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!

Auntie

Nessie and I are so excited! Kara is coming on Thursday. Nessie has been missing her auntie so much that when we skyped with Kara on Sunday, Nessie saw her auntie on the computer screen and was so excited she crawled across the carpet to say hello to the camera :) We are both very much looking forward to Kara's visit. Nessie is aware that Kara is going to crawl with her, and Nessie is going to show her auntie how to do raspberries and how to swim properly as well as how you scream when you want something and then you always seem to get it :)
Well, I am guessing I am more excited to catch up on talking and spending time with my sis. We always seem to have such a great time, and of course there is time reserved in our schedule for all three of us girls to go shopping :) after all, we have to keep the economy going and shopping in the US is a whole lot cheaper than it is in Europe :)

Anyway, we are super excited! Ness has changed so much since my sister's last visit in February when Ness was only a couple months old, not mobile and not vocal :)

Park

Nessie loves playing at the park. It's a good thing we live about 2 blocks away from one :) It really should be our daily routine after getting home from work/daycare and dinner, but sometimes we run out of time to go outside. The last couple of days I have made an effort to get out with her. She loves swinging in the baby swing as well as on my lap in a big swing. She loves the breeze when we are on the big swing and squeals :) What a funny little kid. Yesterday, we even went down the slide a few times, she didn't love it, but she didn't dislike it either, I think she was confused as to what we were doing :)

She also sat in one of the toys at the park, and while she didn't bounce in it like she was supposed to, she had a great time blowing raspberries and just having a good time. I love this weather, today is going to be yet another perfect evening for a stroll to the park. One great perk of playing outside for an hour is that it makes bedtime a breeze. Not that she is a difficult kid to put down, but yesterday after all the play at the park, it took all but 10 minutes for her to cuddle and fall asleep! I love spending evenings with her, she is so funny to watch. At one point she rested her head on the swing, that was rather funny, I don't think it was comfortable, but she kept trying to put her head on the metal chain that was holding up the swing. She did give up eventually as i am sure she found the thing hard and not working as a resting spot for her noggin :)

Natalie

She is my pride and joy! I can't believe we are so blessed to have her in our lives. Anyway, her latest favorite thing to do besides being super clingy to me, which i don't mind most of the time is crawling over to any drawers and start pulling them open and then pushing them shut. She can continue this activity for at least 10 minutes, and is quite entertained, we just have to be careful with watching her fingers, as she already has shut one drawer on her fingers and that wasn't very pretty. She is so much fun. Ness loves crawling and we love watching her little bum being up in the air and her trying to move her tiny little legs. She is very good at what she does, she can crawl with both her legs moving, quite talented that kid I must say :) She is also rather fond of dad's stereo, we are foreseeing a broken stereo before she is 3 :) but hey, from what I understand Matt burnt out his dad's stereo, so maybe it's in the genes :)