Natalie's World

Natalie is five!

2010-12-31T23:41:00.002-06:00

And boy will she tell you all about it too! lol She spent her birthday literally saying every so many minutes, I'm FIVE! It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, the holidays kind of messed things up. Her birthday this year fell on a Monday right after Christmas and New Year's followed the next Saturday. I would still like to set up something for her though and I think we're going to make plans to go bowling. At the very least, we'll do it as a family but invite a couple of her friends to join too if they would like. I just need to call and get prices for it.

She got a few presents the day before her birthday. Her aunt Debbie sent a whole bunch of wrapped presents so I let her open a couple of them. She got so many things from her, I can't even remember them all and she still has another box to send! It was good though because we had no money and the only present we had for her therefore was the one I bought her shortly after she was born.

I did bake her a cake; it was a homemade chocolate cake with homemade cream cheese frosting. It was a very yummy cake but it didn't look very pretty lol. I had some trouble getting the cake out of the pan so it got a little messed up. Natalie decided she wanted to go to the Rotary Lights. She had never seen them before so she really wanted to see them. We went, taking the bus downtown and meeting John down there but we couldn't walk around there too long, it was SO COLD! Even Natalie started to complain about the cold. But she loved the lights and thought they were all very pretty. Getting home proved to be interesting as we missed our stop and ended up on the bus another 40 minutes. I was not too thrilled with that. Dinner was banana pancakes and we had that, cake and ice cream, and presents. She loved everything she got, especially the Beauty and the Beast VHS (we currently have a VCR but the only DVD play we have is on my computer). She liked the candles we put on her cake too, they had colored flames which was very neat to a five year old.

The next day we went out and got her a few things ourselves since John got paid. We went to Once Upon a Child and Wal-Mart and bought her some stuff including Play Dough (this might not have been quite so smart a move since the play dough is NOT getting back into the canisters and is instead getting all over the floor). She loves all of her toys but I can't help but think she's a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of toys in her play room. I may have to cut down on some of what she has, just have to figure out how. Her doll house has been put together though she already managed to partially break a closet by sitting on it.

The end of the week was pretty exciting for her too. She had her one friend over Thursday when I babysat her for her mom and Friday, there was a family New Year's Eve thing down at the local convention center. She got to bounce in a bounce house, go down a HUGE slide, and go through an inflatable obstacle course. She also did crafts, got her face painted, and got a balloon flower. Then, at midnight, we watched the local fireworks from our deck outside. It was COLD out but she loved them.

This has been quite a week and she's been quite a hoot these days too, especially since lately, she's convinced that we gave her Isabelle for her birthday. Too funny.

For the new year and because we now have two little girls, not just one, I have decided to end this blog. I will be keeping it up (I do have five years of Natalie history on here after all) but will no longer be posting new entries. The new blog can be found here: http://natalieandisabelle.blogspot.com/.

Getting used to a new sibling isn't easy.

2010-10-31T21:01:00.002-05:00

Especially when you don't get to meet that sibling in person for almost three months. I had Isabelle back in July. John and Natalie did not return to the US until October 9th. Now, there were times I talked to them online but really, for a four year old, that's not very tangible. So in a sense, Natalie was kind of thrust into the role of big sister pretty abruptly. Not that most kids don't go through the same thing but Natalie had the additional stress of leaving the country that had been her home for more than a year and a half and returning to the country of her birth that she probably didn't remember all too well and what she did remember was not what she came home to because home was a different city altogether. So to have ALL of that on her when meeting her new baby sister, not to mention having been away from me for five months, it's not surprising that the adjustment hasn't been entirely easy for her. Though, to be honest, she has done pretty well considering. She's a little on the aggressive side with her sister at times, very much wanting to be in her face (especially when she's eating) but her reaction for the most part hasn't seemed to be any different from the reaction of most kids her age getting a new sibling. I'm sure when my little sister was born, I was just as much of a pain in the neck. lol

Getting used to being back in the US has been somewhat of a challenge. She misses the couple of friends she had in Korea, in particular a friend she made while going to the Korean day care and her best friend Lillian who is the daughter of a friend of mine over there that I got to meet shortly after Natalie and I got to Korea. Sadly, Natalie didn't get to see Lillian after I left as they lived two/three hours by subway away from us which is a bit of a trip when you think about it. I'm hoping at some point they'll be able to communicate in some way and eventually even meet up when they come to the US to visit (my friend Laura is American but is married to a Korean and has lived in South Korea for a number of years) but who knows how it will all go or even if Natalie will remember much of her time overseas when she's older. It's hard to say. I remember a number of things from my fifth year but then I also remember my second birthday so it just kind of depends on the person, I guess.

