Wading Pool

It has finally gotten hot enough to enjoy the wading pool at the park by our house here. Natalaie likes to squirm and splash and stand in the shallow water.

It has been HOT here (in the 90s), but at least its not 105 like in Atlanta :)

We have agreed together that we would like to become more healthy. I have been walking regularly, but I think it's time to kick up the game and jog. I got a sweet jogging outfit to motivate me! We have been eating more veggies and trying to eat smaller portions of not-so-good foods. I made these oatmeal cookies without all the sugar and added shredded zuccini, almonds and cranberries and they are pretty yummy. I learned that acorn squash is pretty yummy just cut in half and baked for half an hour and grapes are yummy with romaine lettuce. I have made granola a couple of times- it goes great in the tons of greek yogurt I got for free with coupons! Its fun. And Natalie is only a little annoyed at the time I spend in the kitchen. She has had a few really good moments in the past couple of days when she just played by herself for a while. She is definitely learning to inch forward!

Aside from all that, this week has been pretty turbulent. First the immigration ruling, then the ACA ruling, then the vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt. Floods in FL, forest fires in CO, major storms along the northeast, civil war in Syria. And, most upsetting- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are getting divorced! j/k, don't really care that much about that. But it's not a bad time to re-evaluate our conscious and make sure we're ready for the second coming!

The Positive

ME: I guess I should make a blog post that is more positive.
MICAH: Why?
ME: So people can stop feeling bad for us.
MICAH: Yeah, I think my parents think we're dying.
ME: Well, some days we are.

BUT! Even though it's hard and we are operating on very little sleep and often are sore from toting this kid around, it's not all gloom and doom. Sometimes she has fun, cute moments and she is definitely growing annd changing a lot.

She is becomming way skilled very quickly at rolling and sitting. She also does a pretty secent swirl on her tummy to change where she is facing. When she is happy enough to be left alone to play, she often ends up several feet away from where I put her down. She's a major sqirmer and it's tough to keep her on her back long enough to finishe changing her diaper- especially when she's unhappy. I can see a little bit of fine white hair coming in, so she's not totally bald.

We all enjoyed a nice weekend last Saturday, exploring the freedom trail in Boston. Natalie was in awe by a lot of the sights.

But we also enjoyed some of this through the afternoon.

 Here we are at the Old North Church

 This church honoring the Boston Massacre was my very favorite sight of all because there in a unicorn on the upper right corner of the facade.

 Natalie totally owns strawberries. She can pick them up and gum at them til nothing but the core is left.

And, as expected, Sammy is starting to see the great advantage of having a baby around: more dropped food.

 This cracked me up. Natalie chewing on Sammy's toy and him looking at me like, "Well? Aren't you going to do something about this?!?"



Once Upon a Time...

... there was a little baby princess. We'll call her Natalimpossible. Poor little Natalimpossible was a very difficult baby. She would cry and scream often, arching her back as if in pain, writhing around when held and waking very frequently at night. The only things that comforted the baby were nursing and being carried. As she approached 6 months of age, she worsened until she could never be put down without great distress and she was waking every 60-90 minutes throughout the night. First, the concerned King and Queen sought a variety of explanations, from colic to teething. Eventually, as no medical cause could be found, it was determined that Natalimpossible was cursed with the worst of conditions: a demon called "a high-needs temperment". This plague would inflict the girl perhaps her whole life. The princess continued to grow more and more fussy until the Queen was carrying Natalimpossible all day long, leading to great back pain, and tending to her crying all night, which led to grumpiness, impatience and general misery. The Queen grew exhausted and resentful, feeling her needs for rest would never be met. The King, when not occupied by the needs of the kingdom, tried to help little Natalimpossible as much as he could, but things only seemed to worsen. Finally one night, after little Natalimpossible's 5th time waking , the Queen brought Natalimpossible into the royal bedchamber with her so that she would not need to get up every time the infant sought comfort. The King, concerned that his manly stature would crush the small child in his sleep, left the bedchamber to sleep on the couch along with the royal canine. The King and Queen, both exhausted, extensively researched the terrible curse. Unfortunately, though the archives included many a tale of similairly impossible babies, there seemed to be no cure except to try to meet the baby's endless needs as much as possible. This result did not satisfy the Queen, who was at her wits end constantly carrying the child, who no weighed as much as three sacks of sugar, and spending most of the night tending to her. The Queen slumped into depression and would that she had remained a maiden rather than care for little Natalimpossible and Natalimpossible hated life and was utterly miserable for all of her days. The end.

Only 13 More Months

Until Natalie can go to nursery and we can get something out of Sunday School again! Seriously, she has learned fast. I mean, they say that infants can not manipulate, they only react to needs. Natalie has already figured out that if she cries in church, she goes out in the hall, where it is noisy and less boring. It is so annoying to go out in the hall, get her perfectly settled and happy, and then have her fuss right as you try to go back into class.

In other news, Natalie is on the brink of getting a tooth or two. She is incredibly grumpy (even for her) and presses everything to her gums. She is happy if she is being held constantly and given nice things to chew. Or, as we learned from my sister's family visiting last night, if she is sufficiently distracted. Even our daily walks, which used to be a fail-safe method of making her happy, have become miserable as she begins crying halfway into the walk and will not stop until she gets picked up. If she is just left to herself, she just screams in agony. She has been waking up a TON at night- sometimes only lasting 15-30 minutes asleep at a time before screaming again. We have tried Tylenol and Orajel without much success. Hoping it comes soon so she can go back to sleeping 2-3 hours at a time. Our cry-it-out training was really effective the first few nights, but, perhaps because of the teething, it suddenly stopped working so well. Now she doesn't give up and accept that we aren't coming. She just cries and cries and cries. Sunday, she cried for over an hour then woke up only an hour and a half later and returned to crying. Urgh.

I am gearing up to teach a class on building food storage on the cheap through couponing for our church's Preparedness and Self-Reliance Fair. It should be fun. I think I'm going to have a booth set up with a few piles of products and invite folks to guess the retail price and whoever gets closest wins the stuff. Who doesn't like a fun guessing game? I have collected a bunch of free toothbrushes, razors and Yakisoba noodles in recent weeks for the purpose.

Micah continues to work. He can't discuss what he's working on. It's highly classified. Just kidding. He's making measurements or something like that. Some days he likes it and some days he doesn't.

Last weekend we were all pretty sick and didn't get to go do our fun day in downtown Boston. Being sick and having to take care of a sick baby is horrible. Thank goodness Micah was getting over it as we were just starting it so he took care of us a lot.

Natalie officially rolls both ways in a directed, deliberate and non-accidental way. Last night she caused the first mess of her emerging mobility, knocking over a potted plant and spilling dirt. Precious! The carpet here is so old and gross, it will be a big relief to be back home and let her slither all over without fear for what she might touch.

Some random shots: