Reaching new milestones

We are pleased to report that Natalie is walking - well, maybe 80 percent of the time. She is still a little wobbly, and her walking is often interrupted by tumbling forward or just deciding to bend down and crawl.

This is a shift in body for her and a shift in mindset for me. For a long time, I've been used to sitting at the computer at the desk in our dining room or being in the kitchen working on something and Natalie being in the other room and knowing that she wasn't going to be moving anywhere quickly (so we didn't have to watch her like a hawk). But now she suddenly appears - and then is suddenly gone again. Now she goes from me knowing she is somewhere else to me being surprised that she is suddenly next to me. She is quick on her feet.

Walking has also come with a new eagerness to climb stairs. She can go up them (crawling) fairly well, but we she doesn't want to be taught how to descend stairs, so we're still watching her carefully around them.

We are also pleased to see that Natalie has gotten her first molar in. She has all of her front teeth on the top and bottom, and so this is the first tooth for the back of her mouth. She still occasionally bites Sarah (for reasons we still can't figure out), so this new tooth is "the better to bite you with, my dear."

We are on the second and final day - hopefully - of "snow days" - all of us being home from work, school and day care, shut up in the house because of Hurricane Sandy. The city and federal government have basically shut down the city, and because of that, Sarah's and my workplace have been shut down. A shutdown of the D.C. public schools means that Lexi's school closes and Natalie's daycare closes.

We all woke up shortly after our usual wake-up time of 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning. By about 9:15, the kids already had a mild case of cabin fever. We're sure Natalie's new mobility has a lot to do with it. We ventured out to lunch to the Subway over near the Metro stop near our house. It's a walk of only a couple of blocks. We had a coupon to use, and it was just an excuse to get out of the house for a short time. As we were finishing up our lunch, they announced that they were closing for the day. On the way back, the wind caught Lexi's umbrella and knocked her over. We got a little wet, but it was a good change of scenery, if only briefly.

This morning Lexi has friend Lily over to play. Natalie is still going a bit stir-crazy, so we're all hopeful that we can go back to the routine tomorrow. We're sure Natalie enjoys daycare more than staying home with the rest of the family all day.

Lexi Explains her Drawing

No school and transitioning

Friday was a teacher inservice day for Lexi so Natalie went to day care as usual and I worked from home while Lexi entertained herself.  She set up her bedroom to be like school: the pupils (the bears, the cow, the monkey) at desks with their names written on a sticky note and their tables names after a book - just like at her school.  She goes through the whole morning routine: reading the day of the week, assigning the helpers, etc.  At the end of the day, I even got to play school with her and was one of the students while Lexi was the teacher. When she went outside to play on the swingset, I heard her recite the playground rules which they do every time they have recess at school.  Pretty amusing.

I even got Lexi to take a nap yesterday which is more and more unusual.  She slept for over 2 hours which seemed like a good thing at the time as I was able to get my work done without interruption but that meant she had a hard time going to sleep and she woke up early this morning. Since I also had a hard time going to sleep and was woken up early by Lexi, I should have had a nap yesterday as well.

I am transitioning Natalie off formula by mixing milk with the formula.  That seems to be going well.  What isn't going well is getting her to take the milk from her sippy cup.  She drinks her water just fine from the sippy cup but doesn't seem interested in getting her milk that way.  She also fell at the day care on Friday and bruised her cheek.  She didn't seem bothered by it at all when we went to pick her up. 

Playing games with Lexi

Lexi and I played games this evening.  We hid objects and gave clues where they were hidden: but I think she peeked most of the time.  We played bean bags on the letter cards and named something that started with them.  We played "heads-up, seven-up".  Just the two of us.  I tried to explain that it really wouldn't work with just two of us, but she wanted to play anyway.  We each took a turn being it before that game was done - probably lasted a whole minute. :)

Natalie just watched most of it and laughed when we laughed while playing with her stuff.  She did interfere in the one game by "finding" the object that I had hid.  I don't think she felt left out in any way.

Seeing her little mind work

I canjust see Natalie's mind whirring as she tries to navigate walking by hanging onto things.  She is continually looking for the next thing that she can reach to keep her upright. You can even see her make adjustments to where her hands currently are to be able to reach further.

Lexi on the other hand is learning to spell more words though she doesn't read try and sound things out when we are looking at books. I think she is "reading" from memory.  Tomorrow at her school they have an evening program about reading at home that we will go to since childcare and dinner is provided! :)  With Stephen gone that seems like a great deal.

Natalie at 1 year old

We had a good doctor's visit on the 1st. Natalie got 5 shots (including one for the flu) and had blood drawn out of her finger for the lead test.  The phlebotomist didn't see a vein so that is why she drew blood from her finger. She pricked the finger and then squeezed the blood out of it so it took a bit of time to fill 3 little vials.

Natalie weighed in at 23 lb 10.5 oz., close to the 90% percentile.  She is 30.75 inches longer which is the 95% percentile.

As you can see from the pictures Stephen posted, Natalie has been moved to the front facing seat and seems to love it. She has also done this funny thing where she is walking on her knees.  It's cute how she scoots along that way though crawling is still her mode of choice.

Granny commented when she was here that Natalie enjoys going to day care.  She really does get very excited when we get to the door in the morning - chattering and waving her arms.  I am glad she has such a good time there.  She is eating the center's food now so I don't have to bring anything - yeah!  One less thing to worry about.

Some photos at the one-year mark