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: