Children...

...can do some pretty gross things. Natalie is beyond adorable and I love her to death and it's a good thing I am her mother, because seriously some stuff that comes with kids is downright gross. Examples? Oh sure, no problem! Nessie is currently 20 months old, and she has never puked in her life until last Saturday, August 25th. We spent the day with some of Mommy and Me friends (a group of 4 moms and their first borns) and Nessie had lots of cheese and then some yogurt and then she had a few things to eat for dinner at home, although her appetite wasn't the greatest which is normal, the kid doesn't like dinners. Anyway, at 10pm on Saturday night she woke up crying which is very unusual for her, since the kid goes down at 7:30pm and sleep through until 5am without any awakenings unless something is not right. Since she was crying, I went in to check on her and that is when I discovered that she puked all over her bed and all over herself. She was a good sport as she stopped crying right away and showed me her hands because she wanted them to be cleaned. I cleaned her up, changed pajamas and Matt was in charge of changing the sheets. I had to throw the sheets in the wash right away along with blankets and pajamas. Cleaning the sheets from all the food she ate (remnants of cheese and all the other stuff) was pretty gross and oh the smell....This happened again at 12:30am. So yeah, cleaning up puke isn't that much fun, but you have to do it with a smile on your face so the kid knows it's no big deal and stuff happens. And if she happens to throw up on you while you are carrying her to the bathroom (Matt was the receiver of that one), well, you just deal with it and enjoy that part of parenthood.

But more eventful and challenging was Natalie and my trip to Target yesterday. We went to Target to do our weekly shopping. Nessie is a huge fan of shopping and is very cooperative and behaves really well usually. Yesterday was no exception. She sat in a cart, had a few snacks, then it was time to let her loose so she could run around. She went through girl's clothing and looked at some stuff and tried hiding from me, always a fun game to play :) Then she came over because she wanted me to hold her, which I promply picked her up and realized that I smell something. Since we were at Target and I didn't expect her to poop I didn't bring the diaper bag and thought oh what the heck, let's grab wipes and diapers. I will just buy them and then I can changer her. So, I threw diapers and wipes in the cart and we headed out for check out lane. And that is when the kid decides to poop AGAIN which makes her diaper pretty much explode and the poop ends up in globs being on Target cart and all over her clothes (remember, no diaper bag, so no spare clothes either). She freaks out at the sight of poop in the cart, so I have to open the wipes and wipe it all off, meanwhile looking as to where I can throw all the dirty wipes away...NOWHERE but the bathroom, so they will have to sit in a nice pile in the cart while we go back to the toddler section so I can get Natalie a new outfit to change her into. Nessie doesn't want to buy new clothes because she doesn't like anything I show her until I convince her that her current outfit smells of poo and has poo all over and needs to be replaced...Then she agrees to get a purple shirt and pink shorts. Thank goodness, we have all the supplies, but oh the smell and sight of this spilled poo and it being all over her is a bit horrendous. I don't bother going through the checkout lane just yet as I need to get her changed right away, so we stroll towards the bathroom, I open the diapers, grab the wipes and new outfit and a nice pile of dirty wipes from the cart to throw away and we proceed into the bathroom for a major clean-up. 15-20 minutes later we emerge with a clean diaper, new outfit (had to take off the tags and keep them so I can pay for the outfit she is now wearing). Then I cleaned up the Target cart more thoroughly and now we were ready to proceed to check out! And decided to grab dinner at Target afterwards since we have spent slightly more time in that store than was planned and were running past dinner time. Phew. Did you know that Target trips can be so much fun? I sure didn't :)

Yeap, that is some grossology for you :) joy of parenthood, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Being there for my daughter when she needs me, being able to comfort her when she is scared or confused, that is something I wouldn't trade for the world!!!!
Below is the new unplanned outfit from Target...

Biting....

I hear that all the toddlers go through biting stage...I guess mine is no different then. But we have a long and weird history of biting.
Let me just start by saying that Nessie bit Matt and me for months before she ever bit anybody at school. Around 11 months or so she started biting Matt and me. She would pretend to give us kisses and then all of a sudden bite. She never did it out of anger or frustration at that point. Then 3 months later we got a first report from school that she bit somebody. What is interesting is that her biting habit at school had a pattern. Every day in the second part of the day Nessie loved playing with the toy kitchen at school, but she wanted to be by herself when she was playing there. Whenever somebody would come to join her in playing, she would first push them, and if they came back she would bite them. I remember that one day I came to pick her up and the kitchen was in the hallway, they have had such a hard time with getting Nessie to share that they grounded the kitchen :)
That behavior lasted for a couple of months...Then she stopped biting on a regular basis.

