Reflections from a Disney Store

I grew up playing with Barbies. I owned at least eight dolls and two lunchboxes full of Barbie clothes. A Barbie townhouse with operating "elevator" stood next to my bed for most of my childhood, and I remember learning my first lesson about budgeting when I saved up $20 from allowances and report card rewards to purchase a Barbie kitchen.

So, because you can probably see where this post is going, I need to explain that I am not opposed to dolls and frills and princesses. I am, though, annoyed about how much it's in my face these days as the mother of a toddler girl.

We walked into the Disney Store yesterday to make a princess-item return. At 2 years, 4 months old, Natalie has never watched more than 20 consecutive minutes of TV (in fact she has watched one episode of one TV show ever), so we are far from the feature-length film phenomenon. She doesn't know any specific Disney or Pixar characters aside from Mickey and Minnie Mouse. My goal was to exchange the princess item for a similar Mickey and Minnie item so she could have more characters to play with on top of her retro Fisher-Price garage. I figured this would be an easy proposition, as I used to frequent the Disney Store when I was in elementary school and I remember lots of little figurines and other tchotkes Natalie would probably enjoy.

I was not prepared for the gender-divided experience that is the Disney Store.

At our particular Disney Store at Tyson's Corner, the message is clear when you walk in the door: girls to the left, boys to the right.

I walked in to make our return, got a giftcard for store credit, and assumed within five minutes we'd have our replacement item. Natalie found the small section of the store that contains Muppet characters, and she knows Kermit well, so we talked about him for a while. But I wasn't going to spend a lot of extra money on a nearly life-size Kermit doll, so we moved on.

Although we stayed firmly grounded in gender-neutral territory in the store's main aisle, it didn't take long for us to hit the princess explosion and the friendly Disney Store employees trying to push their wares on a female toddler.

"Ohhh, what special princess are you looking for today?" the employee said as she crouched down to Natalie level. At this moment, my super talkative toddler became silent. I could see the gears turning in her head, and I heard her mutter something about Elizabeth, which would be a reference to the only princess she knows from one of our favorite books, The Paper Bag Princess.

"She doesn't really know about the princesses," I said to try to prevent the princess-pushing from escalating.

"Well, we have lots of princess beach towels on sale and...." the employee continued as she rattled off a bunch of other items as I tuned out and nodded politely.

When she finally asked, "Is there something in particular I can help you find?" I jumped in with, "Actually, yes, when I was a kid you all used to sell little plastic figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the other classic characters. Do you still have those?" She enthusiastically took me to the girl side of the store.

"We have these great sets! Here's the one for Minnie Mouse." As she handed me the Minnie set, I immediately noticed how Minnie is holding a mirror. The set rested upon a display arranged as a tower containing hundreds of other figure sets, all with some kind of girly bent. I couldn't believe these were the only figures in the store. Not surprisingly, they weren't.

As we made our way to the other side -- the boy side -- of the store, our employee assumed we must be leaving and wished us a good day. When we made it to the boy-side figurine set tower I discovered everything I'd been looking for. There were the Peter Pan sets, the Toy Store sets, the Finding Nemo sets; all the items I assumed would be sold in the Disney Store, even if I wasn't specifically planning to buy those items for my child quite yet. And, of course, within the boy-side figurine tower there was a set with Mickey and his friends.

As I was recounting this story to Matt last night, explaining how I was directed to the girl set with Minnie holding a mirror, he said, "What, did the Mickey set involve construction work or something?"

Yes, mindreader, it literally does.

Overwhelmed by the political implications of any Disney Store purchase I could make, I walked out of the store with my son attached to me in the Ergo and my toddler daughter holding my hand, unfazed to be walking out without a replacement present, chatting away about getting a "special treat [aka food] from the mall."

I'm not sure when childhood became so gender divided. Maybe childhood has always been this gender divided and when I was a kid I just assumed this was normal. But when I look around the toy store or even the book store, something in my gut tells me the marketing surrounding our kids has attempted to steer them further and further toward clearly gender-specific items. I think there's value in kids having a well-rounded upbringing, which includes girls and boys playing with toys designed for their sex and the opposite sex, and kids reading books with prominent male and female protagonists. As Natalie gets older, I'm happy for her to play with princesses. But I want her to be the one to make that decision.

The unswaddling of Adam and other updates

You know when people stop blogging? When they have two kids. I like how blogging helps me keep my life in order (and gives me something to look back on) so though I miss blogging more frequently, I'm going to try to do it at least sometimes. (No concrete goal right now.)

Here's what's been up.

