Development

Natalie has been growing a lot. Lately, she has been saying a lot of new words and can repeat things that we say more easily. She's also putting words together into phrases and responding to questions. For example, we had this lovely conversation last week:
*Natalie rolling on the ground with some fabric scraps*
Me: Natalie, I think it's time for a nap
Natalie: No
Me: Why not?
Natalie: still fun *continues rolling around*
She's also becoming more self-conscious and just scowls when nice people at the store or park try to tell her how cute she is.

This week, we will be babysitting a 4-month-old all day, every day. It will be interesting to see how Natalie responds to her. It should be manageable- her mom and her previous babysitter insist that she's a very easy-going baby. And she doesn't move yet, so Natalie shouldn't feel too threatened. Also, she's not so young and delicate that I have to worry about Natalie snapping off her head. Natalie is very curious about all of these "new" toys that I dug out for the baby.

It should provide a welcome distraction as Micah comes down to his last week of preparation before the conference. I'm taking Natalie and the dogs to visit my Dad in NC while Micah's  gone the week after. My biggest concern is that Natalie will be bored and scream the whole time and the dogs will howl and it will just be very, very annoying. I'm considering moving her car seat to forward-facing just so that she is entertained by the novelty of it.

In unrelated news, check out these awesome bagels I made. They are from a copycat recipe for Einstein Bros Bagels everything bagels. They were AMAZING and probably contained about 1200 calories each.

I've been super clumsy lately, spilling and dropping things. Around 10 am the other day, I dropped Natalie's cup of milk as I was trying to get the sippy cup lid on. It was my 3rd large spill that morning. I'm so glad I have the dogs around! They simplify cleanup considerably. 

And as it's gotten colder, we've been pulling out all of the long pants that still fit Natalie. She realized yesterday that she could put her hands down her overalls but then couldn't figure out how to get them out. Ha!