So, things have been kind of tough and it doesn't help that they come back just a few weeks before Halloween. John doesn't celebrate Halloween or Christmas or Easter or really any of the traditional holidays with the exception of the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. He celebrates Holy Days, ones that he hasn't really bothered to celebrate in a few years so when it comes to family traditions/rituals, we don't really have any and it sucks. It really sucks because I not entirely against them myself but it's not really worth fighting with him about either. Unfortunately, the rest of the freaking world DOES celebrate these holidays and that's not easy on Natalie. So, naturally she has her own way of dealing with this and it's through play. I baby sat for a friend of mine who has a five year old girl. I watched them play and it had elements of Halloween in it. They were trapped by goblins. They used these cross necklaces (the cross is a problem for John because it's a pagan symbol and he avoids anything that has a pagan origin) as keys to get themselves out of the trap. They pretended to trick-or-treat.

I feel for her and I won't forbid the play because I think it's a good way to deal with some of her dad's restrictions but I'm sure her dad isn't thrilled by the idea. It's hard to know really what to do because I don't entirely agree with the restrictions myself. It would be one thing if we had a support network on hand for these days. It would be one thing if there were kids who don't celebrate these holidays for Natalie to play with but with John still trying to figure out just what church (heck, RELIGION) he's with these days, that's not possible. Sabbath keeping churches oftentimes do not have a lot of congregations. It's not like being a Catholic or a Lutheran where you can find a church in nearly every single town big enough for a church. Some of the churches have very few congregations at all. Some have only one in the entire COUNTRY so what people have to do sometimes is tune in online. Well, that's fine and dandy for most but it's hard on me.

To add to that, John has been very bad about keeping up with Holy Days, especially the Feast of Tabernacles which is the big family deal in the church. So, we don't have that, we don't have people we know with kids Natalie can play with so starting right about now until the end of the year we get into the really sucky time of isolation because I can't attend most things due to the fact that they're usually holiday related but there's not much else to do because it's cold and freaking heading towards winter. And it's not easy on Natalie, I can see that and I don't see how it's going to get any easier for her anytime soon. John has a habit of being very isolating because he's not a social person himself and I don't really bond very well to people from Sabbath keeping religions most likely because I've yet to really feel called to that particular religion.

So, it's a lot for a little girl to handle. Natalie has had a lot to deal with in the past two years. For the most part, she's handled it all very well, considering. I think a lot of kids in her place would have gone off the deep end by now or would have massive issues like bed wetting or something like that but outside of normal behavior issues, she's been dealing pretty well. Still, I can't help but worry that this is the calm before the storm and that if we don't have trouble now, we will down the line like her teen years especially when rebellion can big time hit. I can see it happening too, maybe not in the way my family likes to predict (which is that she'll rebel by eating a large ham sandwich in front of her dad) but in some way and that kind of worries me sometimes but I try not to think about it too much at the moment because there are plenty of other things on my mind right now, like John getting a job so we can pay for this apartment in December.

The Chronicles of Natalie

2010-08-05T15:23:00.003-05:00

At some point, I found a place for Natalie to go while I work. It's not far from my school, and we call it the children's house. We do so because that's a direct translation from the Korean. It's really a small daycare run from the converted first floor apartment of 'the lady' and taking in, at this time, 5-7 other children younger than Natalie, one of whom is fairly close in age and whom she's come to know fairly well. There's not a whole lot for her to do nor learn there, and that's fine; I don't really want her anywhere on her own where attempt will be made to 'educate' her. Still, I don't want to be sure of the stability nor influence of such a place, either, because I can't be with her those hours and have to quiz her mightily in the afternoons about what her day. Daycare like that exacts quite a pretty penny for me to have to be out of her world for that many hours per day.

This week, I've had a week's vacation from teaching, and Natalie's had a week's vacation from the children's house. We've used it for together time, but not much for travel time. We did make a Tuesday trip to Seoul, to Nam Dae Mun (South Gate) and Dong Dae Mun (East Gate) marketplaces--outdoor flea markets, as they are termed--and that encompassed a lot of walking for her and carrying for me--Natalie still loves to be carried more than she prefers walking, and mainly because she knows I'll indulge her. After that day, which like it we've never had since her mother left via airplane on May 9, I decided I knew why it was good that we hadn't decided to range much farther out than the hour by bus it took us to get there. We didn't get there after 1:30 pm, but a little girl of four doesn't last long looking around booths of stuff of all descriptions and scattered, in many cases, rather than organized, almost everything of which is useless to us, if not to most others passing by. Still, the sidewalk space the sellers leave for passing by was far less inhabited than on a weekend day, so we were able to take our time and deal with ourselves without a lot of the usual unintentional .

All I know is that the week of our togetherness has passed by awfully quickly and awfully humidly. Here's a quick rundown of Friday.

9:32 Natalie wakes up, with no turning back. That means I wake up.

10:21 She’s instructing me on the ways and methods of turning the Rubik’s Cube. We’re going to the store to get eggs for pancakes. It’s already 85 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of 104.

10:38 She’s trying to show me something very important she’s doing, sticking Post-It notes she decorated with crayons onto the top of the wooden jewelry box she got in Seoul. I’m trying to write these words. Who will win? I look at her face. She will. We should get to the store.

10:49 We haven’t gotten out to the store yet, but it’s raining, so we’re waiting. Sudden, brief showers have been the most common precipitation this summer, but rain hasn’t been abundant. June and July saw average temperatures in the mid-80’s and average humidities in the upper 90 percent range, with plenty of partly sunny days. August is so far no different

10: 56 the rain has stopped and mom is calling us via MSN Messenger.

11:11 Natalie’s sitting at the window watching the intermittent rain, observing the narrow river as it flows by our building and listening to cell phone music. These days, she listens hard for thunder. She’s progressed from apprehension to fascination.

11:35 the rain has stopped. It’s 80°, heat index 91.

12:30 We go out. It’s become overcast today, but I doubt if it will rain again. Still, we’re taking our new umbrella. We got it yesterday, when, because of a sudden heavy downpour, we were walking the two blocks back from the park in the rain, without the umbrella we had decided to leave at home. By the time we reached the corner by the SK gas station, across the street from our apartment, we were both totally soaked and happily resolved to it. However, while we waited for an opportunity to cross, one of the gas station attendants came from nowhere and offered us a big rainbow-colored umbrella, saying that it was so the little girl would be protected and that we didn’t have to return it. Pretty nice, considering identical ones are sold for W5000($4.50, about). So, our last 30 yards in the rain were covered. But the rain stopped 3 minutes later, anyway.

5:30 We’ve been to the park, via a roundabout walk along the river, then back along the upper road. The park was empty when we got to it at the top of the stairs, along a wall, that lead to it. I told Natalie that she’d have to wait less than 5 minutes until there were more kids in the park, and I was right. Soon, a slightly older girl and her father showed up. The father retreated to a side of the park to smoke, while the girl gravitated to the swing where Natalie was. Natalie immediately wanted to play with her, as she always does, simply seeking companionship. So this girl ran around with her for a while, until we had to go. I’m convinced that the goal of these Korean children who meet her in the park, as well of that of the parents for them, is to be with The Little Western Girl a little while, not to befriend her. They are almost certain to never serendipitously cross paths again, so friendship is useless. But Natalie needs the encounters, so, just to have some kind of directioning comment, I tell her they are her ‘playground friends’, children she should never expect to see anywhere else, and if she ever happens to, she should not expect will engage her with the same familiarity and abandon they may on the playground.

And in fact, at our next stop, Lotte Mart supermarket, merely a stone’s throw from the apartment complex playground, we did see that first older girl who didn’t show up Wednesday at noon, as Natalie had expected. She was with her family, sitting in the cart child carrier, as Natalie was, and reacted to seeing Natalie with what I might call a quiescent interest, in contrast to Natalie’s enthusiasm. She said hello and did remember to know Natalie. But she said but few words, and only in reaction to what Natalie said; she clung to an attitude of standoffishness , for reasons I can’t begin to understand. It’s just that meetings with acquaintances outside regular channels, like playground encounters, seem not to be suitably comfortable for Korean society members, and certainly not for children with the ever-present family around them.