So many babies: 
In addition to our one baby, we have about 25 friends having first, second or third babies all within a span of about six months. Four of those babies were all born the other week, which has made for some fun hospital visits and virtual correspondence and a much more adorable Instagram feed.

Spring break: 
Matt had a lovely 10 days off, and I had a reduced work schedule, so we took advantage of opportunities for family time and occasionally nice weather to make our annual venture to the cherry blossoms in D.C. and to the National Zoo.

We took Natalie to the zoo over the summer, but the experience didn't stick as she was only 18 months old and not nearly as communicative. At the zoo Adam needed to be fed, so I found a little bench near some primates and deemed it an appropriate place to nurse my little man. (I would have chosen the inside of the small mammal building, which may have been an even more appropriate place to nurse my small mammal, but it was pretty crowded inside.) I'll admit, I used to stare at women who would breastfeed uncovered in public, not because they offended me, but because I was trying to figure out how they could be so stealth and expose essentially zero skin. Well, all that paid off at the zoo because it was only about 50 degrees at the time, but I was wearing a black nursing tank under an all-black long-sleeve shirt, and as I managed to somehow not freeze and not get spit up on me I felt like I'd finally arrived. I just can't do covered nursing, and I've gotten much more liberal about rarely bringing a bottle with me when I leave the house with Adam.

Fastest home repair in history: 
Last week after dinner while watching some TV show (currently: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Silicon Valley -- the newest addition that I'd highly recommend if you're a nerd and/or you have nerd friends) Matt and I heard a horrible crash from somewhere in our house. It sounded like a mirror or cabinet or perhaps baby fell. After we confirmed the kids were fine and everything in our house (including laundry room and crawl space) were in complete working order, we figured maybe the noise came from our (annoying, incense-burning) neighbors. The next morning, on our way to the zoo, we solved the mystery: our garage door wouldn't open because some springs busted and some piece of the contraption broke away from the garage ceiling. Amazingly, a repair person came within 30 minutes of making the call, and 20 minutes later he'd repaired the door. Problem solved, $200 later.

Vitamix: 
We got one. Matt's been wanting one, and after about three years (and some sacrificed rubber spatulas our child may have ingested in her smoothies) I agreed it was time. He's frugal enough, so he bought a certified refurbished one that costs nearly half of the retail price of a new one and still comes with the standard five-year warranty. I'm now waiting for him to perfect my favorite Smoothie King recipe, Peach Slice Plus.

Craiglist and consigning: 
We got rid of the old blender on Craiglist, and that reminded me that we already have some baby items to begin selling/donating/giving away. Of course, people on Craiglist are notoriously flakey, so that can be annoying, but man, people want your aden + anais swaddle blankets, let me tell you. Because we're done having children and we have lots of baby and kid clothes, I've recently entered the wide world of children's clothes consigning. Getting started is a bit (ok, a lot) of work, as Matt can attest after watching me go a little crazy the other week Baby Oxicleaning away stains (tip: buy Baby Oxiclean at Target or Toys/Babies R Us, where you'll find it for $9.99), but it feels good having a plan in place and making back some money on our kids' clothes that I can then justify putting back into future clothing purchases. When I have more experience I'll share my tips and mistakes.

Speaking of baby clothes...my new favorite brands are:

1) Zutano

2) Burt's Bees

3) Offspring

Watch out, you'll probably be getting one from me as a gift.

Also, Baby Gap: thumbs up to you for using a golden snap on some of your snapped baby clothes. Having that one gold snap standing out from all the silver ones makes baby dressing one bit easier. Seriously, simple genius move.

Dishwasher and washing machine: 
Both are running constantly these days. Our water bill tells the story. (And we only run them when they're brimming over -- two kids, I tell you. Who chooses to have more than two?)

Ants: 
We have some. Isolated to one small area of our kitchen, but still, some, and with torrential rain that some is starting to become a lot as they seek shelter in our house. The irony here is that our kitchen is the cleanest it has ever been because it's the one thing I consistently clean these days (and the cleaning ladies leave the floors spotless) so why we have some ants now is baffling. So far my solution has been to kill them with my bare feet because grabbing a paper towel while holding a baby and entertaining a toddler seems like too much work. Any eco-friendly solutions for getting rid of ants in a house with two kids and two dogs? Otherwise we'll be Raiding them tonight.

The toddler:
She's off the bottle. Only took her until 2 years and 3 months old, but now she exclusively drinks her milk from cups. I really didn't mind the bottles for most of her existence even when her little buddies had moved way beyond the bottle phase. She never used them as pacifiers (she never really used pacifiers, either) and she'd never have them for more than five minutes of serious milk chugging. Even our pediatrician wasn't particularly concerned. But then we had a second baby who legitimately needs my toddler's bottles. So, to get her to change, we did "the countdown," which is our best parenting tactic with her: any time there's about to be a transition, small or large, we try to build it up with adequate warning to help her anticipate what's about to occur. For one week we told her she had X many days before no more bottles. Somewhat magically, with only a few tears, the transition went smoothly.

She's also done with sleep sacks. That happened only a couple weeks before the end of the bottle. Seriously, she loved those sleep sacks, but like bottles, they were becoming a bit ridiculous. So, she's got her comfy quilt and that's enough.

She is not done with tantrums. Oh no, those are only beginning.

The next transition I plan to force on her is installing the toddler rail onto her crib. I love that she loves her crib, but all these signs of babyhood must come to an end. I figure the toddler railing is a way to get her a little more independent without forcing her out of the crib quite yet. I have a feeling even when the railing is up and she can get out of bed on her own she'll choose not to, at least not immediately. I used to selfishly not want her to have a toddler railing or a regular bed because I feared she'd be up too early in the morning, but now that I'm up early enough with Adam she can just join the party. That crib needs to eventually go to Adam as he's going to quickly outgrow the Pack N Play.

Further down the road we'll force potty training, but for now she's content in diapers. By this summer when she's two and a half it will be time to require it, and by then I'll want Adam to inherit all the cloth diapers. I know my child well enough to know that she needs baby steps to move toward big changes, but at some point we just have to rip off the Band-Aid (or diaper) for her to make a change.

The baby: 
As the title of this blog suggests, another transition of late involved the baby deciding he's done being swaddled. Specifically, a week and a half ago when he was almost exactly 3.5 months old, Adam woke up four times in one night. We'd been down to one night-time wake up for a pretty long time at this point, so it was a rough night. Every time he started crying, though, he'd broken out of his swaddle (having never swaddled Natalie we were too lazy to learn to truly swaddle Adam, so we solely used the Summer Infant SwaddleMes for wrapping him at naps and night). So, we decided to unswaddle him cold turkey. My experience parenting Natalie thus far has taught me that cold-turkey transitions when kids are super little are the easiest way to make a transition (see "The toddler" section above for our later-in-life failures). And, like any responsible parents, we'd already hired a babysitter for the night we were planning to unswaddle him cold turkey, so we just prepared the babysitter for the worst. Again, miraculously, the child slept wonderfully from 6:45 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. in nothing but his pajamas and size small fleece Halo Sleep Sack, and neither the toddler nor the baby even saw the babysitter during the three hours she was playing security guard (and we were enjoying a lovely meal at Mussel Bar in Ballston).

As he steadily marches toward four months old, Adam continues to be a total joy. I really am embracing babyhood much more this time around, probably mostly thanks to 1) knowing what I'm doing and 2) knowing this is the last time I'll have a baby. (As the ladies on the beach in Miami said to me, "They get older, and then they get lip.") He's exiting the blob-like phase now that he's grasping objects and paying attention to books (I think we're going to have another little reader on our hands) and giggling and cooing and getting more vocal. He is not interested in rolling over, though he's done it a few times, but he is interested in standing up. I think it's about time to break out the old Exersaucer to give him a new experience and work those little legs.

His night-time sleep continues to be wonderful, and his daytime sleep is good, just not consistent. I am starting to see patterns emerge, like the early morning nap, and I can say definitively right now that he has two-hour awake windows. When he was super tiny he was predictably awake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but we've turned that corner into greater awakeness.

Oh, and he's still super portable and loves the Ergo, so it is in full effect.

Two silly baby organizing tips:
I cannot believe it took me nearly 2 years and 4 months to get to these two, but:

1) hang your baby tub -- one of my friends who just had her first baby told me she and her husband had hung up their infant tub in their bathroom. "Seriously?" I said. Yes, they are smart and realized that the Fisher Price whale tub is meant to be hung up! Genius! I tried using a Command hook on the tile in the kids' hallway bathroom, but it would always fall down right after the cleaning ladies' visit. Umm, it's because they were legitimately cleaning the tile in our bathrooms, a thing I just obviously don't do. So, that scrubbing/hot water was causing the Command hook to fall. So, geniusly I looked at the linen closet door in the same bathroom, and ta-da!

2) organizing breast milk in the freezer -- our freezer overfloweth with breast milk. Now I have a bin for each month (four total at this point). I lay the bags flat until they're completely frozen, then place them upright in their appropriate containers, with the oldest milk in the front so we can use that up first. This is not rocket science, but the 20 minutes I spent to get this together has been totally worth it.

See you some time in May!

Pre-preschool education

It comes as no surprise to my friends that educating my daughter is one of the most, if not the most, exciting aspects of parenting for me. Call it my inner nerd, my passion for learning, or my competitive side -- whatever it is, I'm having a lot of fun watching a little mind expand before my eyes every day.

As a person who generally dislikes the acquisition of too much stuff, I always look for simple learning opportunities that come up in our daily lives. I believe the concept behind learning is much like the concept behind exercising: Just as to exercise you really only need a pair of shoes, to learn you really only need to give your child attention. Baby Einstein and Sesame Street and Melissa & Doug products are all wonderful, but they're just icing if you pay attention to your child's interests and rituals.

Here are a few ways I've watched Natalie pick up some good pre-preschool knowledge in the past couple months:

Counting through "scoops"
Many mornings I make coffee. A few weeks ago as she was turning 20 months old, Natalie started paying extra attention to this ritual and would wake up each morning asking when we would "make coffee." Soon I realized that as I was scooping out the coffee beans from the canister to the machine I was counting out loud, and Natalie was paying attention to that, too. Then I realized I should let her do the scooping and counting with me. She loves this. Seriously, it's like one of her favorite activities of the day, proving once again the concept behind the cliche idea that kids prefer the cardboard box to the gift inside.

With daily practice for a few weeks, Natalie can almost count to 10. She prefers to ignore the existence of 5 and 7, but is very proud to shout "10!" when she makes it there. I started giving her two bowls of dry pasta and a scoop so that she can practice scooping and counting from her high chair while I empty the dishwasher or do some other lame chore. It is painfully adorable to listen to her counting out loud to herself.


Colors and shapes through chalk and crayons
Drawing is another one of Natalie's favorite activities. Right around her first birthday I picked up some Crayola Jumbo Crayons (which I have not seen in any store that sells Crayola products except for Michael's crafts -- these suckers are hard to come by unless you order online). For several months Natalie was not interested. But when spring weather rolled around and we started using Crayola Sidewalk Chalk, which is no doubt even easier for little hands to grasp, her interest in drawing with crayons took off, too.

Thanks to crayons and chalk, Natalie learned all her basic colors rather quickly. Now she's working on some slightly more obscure colors, such as silver and gray. She's also aware of some basic shapes, though her favorite shape of all is by far hearts (because every day she insists Matt and I "draw hearts!" for her). She will ask for me to draw a blue heart, and then I'll ask for her to hand me the green crayon so I can draw a green heart. This game could go on for hours.

Two quick sidenotes about crayons:
1) Crayon fail: the Left-Right Ergonomic Crayons, box of 10 -- While in Denver with my girl friends, I spotted these at an art museum and thought they'd be a fun souvenir for Natalie. If I had played with them before purchasing, though, I would have left them on the shelf. These crayons are labeled as environmentally friendly, but they also shouldn't be labeled as crayons because they require the artist to exert tremendous pressure in order for a faint line to appear on the page. These are neither child nor adult friendly.

2) Crayon win: the Large Mini Storage Box with a Handle from the Container Store is the perfect size for fitting a pack of Crayola Jumbo Crayons. (How's "large mini" for an oxymoron?) Natalie loves opening and shutting lids and taking items in and out of boxes, so I knew we couldn't rely on the cardboard crayon box to do the trick.

ABCs through teeth brushing
Natalie and I brush our teeth together in the morning (while her dad always handles the night time routines). I've heard somewhere that kids should brush their teeth at least as long as the ABCs song lasts. Given Natalie's poor brushing skills, though, I prefer to make her plow through about 3-4 rounds of the song before we decide her teeth are clean-ish. Of course, this means I am usually singing through a mouth-full of toothpaste, but it's a routine and Natalie will say "ABC" at this point, though nothing else. I'm wondering when she'll start singing more of the song. I know it will happen as some point with daily exposure.

Letter recognition through placemat
This is the outlier of this post, which is supposed to be about not spending much money, but this is a utilitarian item that also serves an educational function, so I'll add it.

A huge splurge in our lives is the Stokke Table Top, a fancy-schmancy placemat. Somehow when I bought it online I managed to find it for around $60 instead of $90 (yes, a $90 placemat), but even on sale that's a lot of money. Still, it holds up incredibly well and the suction cups are simply amazing at keeping the placemat in place. The Table Top comes with two reversible placemats, but so far we've kept the placemat with the alphabet on top. Growing up with Eat and Learn placemats, I am a firm believer in a power of learning through essentially osmosis while eating. Natalie is starting to recognize several letters consistently, and I think this placemat, along with some books that I'll blog about later, are helping with this.

