011 - Natalie Recap

Sweet Puddin' Pop,
Oh wait, I didn't tell you that I call you Puddin' Pop? Well I do. And you call me Butterscotch Puddin' Pop. And it's pretty embarrassing to admit this, but these nicknames are from a cartoon you love. Bubble Guppies, to be exact. What's even more embarrassing to admit is that these nicknames are the names of a mommy cow and her baby cow (don't ask how there can be cows [complete with fish tails] in a show about mer-children; it's one of the many, many, MANY things that make zero logistical sense about the show).

Daddy has started not bringing anything with him when he walks in the door in the evenings. His briefcase just gets in the way when Toddler Road Runner (that'd be you) bombards him at full speed. He can't even get the door shut before you (sweetly but oh my GOSH so loudly) ask him to play Pillow Fight on the bed. Pretty much regardless of the day he's had, because he's an awesome daddy, he plays right along with you and races you to our bedroom. I usually stay in the living room with Charlie to let you two get some quality Daddy-Nattie time. A few weeks ago, you decided that an even BETTER game than Pillow Fight is something you call Smacky Wacky. How it's different from Pillow Fight escapes me. The only difference I see is that when you two hit each other with pillows, you say "Smacky Wacky". And this causes you to lose your noodle with laughter.

Speaking of quality Daddy-Nattie time, you two have had a lot of time together over the past two months. Taking care of a newborn is fairly time-consuming, and as much as I'm bummed we don't get to hang out as much as we did before, I'm over-the-moon that you and Daddy have had some serious quality time. You two go to the grocery store a lot (and you're ZERO help with making sure Daddy sticks to the list and doesn't end up getting chips and cookies). You also do a lot of projects together - washing the cars, cleaning the garage, and discovering the latest happenings with the Guppies.

Three random, but nevertheless funny things - you call Nilla Wafers "Banilla Wipers", you call a thermometer a "fur-MAH-the-ter", and, according to you, Charlie's full name is Chaw-yee Bear Ee-yi-juh Smith.

Hey, I've got a question for you! Did you know it's easy for an almost-three-year-old to partially dislocate her elbow? And that it can pop back into place as the Urgent Care x-ray tech puts the almost-three-year-old's arm on the x-ray table? It is. And it can. [And did the mother of the aforementioned almost-three-year-old know that the aforementioned almost-three-year-old would get not one, not two, not three, but FOUR lollipops to keep her happy while she was in the x-ray room? She did NOT. She DID, however, keep her snarky comments about how the aforementioned almost-three-year-old has probably only had four lollipops in her entire LIFE before that day and that she would be sending the dental bill for the aforementioned-almost-three-year-old to the x-ray tech.]

Having a newborn, having inSANE nursing-related issues from practically Day 1, and it being so close to Christmas has meant that Bob and Pep have spent a lot of time at our house helping me out. Lately, I've noticed Pep and you have a little routine when he comes over. He gets a comb from your bathroom and sits down on the living room floor. You hop into his lap, and he combs your hair. It's pretty dang adorable. And pretty dang annoying. Because when you see ME come toward you with a comb, you immediately begin freaking out and insisting that you don't NEED your hair combed. You don't NEED a hairbow. It all HURTS. And it all FWUSTWATES you so you're gonna fold your AHMS at me. But when Pep does it? Yeah, it's the best thing ever. Yeah, you're a punk.

Your latest favorite game to play (other than Smacky Wacky, of course) is Hide-and-Seek. I had no idea how much fun playing Hide-and-Seek with an almost-three-year-old is. When it's your turn to be the Seeker, you dutifully cover your eyes and count to 10. You don't even seem to peek (at least I don't think you do). You've got the Seeker job down pat. Now the Hider job? You could use a little work. Actually don't. Don't work on it. You're a hilarious Hider. When I close my eyes and count to 10, you often tell me to count slower because you haven't gotten to your hiding place in [insert hiding place here]. And when I say "Ready or not, here I come!", you say "Momma! I'm in da [insert hiding place here]!!!" And when I come to the [insert hiding place here], the look on your face is priceless. You're legitimately surprised that I found you. You look like I'm the best Seeker EVER. And it's AWESOME. So yeah, don't ever become a better Hider.

My sweet little Puddin' Pop, I can't believe this is your last recap before you turn three. Because I'm pretty sure I gave birth to you yesterday. But that's silly. Because if I were to EVER give birth to a 37-pound baby, I certainly wouldn't be able (or alive) to write a hilariously witty (or mildly amusing) monthly recap. Thanks for rocking my world for the past three years. I had no idea that my world, in fact, NEEDED rocking. But it did. In a big way. And you did it.

Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy

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Headlines for January 1, 2012:

• Poll: Romney has slight lead over Paul in Iowa ahead of caucuses
• Times Square, world ring in 2012
• Woman donates kidney to her former boss
• Stolen monkey found scared but healthy
• Forecasters see bumpy ride, but better 2012
• Cops: Man tried to use $1,000,000 bill at Walmart