8:01 We’re going to the park. It’s not far, but it’s awfully dark. She never has minded the dark, if it means going to the park. Yesterday, Natalie found a toy dinosaur, but I said she had to leave it there for a day, until the owner had time to come back and look for it. Now, she wants to find out if it’s still there to claim.

9:02 It’s hard to believe we stayed at the park that long. Today, as the last few, has been partly sunny, and the ground has been wet, drying out from the last couple days of intermittent heavy raining. The park is divided between a green basketball court, upon which there were at least 30 players all pounding away at the net so late in the evening, and the still-wet sandbox of a playground surface. Natalie was happy about the sand, because she rarely encounters sand with that much promise of shaping, stacking and patting it into her particular kind of artwork. I had to do a lot of convincing to get her and her dirtied clothing out of that sand, because she found her dinosaur, a plastic squid--probably more popular here as a toy than where you are--and a big stick with which to make roads in the sand.

The Extremely Particular Girl With The Golden Touch

2010-07-19T20:24:00.003-05:00

Natalie loves grapes--except for the imperfect, not-completely-green ones and the ones at the very bottom of the bunch, which look a little squished. Indeed, I'm happy to say that she does have a couple of fruits she likes (no vegetables of note, except peas and corn, the latter which we scarcely eat here in Korea because it's scarcely available out of the can; the former which we never do because it's never been sighted by me outside the can), watermelon being one, except for the seeds and the stuff too close to the rind. Apples she loves, peeled and cut up; otherwise not: she can't bring herself to bite into a whole one. Yogurt is pleasant to her, but it has to be the smooth kind, with no fruit; in Korea, all fruit-flavored yogurt we've found contains 'real' fruit pieces.

Natalie will happily go with me to get a pizza, but insists that it not be made in typical Korean fashion--WITH corn (and what Western soul wouldn't?). She only wants to have the cheese crust pizzas, though. But then, she only ever eats the cheese crusts, anyway; well, she nibbles ONE cheese crust from ONE triangle of pizza, nevertheless claiming for herself all the cheese crusts. If I don't pack them up and take them home with us, I'll end up eating them myself. If I do take them home, they sit in cold storage until I throw them out or, yes, eat them myself, because she favors them less as the grow older. Net slices of pizza eaten, with crusts: Me, 8/Natalie: a nibble or two.

In Korea, Natalie takes on my wife's and my own penchants for avoiding spicy foods, the quizzical yet forbidding abundance of the sea Koreans (to name one culture) take for culinarily granted; the one typically Asian food she will eat is Ramen noodles. I buy the long spaghetti type in bags; she insists upon those and pasta--plain. She's never liked red sauce, and here, especially, where every sauce seems tinged with some spiciness, she turns away. She's eaten Alfredo sauce from a jar, but now doesn't like the 'black spots (pepper)' that appear in the sauce we get, so that's out, too.

she hasn't seen us overindulge in any meats at all: pork, a national staple, is out for us. We eat chicken and, occasionally, red meat, overwhelmingly hamburger. There's no turkey to be had here, except at Subway Sandwich Shops, and the cost of that is hardly ever justifiable. Anyway, no matter on the meat end, because Natalie has never in 4 years and 7 months eaten bite one of any meat at all, be it cattle, fish or fowl. We did mount a prolonged insistence during one evening meal before we came to Korea, when she was two, and succeeded in getting her to touch a small bite of chicken with her tongue. But she hasn't given meat a second thought, mostly.

So, our Natalie is fussy about food, but I'd like to attribute all that to a combination of pure childhood and a year and more of childhood outside the cultural confines of her birth country. There are certain things she is living without: a usual circle of friends, the ability to immediately and confidently communicate with the general public, the comfort of blending in to the populace without garnering the attention that Koreans hand out. In fact, attention is the best she's been able to gather in; everybody seems eager to associate with her, but kids especially don't attempt to get close. Though I realize that she's not in a position to nurture friendships now, she doesn't, and she deems everyone she plays with for more than five minutes a trusted companion. So, recently, when she encountered on a playground an English-speaking Korean girl about 3 years her senior (older girls are invariably the ones most bold in engaging her), she took it to heart when that girl made an appointment to meet her again on that same playground at a certain day and time. She spoke of it many times until the day came. Near the appointed time, she suddenly sat down with her toys and began playing fervently with her toys. I had to take the initiative to get her out the door, and I took it as a sign not of forgetfulness nor nonchalance, but of childish fear of the contact she desired. She needn't have feared. For her own reasons, the other girl never showed up. Natalie knew the direction the girl had taken in farewell the night they had parted, toward a surrounding high-rise apartment in a complex that hosted the playground, so after the allotted time I indicated that we would wait, she began to move in that direction, intending to find her. But nothing was certain, and I found myself explaining the virtues of having one's own agenda when faced with others who function according to theirs, or to none. How little or much she heard me I can't immediately say, but she's sharp enough to have a subconscious that will aid her as time goes by. So, I tell her what is needful, not minding about immediately observed results.

