Future firefighter

Natalie and I had a great time touring the fire department yesterday. She loves fire trucks, and getting to climb inside one was a pretty exciting thing. I was amazed to learn that I can stand up straight inside a fire truck. Those things are huge! Natalie left with her own firefighter's hat, and she was in 7th heaven.

Suddenly Two

Natalie celebrated her 2nd birthday 2 days after Christmas. A few days later I looked at her and thought, where did my baby go? She is adorable, and she is definitely a little girl now. Although she's still my baby, she's not a baby. Anyway, enough of the semantics. She is growing! She has more hair. She has more personality. She rides a trike. It is so exciting to see her grow up! This is Natalie at age 2, age 1, and as a newborn.

Snoozer

Dave took a great sleeping photo of Natalie...

and it reminded me of a photo of her wrapped up in the same blanket when she was just 2 months old.

How time flies. In some ways, it's hard to believe this is the same person! What a difference 18 months makes.

Make yourself a dang quesadilla!

Natalie's lunch of choice (well, I guess it's my choice) is the quesadilla. Simple and easy, and I just discovered how amazing they turn out when I heat them in a cast-iron skillet! Lately, Natalie enjoys peeling her quesadilla wedges apart. She always eats the cheese, and only sometimes eats the tortilla. Perhaps she's intent on living a low-carb lifestyle. That would explain why she licks the butter off her slices of bread, or tries to bite the bread in such a way that she maximizes butter and minimizes bread intake.
But back to the repetitive lunches. Do any of you seasoned lunch makers or lunch eaters have ideas for a toddler lunch food besides the magic quesadilla? We're trying to avoid giving her peanut butter until she's 2; otherwise PB&J would be my preference.

How will our garden grow?

We planted our garden last Friday! We've got grape tomatoes, various peppers, squash, zucchini, and cucumber. And we have some big tomatoes we still need to plant. Mysteriously, one of the cucumber plants has vanished. Only a string is left. It was pretty sickly just after we planted it, so I guess it's not a big loss. I'm hoping to replace it with an eggplant, but our local garden center is sold out. We also have dill, a few plants I'm growing from seeds, and strawberries a friend gave us. Here's photos of our little plants. Hopefully this post isn't too boring; I just think it's so fun to see these things growing! Last year we were amazed by how our tomatoes took off, so we expanded things this year, and I'm dreaming of the fresh veggies to come.... I added a photo of Natalie filching tulip bulbs. I thought only rabbits did that!

Recovery time

Natalie's under the weather. Yesterday she finished lunch and then snuggled in my lap all afternoon, sleeping off and on. I knew something was up because usually this is her prime time of day for being busy, thirsty, or cranky, but never snuggly. Sure enough, she had a temperature. Thankfully it's not anything serious. So I am enjoying the snuggle time while it lasts.

We have a winner!

We have some gold medals (a.k.a. foil-covered chocolate coins strung with ribbon) leftover from a church activity and Natalie has enjoyed playing with them. Since she hadn't figured out that they were edible, she didn't really need to be supervised with them, right? So she wore a necklace (I mean medal) to the grocery store tonight, and on the drive home Dave and I were chatting away, not even wondering why we weren't hearing anything from the backseat. Well, she figured out the secret of the gold medals. This is what we saw when we got home. Click on the photos to get the full effect.

Natalie's new dress

I made Natalie a dress out of a man's button-down shirt! The front of the shirt becomes the back of the dress, and the back yoke of the shirt becomes the front of the dress. I found the idea on craftster.org, and modified the sleeves a bit. I think she looks pretty darn cute.

Come again?

Natalie shows us what a big girl she is, feeding herself and sharing some of her favorite words.

Tuning Us out Already?

Just had to post this great photo of Natalie wearing some serious headphones. She's got her juice (or Doo, as she says), so she's happy.

More Outdoor Adventures

We've been playing outside a lot lately because the weather is beautiful! The leaves are just starting to pop out on the trees, and today we even saw some flowering cherry trees in bloom. As the dirty drool on her shirt proves, Natalie continues to insist on re-learning the first rule of the outdoors. Our neighbors keep telling me that everyone needs to eat a peck of dirt before they die. Gross!
In a couple of the photos, Natalie's fists are clenched around something. In one hand she has a rock, and in the other she has a chunk of broken pavement. She is always picking up treasures, and she's very reluctant to put them down. Last night, she was visiting with a little dog, and she couldn't pet it because her hands were full of treasures. Even the prospect of petting a dog couldn't make her let them go!
In another photo, she's walking up to our neighbor's door. She walks from door to door, and occasionally (if she can get close enough before I redirect her) she'll kind of pound/knock on the door to say hello! I think she's wanting them to open the door so she can practice stepping up to the door and back down to the stoop.