What is interesting is that we still get reports that she bit somebody from time to time, except now she bites only when people are doing something mean to hear. The last time she bit somebody was when a boy was spitting at her and she didn't like that, so she bit him on the back. The time before, she bit somebody because she was sitting down before going outside and another boy was pushing her on the floor so he could sit in her spot and she didn't appreciate that very much, so she bit him. Now, I know that biting is bad, but I have absolutely no problem with my child biting somebody because they are being mean to her. Yes, ideally I would like her to just get up and walk away, but some part of me says 'Good for you Ness, don't let them bully you, you are a strong little girl who can't be pushed around' So, while I am not too thrilled that my child bites, she did stop biting us, and the only reports we get from school is when she retaliates so I guess it's ok...

Nessie's attitude

It should come as no surprise that Natalie is a strong-willed, smart and opinionated little girl. She is 20 months old now, and she knows exactly what she wants and doesn't like to settle for anything short of it. Her favorite word "No, no, no" sometimes, you get that with a waving finger at you...Her favorite thing to do is when she is told not to do something, look at her parents in the eye, smile and do exactly what she was told NOT to do. Discipline is HARD. Hearing Natalie cry because we took chalk away or made her pick up a toy she threw is heartbreaking, but I know it's good for her and we are trying to teach her to listen to mom and dad.

What is the hardest is to figure out which battles to pick...We went through a couple of weeks of Nessie not wanting to get dressed in the morning. Some days we would go to school in pajamas and no shoes, other days we would find to get dressed. Is it that big of a deal to get her dressed? Are we just breaking her spirit by pushing her to put those shorts on, or are we enabling bad behavior in the future where it communicates to her that she can only do what she wants to? Who knows? I sure don't.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised, both Matt and I are pretty stubborn people who know what we want.

And we are super proud of Natalie for asserting her will :) just wish it wasn't aimed at us :)

Baby appointment #3

I had my appointment with my midwife today. There are 4 midwives in the practice and today I met midwife #2, lovely lady, very positive, talkative and super nice!!! Anyway, the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong at 160bmp, and we heard him moving around a LOT, the midwife had a hard time getting the heartbeat rate because the baby was so active :) Yeap, we are going to have another active child :)

The midwife answered all of my questions, which I had quite a few during this visit, and one of the quesitons was "Can I go to Germany in June for 2 weeks" After she looked carefully at my chart and figured out how far along I would be at that time, she said "I think that is a wonderful idea" Of course, she told me to make sure to bring a copy of my medical records just in case, and drink plenty of water on the plane and make sure I get up and move during the flight, to which I said it won't be a problem, since I will have a 17 month old with me, no way she will sit through 8 or so hours of flying in her seat :) So, now I have to get my vacation approved, which won't be a big deal and book a ticket which Matt will take care of and then I will just have to wait till June so I can go to Germany to visit my sister, her hubby and Cooper :) Nessie is going to love the trip!!!!! I am super excited!!!!

Bossy Pants

If you know me at all, you won't be surprised that my kid is a bit bossy. Although I will say that I didn't expect that trend to show up until she is much older. But it's still rather funny. If you ever met our pup Brovi, you will know two things: he is obnoxious (in a good, cute way) and he loves to bark. While I am used to him always being hyper, barking is something nobody in our family likes, except for Nessie because she just ignores it. Anyway, whenever Brovi barks outside, I yell at him and shake my finger at him yelling 'NO BARKING' Natalie totally picked up on that, whenever she hears him back, inside or outside, she points her finger at him and shakes it :) It's hilarious to watch. I am going to try to get a video of that one of these days.

Her other new trick concerning Brovi is when Brovi is outside and we want him to come in, she will stand in the doorway to the deck and yell in her own language "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" (that means Brovi if you haven't guessed) and she will pat her leg on the side with her hand to get his attention (it doesn't work, but it's funny to watch her do it).

And she knows what it means when i say "should we give Brovi a treat" she nods her head and says "yeah" and then waits until I give her the treat for Brovi and she always give it to him and giggles because he tickles her hand while trying to get the treat :) Funny girl! She sure does think that she is in charge of Brovi. She loves him, but she also terrorizes him. She pulls him by his tail, pushes him away from his dish bowl and chases him around. But she also gives him hugs, and every morning and evening goes to his dog food and puts his food into his bowl, she makes sure he is fed every day :) But honestly, I think she just enjoys to be in control of somebody else, because I am sure it feels like we control too much of her life (although B doesn't really listen to her, well, he doesn't really listen to anybody, I think she thinks that she is in charge of him ).

Comedy Central

I swear that we need a secret camera in our house, we could easily make a comedy show from just following our daily routines... Natalie has been doing great without a pacifier, she falls asleep without much fuss, sleeps through the night and the only thing that has changed is that she is waking up earlier now! So, this whole past week she has been waking up at 6:30am, which is different from when I used to wake her up at 7:30am, that extra hour of sleep is very important for this pregnant lady, but I can deal. However, today she woke up at 5:55am and I just decided that I wasn't going to give in to any earlier wake-up call than 6:30am so I let her fuss/cry in the crib for a little bit. By 6:01am she was quiet and I assume went back to sleep. I got up at 7am to get ready for work and at 7:10 I heard her cry so I figured I would go and get her. Well, I walked into her room and once she saw me she got so upset, she threw a fit, threw herself backwards, started arching her back and kicking her feet. I just stood there looking at her for a few minutes and when I realized that the show wasn't coming to an end I picked her up and tried changing her diaper. Keep in mind that my child turns into an octopus and all of a sudden develops the strength of a bear when I try to do something she doesn't want me to (such as change her diaper, put her coat on, put her in the car seat, every day it's a different thing and the range is quite wide). I was successful at taking her pajama pants and taking off her wet diaper, but there was no way I could put another diaper on her, so I just gave up and picked her up. Normally I hold her right under her bum, which I did but she was so wiggly and I had some other things to carry downstairs in my other hand, that quickly she slid down my side and I ended up carrying her with my hand right under her arm pits and her barely hanging on. So, there we were a kid who is dangling on my side with a naked bum, my with my pregnant belly going down the stairs...surprisingly me carrying her like that seemed amusing to her, she quit fussing and started giggling...seriously, the kid is unpredictable. I gave Nessie a slice of cheese and then was able to put a clean diaper on her and get her dressed for the day. Good thing she had cheese as otherwise it would have been another tantrum, food usually makes her happy though :)

We then proceeded to have a nice breakfast (oatmeal, apple sauce and cheese of course) and were just about to head out the door when Natalie asked for string cheese to take in the car. No, she doesn't say "string cheese car" she goes "ah, ah, ah and points to the fridge" so then I pick her up, open the fridge and she points to the drawer that has cheese. So, she had her string cheese and I got her shoes on and then it was time to put my shoes on, but in our household we have to wait for Nessie to give us our shoes, because she LOVES doing that, so she put the cheese on the floor and picked up one of my boots...Well, we do have a dog and she must forget at times that Brovi is very quick at picking any type of food off the floor. So, it took B about 2 seconds to grab her string cheese. She noticed it right away and started screaming. Normally she just stands there and screams, but this time she started chasing after Brovi and whenever she would start getting closer she would lean over to grab the cheese, but he is much quicker than her, so he would move a foot or two away so she would have to make a few steps and lean over. It was pretty funny to watch her try to claim her cheese stick back, but I decided to intervene and offered her another one. So, with tears in her eyes she nodded her head to my quesiton of "do you want another one" and followed me to the fridge...I think she was still mad at B when we left the house. But seriously, it is never a boring moment at our household! And that's the way we like it!

Also, Natalie does love Brovi and constantly giving him hugs and kisses. B always has to come up with us to her room when it's bedtime and he has to be there in the morning because she always gives him a hug first thing in the morning. They are good buddies, she just doesn't appreciate him eating her cheese and raisins, two of her absolute favorite things :)

Natalie's growth

Nessie had her 15 month check-up today. Apparently the kid is working on her molars. What amazes me is that the kid is cutting teeth and we have no clue about it. She sleeps through the night, is happy as a clam and in the midst of it all she is cutting the biggest teeth!!! Amazing! She is 26lbs 1oz, 32" tall (at this rate she will be my height by the time she is 5, she great 3/4 of an inch in the last 3 weeks) and her head circumference is 18" which is right about average; but it's not the size of the head, is the wrinkles in her brain that count and she is one smart cookie!!! Due to the fact that her palate is starting to change a bit due to sucking on a nuk, we have decided to go cold turkey and take the pacifiers away. She doesn't use them much, just for sleep and car rides, but it's still enough for her teeth to get screwed up, so we are hoping she won't hate us for taking the pacifiers away! She did great at the doctor's visit today, she smiled, waved, babbled. The doctor was amazed and said we have a kid with a great personality! You bet!!!! She did cry for about 2 minutes when they gave her 3 shots, but calmed down pretty quickly, pretty much as soon as the nurse left the room :) What a great kid! And she makes faces in the car....I just can't get over how adorable she is and she is in such a great mood 95% of the time :)

Nessie

Our lovely daughter, aka Nessie, aka Master of Disaster sure keeps us on our toes!!! The kid has so much energy that I am just at a loss sometimes as to how to channel it and how to deal with it, but she is so much fun!!! Her favorite activities lately include but are not limited to: playing with LOTS and LOTS of string (see picture), knocking down the block towers dad builds, unwind the toilet paper and tore it into 4x4 pieces :), carry her potty chair in the middle of the living room and proceed to sit on it, put Brovi's food in his bowl and then yell "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" for those of you who don't speak Nessie, that means "Brovi, come and eat NOW" and if he doesn't come, she runs all over the house trying to find him yelling 'Ba-ba-ba-ba', and once she does find him she turns around and goes back to where his food is, hoping he would follow! Try to keep up with all that, and those are just the activities she engages in during a period of 15-20 minutes or so :) I am so glad I had her while I am still young! She definitely keeps us busy and well entertained! The kid makes us laugh so much, it's insane! Her smiles are priceless and her laughs are contagious!