Seven Months

Natalie's personality just keeps showing more and more! This month has been really fun!

• Natalie is getting sooo close to crawling! She gets up on her hands and knees all the time and rocks forward and backward. She can slide her knees forward and backward like she's crawling in place because she doesn't move her arms. It's coming, folks.
• (Despite knowing that crawling will be the end of an era - the era of being able to leave Natalie in a safe place unattended for a couple minutes and being carefree about objects on or near the floor - despite all that, I am really excited for her to crawl!)
• Progress has stalled on the crawling a little bit since Natalie figured out how to get into a sitting position from her tummy. (Video below.) She can't do this 100% of the time, but she's getting better at it every day. And she is still working on crawling, just a little less interested while she figures this sitting thing out.
• Enter separation anxiety! For the last couple of weeks Natalie has been very particular about having me hold her when she's sleepy. This has been a little rough because she's been waking up in the night some, and if Jake goes in to hold her, she flips out because she only wants me. Now I can't leave the room without tears most of the time, and when she's getting tired, I have to stay within a radius of only a few feet.
• Natalie has eaten a bunch of new foods: bananas, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes, carrots, and green beans. She seems to like everything, although every once in a while she'll just refuse to eat something. Her favorites are peaches and applesauce. She grunts and groans and pulls faces like the food is disgusting through almost every bite, even for foods she loves. It's hilarious! I have a video of that below too.
• We have tried giving her water in a sippy cup and a regular cup. She likes the water, but she hasn't figured out that you have to tip cups back to drink from them. I have to help her with that. She can't suck the water from the sippy cup yet either, so I've taken the valve out for now so she can try to get the tipping back down.
• She is super strong! She can support her own weight on her legs. She can even stand up from sitting on my leg by herself. If we stand her up to the coffee table, she can stand there for a while by herself. Although, she thinks it's a fun game to push off and fall in my lap. She loves for us to help her walk by holding under her armpits. She'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other. So cute!
• Whenever I help her walk, she steers herself toward the curtains. She loves to play with the curtains and look outside.
• She rolls onto her tummy a lot when she sleeps. During naps, she'll go right back to sleep, but during the night she'll wake up and cry while pushing herself back until she's stuck in the rails against the wall. That makes her mad, so she won't go back to sleep by herself. This makes for some long nights. :( This is one of the reasons I'm so excited for her to crawl. If she could get herself unstuck, I think it might be easier for her to get back to sleep.
• She can "Gimme five" upon request...when she feels like it. She'll do it most of the time, but sometimes she just ignores us.
• She loves to drop or throw things on the floor, and then lean over to look at them. She particularly likes to do this with round things that will roll across the floor.
• She has started to feel the stranger danger. Sometimes she's fine while someone holds her for a few minutes, and then she starts crying and reaching for me. It's interesting because she's very social. She'll smile at anyone who will look at her, and she loves other babies and little kids, although I don't know how much they like her since she tries to grab at them and whack them. She just gets so excited!
• She started taking three longer naps rather than four short ones, which has been great for me!
• We have started putting her in the stroller without the car seat. Whenever the stroller is moving, she sticks her legs out straight and kneads the air with her toes. It is so cute!
• She was in her first car accident. No one was injured, and she was a real trooper. She didn't even cry! We're so glad she's okay!

Girl cousins!

She loves Grandma's singing! And we love Natalie's chubs!

First time out for ice cream. She enjoyed tasting everyone's ice cream!

Those are 18 month pajamas!

First she does the bear crawl...

...then onto one knee...

...then she needs a little rester. Haha!

A common view from the couch

Sometimes she sleeps face down on her hands and wakes up like this.

Here are the videos, as promised. This first one is the Natalie eating experience. This is why we can't take her anywhere! ;) I tried to get her to smile at the end but to no avail.

This is the video of Natalie's new sitting up moves. We just adore the little victory dance she does at the end. Whenever she gets into sitting position, she always looks to me for some praise and does her victory wiggle. It is the cutest thing!

Well, Natalie has been a handful this month but chock full of personality. We are really enjoying her company!

Six Months

Well, it was another 4 lb. gain over the last two months. When the pediatrician came into the room, she said she almost thought this was a one year appointment because Natalie was so big! She also mentioned that Natalie is advanced in her emotional development based on the way she was reacting and expressing herself during the appointment. She had been there a couple of days before and gotten a nose swab (more like brain swab), which she did not enjoy. So she remembered that this was not a place she wanted to be, and she let us know. Onto the stats, tidbits, and photos!

STATS
Length: 27.5" (94%)
Weight: 21 lbs. 3 oz. (98%)
Head: 17.25" (88%)

• Natalie is mobile! She can turn herself all the way around on her tummy now, and she started getting rolling down just before we left to visit our families. Even just a few days in she was spinning and rolling all around the room.
• She took her first flights and did really well. We all know that she's big for her age, so it was pretty hard to keep her contained in our seat space when she really doesn't understand how to obey. She kept trying to grab things from the passengers next to us: magazines, clothes, hair. It was challenging, funny, and embarrassing all at once.
• She met her uncles, aunts, and cousins for the first time.
• She went spelunking. I wore her in the front carrier through a cave at the Craters of the Moon. There was more climbing than I thought, and it was quite a challenge. Natalie seemed to enjoy it, although she grabbed on tight during some of the bigger climbing steps.
• She's making a lot of consonant sounds. She says, "Da da da" a lot. She is very interested in the sounds that can be made with her mouth and watches our mouths a lot.
• She started eating solid foods! She has had rice cereal, applesauce, peas, and sweet potatoes so far. I think she has enjoyed eating solids. She has been opening her mouth for the spoon since we first tried it, and she is getting better at moving the food back for swallowing.
• She got her two bottom teeth only a couple of days apart toward the beginning of the month.
• She loves to be bounced on our knees!
• She still loves for us to sing to her. She doesn't seem to respond to recorded music as enthusiastically. Singing is one of the only things that can calm her when she gets really crabby, but she knows our songs, and she'll take a breath just before the last note so that she can start wailing again as soon as the song cuts off. Clever girl.

Sometimes we match on accident. I guess I'm just drawn to a certain set of colors each day.

Haha! Headband in the front...do rag in the back. She kept scratching her ear, which made a scab that got bigger and bigger every time she touched it, even after I clipped her nails. So I tied a pair of tights around her ears. So fashionable. It didn't stay on great, so I had to bust out her old newborn mittens, which were really tight on her 6-month hands. It eventually healed up.

Homemade baby food. Yum, peas.

So cute in the tub!

Just doing some leisurely reading.

We visited our families over Natalie's six month "birthday," so the pictures with my family are in this post, and the ones with Jake's family will be in the next post.

Natalie with my brother, Jason

With my Grandma

With my Grandma and Grandpa, her only living great grandparents

With my brother, Ryan. He was the only one who could get her to sleep that night. We were so grateful for his "Deep Knee Bends" technique!

With my mom. Not a great face, but the best I had.

A kiss with my dad. Hehe.

Love this picture! They are so cute together!

I just can't believe we've already spent half a year with this girl! She is growing so fast, and although I knew the time would pass too quickly, I didn't realize how sad I would be to see each stage be left behind or how exciting it would be to welcome each new stage. Motherhood is everything I could have dreamed! I am so grateful to have been blessed with a baby, and a pretty great one at that.