A Taste of Spring

While I was cleaning up the backyard this afternoon, Natalie learned the first rule of the outdoors: dirt doesn't taste good. She picked some out of a planter, and the rest was history. The little dirt eater next to Natalie is Dave. He's probably about the same age as Natalie in this photo. The only difference is, Dave was enjoying it.

I See a Fire Truck

Natalie has a fun new ride-on toy. It's a fire truck, and she loves it! I bought it at a WeePeats sale last weekend and because of the background noise at the sale I didn't realize how loud and Barney-esque this toy's music is. Of course, when Natalie rides the fire truck, she keeps her thumbs firmly planted on the buttons that make the music play. So it hiccups several times, then runs through a great rendition of "I See a Fire Truck." If you're not already familiar with this song, don't click this link! Save yourself!

King Kong, Eat Your Heart Out

You know you're having more fun playing with your toddler's toys than she is when....

I constructed an Empire State Building replica out of Mega Bloks, complete with blonde girl hanging off, and tried to get Natalie to pose as King Kong. I think her drool makes it more realistic, don't you? As you can see in one of the pictures, Natalie's more interested in my camera than the building. She is, first and foremost, a technophile.

Six Quiet Dogs

Last night we were going through Natalie's bedtime routine, and I picked a book to read. It's Doggies: A Counting and Barking Book, by Sandra Boynton. Natalie loves dogs (huge understatement), so this book is a favorite for obvious reasons. But it's a little intimidating to me, because 95% of the book requires the reader to bark like a dog. Actually, like many different dogs. And last night I learned that my dog barks could use some work.

Apparently, Dave has never heard me read this book before. He started snickering quietly at first, and then by the time I got to dog number 3, he was unable to control the laughter, and consequently neither was I. That's probably because at 3, you have to make the following doggie sound: "...nnn...nnn...nnn...." Dave's really good at this one. I can think of 2 reasons for this. His family's dog, Sadie, makes this sound on a regular basis. And also, he's a boy. I really think he's hard-wired to imitate noises well, be they machine guns, Yoda's voice, or a dog's bark. Sure, I know exactly how these things sound in my head, but somewhere between that and actually recreating the sound, there's a disconnect. Are there any girls out there who excel at making such noises? If so, I applaud you. Please come over and read my daughter a book. Because now I can't read Doggies without laughing at myself.

More? You want Moooorrrrre?

Hooray for sign language! Natalie has mastered one sign--More! She uses it mostly to ask for food, but has been known to also request more books with it as well. In DiBella's the other day, she tried to convince me to give her more of a sub that was sitting on someone else's table! So for Natalie, the more sign basically means "I want that!"(Napoleon Dynamite, anyone?)

In the photo, Dave's holding a juice box and Natalie is repeatedly signing more. This was her first experience with a juice box and she was thrilled with it. Usually Natalie's juice is diluted with water, and I think she finds anything with a straw extra exciting.

Dave was giving her bites of his homemade egg mcmuffin the other morning and immediately after each bite she would start signing more. Natalie knows that sometimes we're slow to respond, or to see the silent signs, so she wasn't wasting any time. Anyone know the signs for chew and swallow?

I was hoping she'd start to do some other signs, and perhaps she will get into these eventually. She'll occasionally do all done. It's just not as high up on her toddler chain-of-command as the all-important MORE! This has been such a great breakthrough on both sides of the highchair tray--we know what she wants (or at least that she wants something) and she knows how to tell us.

Jog, Interrupted

Last night was a beautiful evening for a jog. A little windy, but otherwise perfect. So I got dressed, transformed Natalie into a blueberry (see photo from another day), loaded her into the jogging stroller, and we were off! Unfortunately, once I got a mile or so away from the house, and I was starting to feel proud of myself for pushing through the wind, Natalie just couldn't take anymore. Crying, runny nose, the works. Even my keys and my water bottle wouldn't make her happy.

Normally I might just turn the stroller around and head home, but she is sick, and I felt guilty for making her sad. And then I started wondering, what was I thinking taking a child with an ear infection out for a jog? Does that jogging stroller even work right? Is it supporting her back at all? So I picked her up and walked. All the way back. While pushing the stroller with my free hand. Argh! As one friendly walker we passed pointed out to me, "This makes it a total body workout!"

Let's hear it for searing pain in my upper arms! But on the plus side, Natalie stopped crying and snuggled into my neck on the way back, which makes it all worthwhile.