Sixteen months already! I love this picture of Natalie being silly! She laid on the floor and was sliding herself backward by pushing with her arms until she ran into a chair, all smiles. And this was after a tough visit to the doctor, so I just love that she bounced back so quickly.
This has been the month that Natalie learned to hate the doctor. :( She had her 15 month appointment with the pediatrician at the beginning of the month, and she cried and screamed and fought from the second I started taking her clothes off to be weighed through the weighing, measuring, talking and questions, physical exam, and shots until the moment all medical personnel had left the room. Once we took her out of the exam room, she calmed right down to eat her animal crackers and went back to her normal self at home.
Unfortunately, only a week after that traumatizing experience, I had to take her to the eye doctor by myself. In a word she was uncooperative. In more words, she wouldn't let any male doctors get even close to her and female doctors had to do a lot of coaxing (and bribing with goldfish) to get close but still not close enough to actually examine her eyes. They had every trick in the book ready, and she didn't fall for a single one. They had flashy, light-up toys and videos for her to look at, and she didn't want anything to do with them. Anytime they tried to use one of their actual tools, like a little prism device or a paddle to cover her eye, she spotted them immediately and swatted them away. So we had to hold her down for a quick exam, which she screamed and fought through. Hopefully she'll be a little more cooperative when we take her back next year.
New words: bear, hop, Earth (aer), marshmallow (wa wa), Wall-E (also WA wa, but more emphasis on the first syllable), banana (nana), potty (pah), night night, eye, elbow, beep, whale, sit (shi), ding dong (neen non), towel, turtle
New signs: grapes, giraffe, share
Her favorite phrase, okay her only phrase, is "Bye, ball." She says it often and with a lot of attitude.
She tries to say, "I love you," and it is super cute! I don't count it as a phrase because she says it as though it's one word. It sounds like a-LA-mm.
She is a little confused about house and horse. We have that cardboard playhouse, and when I set it up last, I told her is was a house. She started saying nay like a horse. I've tried telling her, "Not horse, house. Ding dong." If you ask her what a house says, she will say ding dong, but when she sees that house, she says nay. We even have a book with a picture of a horse on a house, and I have showed it to her and tried to explain, but she still says nay when she sees her house. Oh, well. She'll get it eventually.
She loves Elmo. One morning this month she woke up at 5am, and we could hear her in her crib saying his name over and over. Luckily she went back to sleep. That's too early to talk about Elmo. I have also been referred to as El-mama a few times after she's been watching Elmo. She likes to watch Elmo's World and Furchester Hotel (Elmo is in it) on YouTube.
She is a serious TV watcher now. If I put a show on for her, she just zones in on it and is completely oblivious to everything else around her. It's kind of alarming to see, which is probably good because it motivates me to keep her from watching too much. She still loves Wall-E, and she likes the idea of watching Cars but loses interest after the car crash during the first race at the beginning. She really likes looking at Lightning McQueen and gets excited whenever she sees him. She even spotted him on a book in a baby's stroller at a restaurant once.
She's a pretty good eater. She'll try almost anything I give her, and she usually likes it. She enjoyed some arugula and lettuce this month; previously she has always spit out any leafy greens. She also tried and liked asparagus. We took her out for sushi and dissected an AAC roll (avacado, asparagus, cucumber) for her. She liked everything but the avacado, especially the sushi rice. Something she does not like is potatoes, unless they are french fries or hashbrowns. Surprisingly, she has always spit out mashed potatoes and doesn't really like boiled or roasted potatoes. She is particularly fond of pb&j this month.
She's been so good at sharing and saying thank you this month! I wish it would last forever, but I know it won't. She's just interested in handing things to people, including other kids. We like to call it sharing, but it's more just a game for her. She is signing thank you a lot, though. She does it when we say thank you to her or other people, and she signs thank you at times when we usually would say it even if we didn't. A lot of times after she gives one of us a kiss, she'll sign thank you because we usually thank her for her kisses. So sweet! And it works because I think the signs for thank you and you're welcome are the same.
She loves her stuffed animals. She has started having them mimic things we do, which is fun to watch. She makes them kiss each other, and sometimes if she is having a drink, she will offer a drink to her stuffed animal too. She also gives them piggy back rides, hugs them, and has them tickle her toes while she says, "Oh no!" Her favorites right now are her bunny (of course, because that's the special animal we let her take to bed) and her squirrel.
Bath time is one of her favorite things right now. She asks for a bath all the time, and she loves to go into the bathroom to play with her bath toys. She also recognizes the sound of the water turning on and off in the tub, so whenever Jake or I get in/out of the shower, she starts saying bath.
She started setting up her toys in a specific manner this month. For instance, she likes to line all of her bath toys up on the side of the tub, and she likes for me to count them for her. She also likes to put all of her stuffed animals on the coffee table, but they all have to be sitting. Some of them won't sit without support, so she gets mad and asks for help to make them sit. And sometimes she sets out all of her stacking cups upside down in one area on the floor.
She loves balls of any kind. I think that's probably the word she says most frequently. She can spot them from quite a distance, which makes it hard to get anywhere on a walk outside because there are tons of balls laying around outside in our housing complex. So she'll see a ball and just take off in that direction. Must. Have. Ball.
She loves to go outside. A trip outside will fix anything. Sometimes even before breakfast she starts saying go and shoes because she wants to go out. Um, not in our pajamas, Natalie. It has been hard with the weather oscillating between nice and cold because she wants to go out every day, and I don't know how to keep her occupied inside all day anymore. We just have to figure something out by next winter. Ugh, this lady does not like going outside during the winter. It's going to be a rough one for both of us!
So if you remember, last month there was a picture of her opening up the printer. Well, this month she discovered that she can put toys in it where the paper comes out after printing. She puts stacking cups in there and stuffed animals. If only we had a place to put the printer out of her reach, but alas, we do not. Oh, well, just check for squirrels before using, I guess. ;)
Jake's parents visited for Easter weekend at the beginning of the month, and we had such a fun time with them! They got to be here for Natalie's first Easter Egg Hunt, which we did in the house with plastic eggs. We took them to the natural history museum. They took us swimming in their hotel pool, which was Natalie's first time. She had fun, but the water was a little chilly for her. And of course, we ate a lot of delicious food: Korean fried chicken, a Spanish brunch, and smoked hamburgers!
Now for the pictures!
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| She's ready for the beach! ;) |
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| At the Museum of Natural History with the mastodons! |
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| Easter Egg Hunt |
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| After she dropped one of the eggs and candy spilled out, she started shaking each egg she found and throwing them on the floor to get them open. Haha! |
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| Meeting up with Jake for lunch on campus, mouth wide open to receive cookies! |
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| First bubble bath! |
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| We finally had a rainy excuse to put on the adorable matching raincoat and boots we got as hand-me-downs! |
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| Sometimes she's so skeptical when she wakes up from a nap. Funny girl. |
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| Ready for church! |
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| Best Friends |
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| Our little sushi-lover. |
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| Natalie loves this duck who keeps visiting our back porch. |
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| Trying on Dad's shoes. I did not help her get into those! |
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| I doubted she could pick up both of these balls at once, but I was wrong! |
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| Then this happened, and she had a very dirty face. ;) |
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| Cherry blossom season with my two favorite people! |