Our daughter does, however, have her true companions, and needs them in the absence of her true confidante, her mother; she needs a substitute to dote upon while she is separated from the infant baby sister she's experienced only via web cam. So her menagerie of stuffed animals provides a companionship that she can count on. Especially Funshine Bear is dear to her, and she would take him everywhere inside and out, if her parents' agreement didn't restrict him to this side of the apartment door. He's not the first Funshine she's had. The first, I must admit, was lost when we did have him out gadding about with us, so, at her mother's request, this second one, garnered from the Ebay internet site and just as eagerly anticipated as a reunion with any other friend; this nearly exactly equal one--visibly, it is identical, but now Funshine has phrases to speak, if we only had the batteries; silent, however, I think that it's status as the successor Funshine is as much an endearment to Natalie as the last one. If my wife will now only accept my apology for losing the first one, a gift from her to me, everything will revolve again in its accustomed universe.

In my estimation, the reason her toys and animals mean so much to her is that 1. they are there whenever she wants and needs their companionship in a world where people are the X factor, and 2. she has the imagination to fill her toy world with effervescent life. I, being, again, her only constant live and present soul, am privileged to be involved in all of it through the playing along, the voicing of characters and simply the watching over of her proceedings. She could decide to play with any of her toys, small or great, in single or in combination, and could spend hours at it, or involve herself for a short while, then suddenly feel it's time to go to the park or do something else.

That something else, if not going to the park, is most often watching Playhouse Disney--the one channel out of the more than 100 that are subscribed to here--that I allow her and myself to watch. When not that, we watch Care Bears and other movies on the computer, or, lately, we've been delving into the early days of Disney cartoons via online video sources. She's taken quite a liking to the old Silly Symphonies Disney used to put out. They tell quite various tales with often fairly instructive morals, including those of the Pied Piper, Father Noah and the Ark, and King Midas. After seeing the Golden Touch of Midas--and seeing it again, and then again I don't know how many times--she took to flitting about, imparting the Golden Touch. I became a golden statue many times, and our food, her toys and anything else within reach of her imagination turned to gold for a while in its turn. "I've got the golden touch!", she had me to know. Then I told her that no, I had the golden touch, and she restated her claim to it. We ended up trying to out-touch each other and simultaneously avoid becoming the statue-victim.

She has all the makings of a Silly Symphony herself, I think.

We got Natalie's pictures done last month.

2010-06-30T22:28:00.004-05:00

We didn't have a lot of money or a lot of time before I had to leave to head back to the US so rather than trying to find a portrait studio that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg (the one we had gone to the year before had closed unfortunately), I decided to just take pictures of Natalie in the park and then I would just develop them. There were a couple of benefits to this: one, the park was right behind our house; two, the cost of doing this would be for getting the pictures developed and I wouldn't have to pay for the actual studio time which can be quite expensive in Korea; three, no having to deal with language barriers that would make it difficult for me to get what I wanted as far as pictures went; four, natural back ground; and more that I'm not thinking of. lol Admittedly, they aren't professional pictures and I just used my fairly simple camera but to be honest, having taken Natalie to Wal-Mart in the past, I think the pictures I took were better (especially since we have had the WORST luck getting some REALLY lousy photographers); they were outside so they looked more natural, and I didn't have to deal with her having shyness issues or a meltdown because she didn't want her pictures taken by someone she didn't know. She did get a little impatient at the end but one of the pictures turned out REALLY well and when it comes down to it, that's all we really need, one good picture but we got some other fairly decent ones too. And even better, since I didn't overly dress her up, she was just able to go and play once we were done! I didn't even bother to buy her a dress this time (to be honest, that's getting rather tedious anyway, buying dresses JUST for the pictures!).

