Monkey Business

Since getting back from our trip Natalie has become more and more active. Seen here in her “cage” as Tiffany calls it, she could probably crawl the length of our house in a shade under two minutes. She’s becoming quite the little monkey, pulling herself up on things (i.e. the couch, chairs, the cage) and making us wonder how long it will be until she is walking.

It seems really early to think she’s going to be walking soon, but she stands up pretty well and only sits when she’s out of gas. Personally, I wish she would sit still a little more often. If we’re outside the house, she’ll have no problem sitting on our lap for extended periods of time, but at home, forget it. 

Currently, she’s pulled herself up and is standing inside the cage whining despite the fact that she has plenty of toys in there. It’s getting close to a morning snack as well. She woke up last night at about 2. That’s pretty rare but she’ll do that a couple of times a month. I think it might be when she’s going through a growth spurt. 

We recently invested in some padded color squares for Natalie to play on as well. Area rugs don’t provide much cushion for a toddler falling all over themselves and we had heard enough thuds to know we were only going to avoid a somewhat serious injury so long. The issue is that it’s not incased so she’ll crawl right off and go for the baskets under the TV or pretty much anything else we don’t want her to mess with, hence the need for the cage.

She’s also about had it with her activity center in which she stands. She’ll even do leg lifts to avoid being put down in it. It’s pretty impressive actually. She will show some patience in her high chair while Tiffany prepares dinner so that’s nice. I think she knows it’s because she’s about to be fed. We have to be careful there though because she will only wait so long. After about 10 minutes she’ll start “chatting” as if to say, “I’m waiting over here.” Then after dinner she can get a little fussy if we don’t get her in her bath relatively quickly.

I think she’s ready for her morning bottle so that will be all for now.

6 Months

Natalie hit the 6 month mark yesterday. She heads to the doctor on Thursday, I’ll be taking her in for the first time. Tiffany may come with us and head to work after, but I don’t think she’s decided yet.  Natalie’s mobility is improving. She’s progressed from the inch warm to more of a breast stroke to move across the floor. I’m not a swimming expert, but she seems to have good form. I’m sure it’s only  a matter of days now before she is legitimately crawling and moving along at top speed.

Here you also see her sitting. We can place her and she will sit for quite a while but for the first time this morning, she found herself in a sitting position on her own. Tiffany and I were both getting ready in the bathroom and Natalie swung her leg out and there she was sitting. I’m sure it was an accident as she was probably just trying to figure out a better way to move across the floor, but when we both got excited, she looked pretty pleased with herself. So we’ll see if she starts to do that more often.

We’re a week away now from our big trip up north. That should be an experience. Hopefully, Natalie handles the plane okay. It certainly will be a little shock to her and the time change will probably make her schedule a little haywire. I’m sure preparations will start over the weekend. The days of packing and leaving the same day are probably over. 

The Inch Worm

Natalie is crawling.....sort of. It may be a bit unfair to call what she’s doing crawling but on Saturday she did start to move forward using her hands and legs while on her knees. However, most of the forward movement is generated by her launching herself forward by rocking back and diving forward. As you can see by this picture, she is quite pleased with herself for figuring out a way to move forward. 

She can move around just enough that she doesn’t grow as frustrated and can amuse herself by flipping, rolling and rocking her way around the room. She’s still using her activity mat, for now. As you can see, she likes to tear it down and drag it around the room...I suppose that is an activity. I caught her here in the act but as she saw the camera come out she quickly took a pose as if to say, “that was like that already” and went about her business.

On Saturday Tiffany and I went out to dinner for our anniversary. I believe it was the first time we carted Natalie off to a nicer sit-down restaurant with just the two of us. It was actually the same restaurant we went out to the day before she was born. Natalie did not seem impressed by this tidbit, but seemed to enjoy her Gerber baby food just fine.

Two weeks from today we head to New York to surprise my grandfather on his 93rd birthday. I’m not particularly looking forward to dragging a 6-month old through airport security and all over New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania but it will be a nice surprise and of course be nice to visit some friends while we are in the area. By then Natalie will probably be doing more than inching along, but we’ll see.

Frustratingly Close

Natalie’s inching ever so closer to crawling, but has yet to put the final pieces together. She’ll get up on all fours and start to sway back and forth and she’ll even climb up my chest if I’m up holding her and she’s facing me, but she can’t seem to put that together on the floor.

Meanwhile, she’ll still try. After a few minutes of effort she’ll get pretty frustrated that she’s not going anywhere and begin to whine. Mind you, this doesn’t keep her from moving across the room. She’ll roll  and roll and slide and can cover ground pretty quickly. She’ll be next to the far wall in the office and a minute later be next to me at the desk, laying like she had been there the whole time. That’s probably 10-12 feet.

I’m looking forward to her beginning to crawl, but at the same time I’m sure she’ll just be motoring all over the house. Her knees are likely going to show some wear from the hardwood floors. 

On the eating front, she’s enjoying rice cereal and fruit twice a day now. We’re using the Gerber First Stage “meals”. So far Natalie is pretty partial to sweet potatoes with green beans and squash in second. She’ll eat almost any of the choices, but doesn’t like carrots at all and will be happy to tell you that if you try to give them to her. She doesn’t even complain about prunes, though we have found that giving her prunes is akin to setting a bomb off in her intestinal tract. It creates some extra special diapers the next day. 

We weighed her a few days ago and she was 16 pounds on the nose so that puts her right on track for 6 months. I believe a child is supposed to be close to twice their birth weight at 6 months or so I’ve heard. We’re 2 weeks away from that appointment, perhaps she’ll be crawling by then. 

Expanding Waistline

We had a weigh-in last night and Natalie is just a hair shy of 15 pounds. We think she’s gone through a bit of a growth spurt here in the last week or so because she went from not being able to touch the bottom of her exersaucer to where now her feet are pretty much flat. The guidelines suggest that their toes should be touching. We have it on the lowest setting so I’ll be jumping that up a notch over the weekend probably. 

She’s on a steady diet of cereal and baby food now so that might be fueling her growth. As you can see here she enjoys sitting in her high chair, at least most of the time. She can get pretty vocal if you’re not shoveling in the food fast enough. It just depends how hungry she is. She rarely cries, she just has this complaining whine on occasion that lets us know she’s not pleased with what’s going on. She’ll do this sometimes while she’s eating which makes it a fun challenge to keep the cereal or fruit in her mouth.

Of course the introduction of solid foods has taken the diapers to another level. She seems to be having less wet diapers, but while the frequency of the dirty diapers hasn’t increased per say, let’s just the intensity has. On occasion I’ve been close to gagging from the smell. It’s also a lot like a paste that seems to stick to her . Cleaning her up can be all kinds of fun when she feels like rolling around while you’re doing it. Yesterday, I went through six wipes and one diaper pad while changing her though I was pleased none got on her onesy. 

On the crawling front, she seems to be making progress. Natalie has devised a system of movement that predates modern times that is not crawling. She will roll on her side and push her legs into the ground and and slide on her side a few inches at a time. She can do this several times and  when combined with rolling around, she can move a couple of feet. She still gets frustrated when she’s up on all fours and can’t crawl. She is just not supporting her midsection enough with her arms. It does appear that she’s starting to figure it out however.  Maybe she’ll be ready by father’s day.