Thursday, December 04, 2008
Another month gone by and quite a few updates...
I really need to get better with my updates here! Since I have given my husband the URL, it will be especially important as this will kind of be a way to keep him up-to-date on what Natalie is doing these days.The adjustment hasn't been easy on any of us, that's for sure. With John in South Korea, it's just the two of us here at my older sister's. I'm trying to prepare for our final move as much as possible, but I will admit, it's INSANELY overwhelming. So far, I'm going on the premise of having only one check-in bag and one carry on for each of us and then my laptop bag (which I still have to buy) and a bag that will have a few of Natalie's items in it, like pull-ups, paper, crayons, etc. That's not much. Natalie still has a lot of clothes, clothes she's VERY quickly growing out of! I did her first height measurement here and was VERY shocked to see she had had somehow found time in all of the insanity to have a growth spurt! And it was a HUGE ONE! She went from 35 3/8 inches October 22nd to 36 1/2 inches November 22 and I can narrow it down even more. We went to Chicago the 5th of November and Natalie wore an outfit down there that is MUCH shorter on her now. It wasn't that short when we went down there because if it was, she would not have worn it. So, her growth spurt occurred within a 13 day period. It really boggles my mind how this happens, it really does. How in the world does a child literally grow an inch overnight! Just crazy.
So overnight, she went from being in 2 and 3T clothes to being in 3 and 4T clothes. Grr. I do not have very many 4T clothes. Most of the stuff I got over the summer was 2 and 3T because she hadn't grown very much and darn it, John and I are both SHRIMPS! But, I'm starting to think that maybe John's dad's genes are kicking in height-wise? His dad was over 6 feet tall, I believe so um, should be interesting to see where Natalie ends up. The thing is, she may now have passed her cousin in height. I keep trying to find out from my sister but she hasn't taken the time to measure the kids along the wall like I do. Knowing the height of your kid(s) is VERY important in my opinion because you need to know so that you can buy clothes for them because OBVIOUSLY, the stupid sizes are not accurate! Still, I'm boggled because a YEAR ago, she was in 18 month clothes and not long before that, she was still in 12 month clothes! I have pictures of her from LAST fall in a couple of 12 month outfits that were too big for her the year before. She didn't wear them long but she went from 12 months to 4T! I don't get it!
A few other things have seem to hit overnight as well. Natalie's imagination has taken some HUGE leaps and bounds. I don't know if it's been because she's been hanging out with her nine year old cousin or what but she really has picked up an imagination. For about a year now, she's had a set of blocks, a set that I split in half because the original amount of 130 was just WAY too overwhelming for a two year old. Splitting that into two gave Natalie 65 blocks which was just fine. These are just plane wooden, unpainted blocks (well, except for the ones she painted with crayon marks) and I'm just amazed as to what she comes up with when it comes to what her blocks are. For example, today, she decided that one of her blocks was a hammer and when you looked at it, it kind of does have that kind of shape as it was sort of a half arch with a blunt end that sort of resembled a hammer head. So she was using this to "build" her castle which was fine until she decided she wanted to hammer on the WALLS and then I had to remind her to hammer on her castle. She likes building castles and really going all out in making them tall. I'm very impressed with how well she stacks the blocks too, she can get some of them really high. Here was one of her creations that she was building in stages:
Here the castle is half done.
And here is the finished product.Castles are not the only thing she has built. One time, I came up a little duck enclosure she had made with a number of her little ducks inside of it. I thought that was pretty neat and very creative. Blocks also get used to make food. Her favorite foods to make are cake and pie. She likes to make them and then serve them on her tea party dishes. She serves me cake and pies A LOT. She's also into making other foods with things other than her blocks. Yesterday, she used this egg we got her from a cloth diaper shop in Madison to pretend to make eggs. She rapped the egg against the bowl, pretending to crack it open then made eggs. She also pretends to make soup and ice cream. The ice cream, the makes using the balls from her Castle Works set from Discovery Toys I got her for her birthday last year. It's amazing the things she comes up with. I've been letting John know he needs to look for kitchen sets in Korea as well as pots and pans and things because she's already starting to look at MY appliances! She was after my mixer recently!
The fun doesn't end there though! She runs around the house pretending to be either a princess or a monster. She has a princess outfit she likes to wear. The top part of it is a leotard so she uses that as a swimming suit and pretends to go swimming. The skirt she wears to be a princess, with or without the leotard or to dance which she also likes to do. She has really gotten on a school kick lately too! She's really, REALLY been wanting to go to school! Her cousin Danielle goes to school and Natalie and I went with when they all went to conferences so Natalie got to see a school and she's got this idea now that she wants to go to preschool only she calls it "free" school, lol. So, she'll play act it and usually when she does that, I'm Natalie and she's the mommy and she'll wake me up by going "cockadoodledo!" and then it's time to "drive" to school and so she'll pretend to drive which is really cute. So she "drives" to "free" school and then it's time to go home so she "drives" back home. It's really cute. I have no idea how I'm going to be able to get through to her that she's going to be homeschool but maybe having the chance to go to school with John will help out a little. He's actually teaching kids not much older than Natalie now. In Korea, they determine age by conception date so based on that, Natalie will be four in late March/early April and since John is teaching 4-6 year olds (again based on conception age), she'll just about fit in but considering this is an ESL school, she may even be ahead since she's been speaking English since she started talking. So, should be interesting to see how that all goes, whether she'll pick up any Korean from any of the kids over there.
One thing for sure, it is NEVER dull around here, Natalie has reached a VERY exciting age and I don't see that changing anytime soon, especially if she has the imagination I did when I was little.
I will have to update more later, maybe with more pictures too but for now, it's time for bed as my little princess will be up in eight hours or less.
| posted by Janeen at 11:10 PM
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Tami of BrooksGroth had this to say:
Natalie sounds delightful and so much fun! :-)