So here they are!

The top one I got developed into a small package including an 8x10. It's my main favorite. Natalie just naturally did this pose, I didn't have to do anything to encourage it and the background worked out very well. She looks so mature for a four year old!
The one above and the two below I got developed as well, though just in 4x6 size for the moment. I may get larger ones done later if I ever put pictures on the wall (first we'd have to live someone where I know where going to be long enough to make it WORTH putting pictures on the wall. *sigh*

The one below I didn't get developed but it's a nice picture of her with a different background.

I got these done just days before I was to leave so it was definitely at the last minute but I'm glad I did that rather than take her to the portrait studio nearby. While it would have been nice to get some pictures of her in a princess dress (the studio had a number of outfits for the kids to wear including gowns from the Disney movies), I just don't think it would have been worth paying the money we would have had to pay for just one post more than likely. Someday I hope to have more money to invest in nice professional pictures or at the very least, a camera that will take nice, professional pictures. But like I mentioned before, compared to Wal-Mart, I think I did a pretty decent job especially since one time we got them done there, the pictures actually came out blurry which did NOT impress me at all.

Now I'll just need to figure out what to do when the baby gets here as I left the digital camera in Korea with John and Natalie (that actually was a good thing as he did figure out how to use the video camera part of it, something I never bothered taking the time to learn to do--oops). I may look into getting a somewhat cheap digital camera until John and Natalie get back. Fortunately, camera prices keep going down while the number of megapixels and optical zoom go up. And I do have my film camera for a back up as well.

NATALIE: School Days, School Days or Every Well-Intentioned Endeavor Must End

2010-06-12T04:35:00.011-05:00

Nothing short of having my daughter in the classroom every school day of the past 5 weeks has made me realize the utter dissimilarity between the individual and the group. I mean, of course, that the way Natalie responds to my directioning and requests and the time she allots for doing so are different at day and night (and weekends). Daytime, the influence exerted by my classes upon her, the ready audience they make for any extrovert behaviors she exhibits and the jamming signal they present to the communication link between her and me all bring out a rebellious frustration at fatherly regulation that in our night and weekend moments of exclusive togetherness is hardly present. In school, My expectations of her are void of frustration, as the public nature of my job dictates; hers of me are full of them. In out-of-school moments, fleeting as they seem, we are oppositely positioned: she, as innocently as a four-year-old, asks of and adheres to me, fully imbued with the spirit of the father-daughter bond; it is I who feel free to expect her to understand what mores, dos and don'ts I express, and to have the time and space to make the effort to concentrate on conforming to them. Out of school, I make the demands on her time; in school, she makes them on mine. And did I just say that the difference is one of how much attention she gets from me in school versus out of school?

Most every school day, there is an hour before classes start when we are really both glad to be in that place together, and she happily helps me with the little things I do. She is not always quiet and positively behaved, not always good at shutting out all the distractions lurking outside the room, but we are still in one-to-one communication. But my duties take me away from dealing with her exclusively, and soon break in upon us completely. I think the change is always too sudden for her, but then, young children barely older than Natalie have virtually no other way of presenting change. The only difference between the students and Natalie--for me, not for Natalie--is that all the children I teach have been bound to be there; they 'belong' to the classroom ritual, and Natalie does not (it is a ritual I truthfully am more and more reluctant to place Natalie into, by the way, for school-going is a philosophy and a psychology, for the teacher and the learner. It's a way of life, and the things it teaches are uninviting at best, frightening and worthy of lecture at worst). When there these curricular wards are, what can one's attentions do but shift? So the balance is far from ideal. Natalie and the school and I must dance around the fiery clash of interests without falling into it. I have an uneasy feeling that paying for outside care is coming up, though I don't know how to and don't care to find make such arrangements here in Korea, and I certainly have no interest in paying the price of it. In that regard, I have a Korean co-teacher who will cheerfully assist (that is, do all the phone calling, checking out, etc., for) me on top of her other multiple duties (she is, after all, a Korean female and an underling to someone, and that means lots of work, in the end), so I respect and am thoroughly grateful for that; still, being as overprotective as I thought I was, this Korean society has urged me into being moreso. So I'll hold off thinking about it as long as I can. maybe the requirement won't really come up; maybe Natalie darting out into the hallways during class, interrupting my attempts at instruction to classes that aren't really behaving well anyway, and being a natural distraction to kids and adults alike, as she is normally everywhere we go, won't be noticeable on a corporate level. maybe the zero attention from the administration the after-school English teachers get without her there will just continue. But, because she is who she is--A. a child from the Western hemisphere, and B. a non-belonger in a world of parent-fueled and -underwritten student entities supposed and proudly assumed to be doing their academic best at all times; because of these things, I hope that time won't say a word but fear that it will tell.