I'm excited for all the future learning I'll be witnessing in Natalie each day!

Why I love 19 months

On days like today I find myself staring at my 19-month-old daughter with a ridiculous grin on my face. This grin is often interrupted with one of my trademark cackles that result in me throwing my head back when someone says or does something hilarious. Though she is not my sole source of entertainment, my daughter's antics are increasingly becoming a major source of joy in my daily routine.

Babies are great, but so far toddlers are better. And so far 19-month-old toddlers are the best.

Nights like tonight I look at Natalie during dinner time, and I wonder what it would like to be inside her head, to be in this world of different rules, new experiences, and emerging vocabulary. She holds a fork in her left hand and a fist full of spaghetti -- her first that she's ever willingly eaten -- in her right. She shoves the pasta into her mouth only after titling her head back to look up at the ceiling.

"FAN!" she shouts.

I ask Matt what the world would be like if we all had to shove food into our mouths while looking up at the ceiling, shouting words.

She wants crackers, but they must be broken into pieces. This isn't me being cautious. This is my daughter's requirement. "Crackers! Break!"

On to the strawberries, she picks one out of the Tupperware by hand, then attaches it to her fork. She loves forks, even if in this particular circumstance they are definitely redundant. Still, it's a step in the right direction in terms of table etiquette, so I'll take it, I think as I look at my shirtless child with a tomato sauce goatee.

Today's nap ended prematurely when an ambulance's siren blazed outside our house, so our child is more tired than usual for this time of night, but after getting cleaned ("CLEAN!" she shouts at her hands and high chair tray) she runs for her Dora the Explorer ball. Then she hops into our computer chair in the living room-cum-office, playing with the Mac trackpad in a scarily precise way that makes us think she's getting ready to send some important client emails. Despite a tiny protest, we whisk her off to change for bed and prepare the night bottle. Yes, 7 months after turning a year old, she still drinks milk from a bottle in the morning, sometimes before her nap, and always before bed. It's as if the bottle is the last sign of babyhood at this point, and she's becoming increasingly detached from it, so I imagine she'll ween herself from it soon. I won't sweat it like I used to.

But while Matt is changing her upstairs and I'm finishing in the kitchen and getting the bottle ready downstairs, I can hear her crying, "Mama, mama, mama" upstairs. She's with her father, whom she adores, and who has been her primary caregiver this summer, but there's something about this primal crying for a mother that I think nearly every child shares in common. It's gratifying and heartbreaking. Baby cries did not pull at my heartstrings too much -- I knew she had basic needs that I was about to satisfy. But toddler wails when accompanied by intelligible words really get me. And I think she knows it.

As soon as I appear with the bottle, the world calms down again and I'm handed her latest favorite book, Bark, George! "George! George! Bark! George!" The little dictator calls for her two real-live dogs, "MAX! DOC!" Though I've missed most of the bedtimes in the last couple months, Matt tells me that the dogs' presence is absolutely requested at every night time reading session. First Max obliges, then Doc obliges, then Max decides he's had enough, and Natalie closes the door, only to want it open again so she can coax Max back in to no avail. Tonight Doc's presence is deemed worthy enough, so we make our way through the book while seated on the floor. She's in my lap, she's not in my lap, she's grabbing books two and three before we finish book one, but I keep going with the story we've already memorized.

When it's time for My First Real Mother Goose I'm told, "SIT!" and I remind my sweet daughter that when she wants something there's another word I need to hear. "Pweease." I hate the idea of baby talk, but this word gets me every time. So, I'm directed to the ottoman while my 19-month-old gets the plush glider. But she sits, and she listens...for the entire book. So, I'll take it. By the third nursery rhyme she has her ring finger and her middle finger in her mouth, her ultimate bedtime signal. She's arranging her bunny and stuffed dog rattle on the empty space on the chair. She's ready for her favorite song, "One, Two, Buckle My..." "SHOE!" "Three, four, knock at the..." "DOOR!"

She signals "more" when we've read the book once. "More" and "thank you" are the only two concepts she still signs instead of says. At least "more" is almost always followed by the semi-pathetic yet painfully adorable "pweease."

Satisfied with the second reading, she grabs her other favorite book these days, Romeo and Juliet: A Counting Primer. With this book, as with so many others, she reveals her own little idiosyncrasies as we run through each page. "2 Loves": she points out the "HEARTS!", her favorite shape. ("Draw hearts! Draw hearts!") "4 Roses": she leans in to sniff the page. "6 Musicians": she waves her arms in the air and says, "DANCE!" "7 Masks": She nearly blinds herself and says, "EYES!" By the time we reach the finale, "10 Kisses," she leans in to kiss me. My daughter leans in to kiss me. It is so true that love between parents and children only grows, and at this moment in history she is free with her love.

So, I grab her and put her into her Sleep Sack. We've yet to move to the blankets-only route, but maybe we will once she outgrows these last size large sacks. For now she is comfortable. And we do our kisses. And she kisses me again. We hug and I hold her tight like I used to when she was being a fussy newborn, and together we time travel to that seemingly distant but ultimately quite recent era when I held her tightly many nights in her nursery. But this time when I talk to her, she talks back. "Did you have fun today with Nana and Ashley?" "TREES!" (My sister draws trees that my daughter loves.) "Tomorrow we're going to a party!" "CAKE!" With that, I lay her in her crib and remind her that her bunny and doggy need to give her kisses, but now she not only receives kisses, she also gives kisses back. I squeeze her nose as I do every time I put her to bed, she giggles, and I know tomorrow morning she'll be ready to do it all over again. Unlike virtually any other routine in life, it's the one I always look forward to and one I'm so lucky to have.

One year with Nat

Last week our little lady turned one year old. I was thrilled. I know this may make me an atypical mom, but I can't mourn the loss of babyhood. We have had a great year with a great baby, but I am so excited for everything to come.

When Nat was two months old I mentioned how I'd be taking monthly photos of her (as all moms of babies are known to do). I kept her baby blanket and her hair bow consistent, but I dressed her in a favorite outfit from that month/clothing size. For her low-key cupcakes party we threw Sunday, I strung all her monthly photos like a clothesline (original idea again, I know) as one of our few decorations.

Here's a close-up for Nat's monthly photos:

Newborn

One month old

Two months old

Three months old

Four months old

Five months old

Six months old

Seven months old

Eight months old

Nine months old

Ten months old

Eleven months old

Twelve months old (not taken in time for the party!)

As you can probably relate (or imagine), the monthly photos have become more and more difficult to take. For example, Natalie would rather do this than sit still:

Thankfully, though, she is agreeable enough to let me get a few good, smiling shots.

Now that our child is one year old I can see just how monumentally she has changed in one short year. I look at her and think who is this little person...
who says "good dog" incessantly.
who points at everything, especially her birds on her nursery wall.
who has 10 teeth! Her first-year molars came in one week before her first birthday.
who gives her stuffed animals (and occasionally her parents) kisses.
who brings us books and demands to be read to multiple times a day.
who can not only climb onto her toy box but also (safely) off of it as well.
who initiates games of peek-a-boo.
whose first shoes are in the mail because she took her first steps Monday, two days after her first birthday.
who says "yum, yum" in imitation of me encouraging her to eat.
who dances along to all the music coming out of her many toys.

We're at a really good place right now. In retrospect, the six-month mark really was the roughest patch of her first year. Once she could sit up unassisted life got a lot better. The spit up ended around the ten-month mark. I actually remember the last time she spit up because I was wearing oddly nice clothes for a random afternoon and I thought to myself, "Of course you're spitting up on me because I'm dressed nicely." Thankfully, that was the last time we would face that problem. Finishing breast feeding was also a highly liberating experience, so liberating, in fact, that I celebrated with a girls' weekend in New York sans baby and pump.

The little bit of bad is outweighed by a whole lot of good. Indeed, it has been a very good year.

Notes about an 11 month old

I feel like Natalie's development -- gross motor skills, fine motor skills, verbal skills, personality -- has really been taking off lately. Here's a little window into our present normal.

Sleeping in
I know this is destined to end shortly, but this week Natalie has been waking up at 7 a.m. and then calmly lying in her crib until 8 a.m. This is absolutely amazing. She is happy to roll around and talk to herself and play with her stuffed animal, so I have been doing something I have wanted to do for over 11 months: take a shower first thing in the morning. Rather than waiting until her first nap of the day to shower and change clothes, doing this at the start of the day makes me feel like I'm more productive simply by being in different clothes and not looking horrible. Thank you, Natalie.


Standing
I think we are in the final pre-walking days. For the past month, but especially for the past week, Natalie has been standing on her own for increasingly long periods of time. She's not holding on to furniture or me. I try not to make a big deal to her about the fact that she's standing because I feel like she doesn't even realize what she's doing, and often when that moment of realization sets in she'll plop back down on the floor. I keep trying to coax her into walking to me. She is almost there.