Since the big, building-burning blaze we witnessed together almost a month ago, she seems to be more in mind of fire happening all around us. Any smoke will remind her of what she saw and have her seeking to find the source of it. Her concern gives me good exercise in explaining away not only fires, but all such phenomena to which one might be an unfortunate witness once, if ever, in a lifetime. It isn't likely, I tell her, that any one person in our position of the average carriers-on of life who make a point of avoiding not only trouble but any stimulating experiences even close to being non-positive; that he or she will ever see anything like that up close and personal, and coming into the way of one experience like that reduces to next-to-nil the possibility that we'll, that she'll, ever see tragedy on such a scale again. Don't ask how I get such a message of reassurance across to her: It's not a one-part revelation. It's still unfolding.

Since You've Been Gone

2010-05-27T11:48:00.004-05:00

I am Bolt. Or Penny, Or Nemo, or any of many other characters in movies that Natalie has seen and loves to play out. At any one time, I, her chief playmate for all the time she's been in Korea, not only watch movies with her and help her to navigate the messages and morals, but also join her in bringing them to life on our walks, on playgrounds, and just anywhere she happens to remember to focus on them.

However, since her mother has left Korea to try her hand at getting a natural birth in the U.S. after the 11th-hour caesarean that brought forth Natalie, that type of movie role play has dwindled to near-nothing--due to the fact that going to school with me every day has left her little time for TV and less for computer movie-watching. The only remnant is the personalities of her favorite TV characters that she asks to talk to through my voicings. She candidly addresses Timmy the Lamb, Mickey Mouse (and his associates), the Care Bears, and a few others. Timmy the Lamb doesn't speak, just makes lamb sounds, but I tend to speak in a bleat and Natalie doesn't object; she loves to do the same. But her memory holds everything. She asked during the school day yesterday to watch a one-time favorite movie, Annie, but when we got home, neither of us bothered to think about it. However, we did spend time in the otherwise-empty playground area behind the house at 10:00 pm, which was just as happy a time for her as daytime would have been, seeing that her usual gang--me--was all there.

In important ways, such as the virtual elimination of screen time, the three weeks gone since her mother has left have been a departure from the 14 months she was here. Once, her mother remarked that perhaps I wasn't getting the extra time with Natalie that I thought coming to Korea would provide; now, there's never a time when I am not with her, and, though I don't regret that, I understand better the human need for alone time. Because of the necessity, however, I also have become more aware of the necessity of being resolved to clean up my own character for Natalie's benefit, since I can clearly and constantly see the bridge under construction between what I do and say and how she is developing.

Everything we've experienced, we've experienced together. For example, there was a fire. A big, municipal spectacle of a multi-fire truck hosedown blaze. And believe me, the people came out for it. Friday, May 14, saw us at E-Mart following a thick cloud of billowing smoke just before sundown for about 1/2 mile until we reached the area's collection of outlet malls (fortunately, I had our camera with me, and I was able to take some video footage). There on a road intersecting a main artery and directly behind the large building on the corner, we witnessed the first structure of that size either of us had ever seen in full and uncontrollable burn. By the time were finally standing just across the street from it, we were straining to get a good glimpse behind a wall of emergency vehicles and a sidewalk full of interested onlookers. We spent about 90 minutes walking up and down, Natalie being both carried and sometimes led by the hand. She expressed both excitement and confusion about the whole phenomenon, a childhood candid reflection of the similar but less brought out adult reaction. Of course, we both put up with a smoky and heated atmosphere; with crowds of jostling and far-too-interested onlookers; with the plight of being between between avid, excitable interest and some unutterable amount of regret on behalf of the structure and the people directly involved. If Natalie could have helped or had been otherwise asked to be involved, I really think she might have had the desire, but I can't be so sure of the will. We agreed afterward upon the hope of never again being present at such a spectacle. Since then, in this obvious way she has been affected: When we are out and she smells a burning from anywhere, she remembers the fire and speculates--not with fear nor uneasiness, but with a certain disinterested resolve to discover it--that the same might be happening around us again. I let her know that we only chanced to see what we did, and that any person's chances of being in position to see such a thing a second time are smaller than minute. Actually, I don't know anything about the chances. I simply formed for my daughter a realistic hope and a reassurance based upon my own experience of 46 years. One thing I cherish as a father that I couldn't rely on before I was married is the power I possess to reassure my daughter Natalie regarding her questionings and expectations, especially of difficult and uncertain experiences.