Sharing
Natalie's awareness of others seems to be increasing. She likes to hand me books and toys, particularly her blocks from a new favorite toy (this Melissa and Doug Shape Sorting Cube). I keep saying "thank you" and using the word "sharing," but I also know we will hit the toddler "mine" stage somewhere down the road. I think our play group helps Natalie with the concept of sharing, but she is also known to gladly take toys right out of the hands of her little friends, so I know this will be an ever-developing skill. In the last week Natalie has started feeding me Cheerios. If you want to witness something heart-melting, see the smile on my baby's face when she puts a Cheerio in my mouth. It is my second favorite new thing she does.

Rejecting food
But, speaking of food, this has been a major source of tension these last few days. Many foods that Natalie gladly ate in large quantities are no longer cool with her right now. These foods can be homemade or store-bought, they can be finger foods or purees, they can be healthy or not-so-healthy -- it really doesn't matter, she's not interested. I hear this is a phase and we appear to be in it. 


Pointing
I've been pointing at pictures and words in books for all of Natalie's life, and now she is starting to mimic this action. Watching her "read" her books has been quite entertaining.

Mama
Another heart-melting moment came last Friday when Natalie started saying "mama." Although I wish she didn't exclusively say this when crying (and therefore turn it into "mamamamamaa mama") I appreciate the cuteness of the fact that she seems to be aware of me and my name.

Dancing
Hands down Natalie's best trick is dancing. It started last week when we were listening to music while feeding her dinner, and Matt and I started throwing our hands up in the air. Natalie started throwing her hands in the air, and we kept repeating, "Let's dance! Let's dance!" Then a day later Natalie started dancing by bobbing her head from side to side any time one of her musical toys started playing. Now, most of the time, she will dance on command with some combination of head bobbing, arm throwing, knee bouncing, giggling and squealing. Sometimes I feel like I'm treating Natalie like a sideshow monkey when I tell her to dance, but watching her sheer joy is overwhelmingly worth it. It is my absolute favorite.

Let there be peace and Cheerios

In her 10-and-a-half months on this planet, Natalie has developed some decent gross motor skills at a reasonably fast rate. Climbing up -- and now apparently down -- all the stairs in our house is her favorite pastime. But her fine motor skills? Not so much. That's why Natalie's latest milestone, figuring out how to feed herself Cheerios, has been especially impressive.

Impressive to me, that is. I am sure this is not impressive to anyone else. But watching her successfully get Cheerios from her placemat into her mouth has been one more milestone that has made our collective lives easier.

Now I can toss some Cheerios on her placemat while I prepare the rest of her meal, and she doesn't scream the way she used to while turning impatient.

Now I can eat my lunch while she contentedly feeds herself Cheerios.

These last couple weeks there's been this renewed peace in our household, all thanks to fine motor skills and Cheerios.

Dog, how fitting

I've been waiting for about a week to make it official, but I think we have our first word here: "dog."

Natalie has been saying "dada" for a couple months, but she doesn't really say it to Matt. She never says "mama," but I can ask her, "Where's mama?" and about half the time she at least points at me.

But "dog"! This is where we're starting to see more consistency.

One of the dogs approaches her: "Dog."

Her sort-of creepy Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Puppy starts singing: "Dog."

She crawls over to the bookshelf and pulls out the one non-baby book I let her play with, the one filled with photos of dogs: "Dog."

At first I thought this was a total fluke, so I didn't want to get excited. But she only says "dog" when there's some type of dog -- real, fake, or in book form -- nearby.

It is clear who rules this house.

My routine with a 7-month old

I've written about Natalie's sleep schedule before as well as the unpredictable nature of life with a baby that makes the concept of a routine challenging. Although I am destined to jinx it by writing about it, for roughly the past month I've finally felt like I've got a reasonably set routine with Natalie.

I still divide my day into pre-nap and post-nap chunks. Thankfully, around the time Natalie turned 7 months old she went from three naps a day to two, and that has made a huge difference in my general happiness. Fewer naps = increased ability to get out of the house. Incidentally, the 7-month mark is also right when Natalie started crawling, so she is at last reasonably happy playing a little by herself on the floor with me nearby.

I'm always curious about the routines of babies and stay-at-home parents, so here's what my present daily routine looks like.

Wake up routine, pre-nap 1: 7:30-10:30 a.m.

• Natalie wakes up between 7:30 and 8:30.
• Get my breakfast ready before getting her from her crib (I typically feed myself while feeding her).
• Change her and breastfeed her immediately.
• Read some books together because this is when she's most quiet and agreeable.
• Play in the Exersaucer/on the floor. She is most agreeable to independent play this time of day.
• Go down for nap 1 around 10-10:30.

Post-nap 1: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

• Natalie typically wakes up from nap 1 around 11:30 a.m. No matter what, nap 1 is consistently one hour long. During that hour I've usually taken a shower, done a couple chores, read some internets...
• Upon waking up from nap 1 breastfeed her immediately.
• Feed her solid meal 1 of the day.
• This is the best time of day for activities outside the house. On those rare days when I don't have something planned outside the house I take Natalie for a walk or run some errands with her. Staying home all day is unpleasant for her and me.
• Go down for nap 2 around 2-2:45.

Post-nap 2, pre-bedtime: 4-7 p.m.

• Natalie typically wakes up from nap 2 around 4 p.m. No matter what, nap 2 is consistently longer than nap 1, usually one hour 15 minutes or one-and-a-half hours long. During that time I've usually eaten a late lunch, done some more household maintenance and maybe even a little something I enjoy, like reading a book.
• Upon waking up from nap 2 breastfeed her immediately.
• By this time Matt is typically home from work, so we try to go on a long dog walk if we don't have other commitments. Although I'm more likely to schedule excursions during the post-nap 1 phase of the day, we do sometimes makes plans for the late afternoon.
• Feed her solid meal 2 of the day with Matt, if possible, to establish the concept of family dinner time.
• Try to read to her some more, if she'll take it.
• Play in the Exersaucer/on the floor. This is the time of day when Natalie does best when we're interacting with her a lot.
• Start the bedtime routine by 6:45 p.m. We still give her a bath every other day unless she seems particularly messy or we've done something out of the ordinary, like gone to the pool that day. Once she's changed for the night she's either breast or bottle fed and then rather immediately falls asleep.
• Natalie is usually asleep by 7 p.m. but almost always by 7:30 p.m. at the latest.

On this schedule, Matt and I find ourselves eating dinner on the later side, usually around 8 p.m. We get in a couple hours of together time before it's time for Matt to turn in for the night in preparation for his early morning wake up for work.

Helping Natalie transition to a two-nap-a-day schedule has not only allowed us greater flexibility in making plans, but it has also allowed Natalie to start falling asleep for naps and bedtime more quickly. Although getting her to sleep usually has never been a challenge, the crying is even less now than it was before, which is probably a good signal that she's appropriately tired when it's time for sleep and she's struck a good balance for herself between sleep time and awake time.

Natalie turns 8 months old next week, and at that point I want to begin feeding her three solid meals a day. So, her routine will adjust slightly with the addition of "breakfast," but hopefully the routine will not change much.

6 months with Nat

I cannot believe that as of today Natalie has been in our life for half a year, but I also cannot believe that on the eve of her six-month birthday, Natalie's first tooth erupted. For posterity's sake, it's her front bottom right tooth, her central incisor, and the left one is not far behind. I can't get photographic evidence of the tooth quite yet, but I can share today's 6-month photo shoot, in which at least I can tell the difference in her smile/the shape of her mouth (and the fact that she's holding her tongue differently).

(Sidenote: Her dress, which she's still growing into, is an adorable little number from Hanna Andersson. We received several gifts from this line when she was born. The clothes are painfully cute albeit fairly expensive for baby/kid's clothes, so they make a perfect gift.) 

Good news: Natalie's tooth erupted without a fuss from the little lady. Now I am convinced that we were, in fact, dealing with teething pain a couple weeks ago, but the actual eruption doesn't appear to have bothered her much.

A developmental milestone I've been happily anticipating is almost here. Natalie can almost sit up by herself. Right now she can support herself for upwards of 10 seconds. It will be so lovely when we can put her on her blanket with some toys and she can entertain herself for a longer period of time without face planting.

She might start crawling soon, but for now she seems to do best scooting backward. Is that considered crawling? Maybe we'll save that one for the seven-month mark.

A milestone I've just met is six months of exclusively breastfeeding Natalie. There is nothing easy about breastfeeding (a nurse told me that just because it's natural doesn't mean it's easy -- nicely stated!). Still, I am fortunate that my experience has been relatively easy in the scheme of things, and I hope to continue breastfeeding for a while.

Although I'm not trying to share every last detail of Natalie's development, this is a virtual baby book of sorts. And I will say that every milestone, however mundane, seems miraculous when it's happening to your child.