As I've said, Natalie has been going to school with me, sitting through my classroom day as I teach. The situation so far has been another of those tremendous learning opportunities for me: learning about the ways in which I can expect in one direction and experience in quite another; learning about how much I have to learn about relationships between my daughter and those other children and adults.

Needless to say, her reactions and behavior have not mirrored that of a student nor of a teacher. At the heart of it, what I thought would be a relationship between the students and Natalie of mutual delight and cooperation has revealed how much a mantelpiece she seems to be in the eyes of Koreans and how easily Natalie can be distracted by just anything that will keep her from sitting still for too long. In other circumstances, I expect restlessness of her. In this case, I hoped differently; I saw in my mind much more pedestrian relations and a mutual attraction, for reasons that don't exist.

We Have Separation.

2010-05-06T15:29:00.005-05:00

Because she is only 4, Natalie didn't really become possessed by the fact that her mother was getting on a plane and flying away from Korea--from the life the three of us have known for the past 14 months--until this morning, when Momma, separated finally by the glass wall of security, looked back and waved as she waited, expressing in face a little of the regret we all felt. Tears came, briefly. We strained to watch through the clear stripes on the window until the last glimpse of Momma was gone.

These 13 months have been a long time in Natalie's life, a little stretch of permanence in itself, with its own beginning and end, now to give way to a new recognition, that of the time of Natalie and Daddy, however long we may continue together here until we take our own flight to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where Momma and yet-unborn sister to Natalie have taken their place. She doesn't recognize that we agonized over the decision; she can't fathom the difficulties we've had trying to get Korea's doctorin' system into line with the VBAC mentality--a way of thinking that no doctor we investigated seems willing to step up to. She won't be reasoned with that Momma had to feel language-connected to her situation, something that hasn't been happening here; that that and other factors recommended her to the care of the US system she knew with Natalie. She recognizes only that her Momma is not with her now. She sees that day-to-day goes on the same for her here in Yong-in, Korea as part of a duet rather than a trio. She harbors a longing for reunion. She loved to paint with Momma and is afraid that moments like that are past.

Our time between leaving Momma and getting to school had gone remarkably smoothly. We missed our direct connection bus when Natalie had to used the potty just as the bus pulled up, so we took the next one, headed to Seohyun, and took the subway and bus. Natalie's proving quite an old hand at using public transportation and has acquired a semblance of patience while waiting and a good recognition of her surroundings. As always, her mere presence seemed to be some kind of charm to the people around her, and her old trick of handing around cookies on the subway gained her more retribution in candy than I ever am comfortable with, so she arrived at school with a lot to beg me for--we managed to end the day with most of it still in reserve, however.

Still, she's revealed a remembrance for something I've tried to teach her. Once today, to the end of a sentence about missing Momma, Natalie added, 'but we have to go on.' That in itself was quite a surprise to hear, but I thought about how advanced it seemed. I agreed that we can't spend our time reaching for what we don't have; we have to look forward to what we will get out of all of our planning: a new baby sister and a time of being back together and not going away again. Still, we miss Momma. We can't, at this point, anticipate being present for the birth of the baby, and that adds heaviness to our days. But we do our living.

In this change that reality manifests itself: Natalie is now an everyday presence in my classroom. Neither of us is ready for the daycare option, and the students in my elementary school absolutely have no opposition to her being there. So, I've set up her own desk by the side of mine and have brought in materials and activities that she's familiar with. Today, Thursday, was the opening day in that volley, whatever distance it may achieve. I had a short day, four classes, 1:50 pm to 5:15 pm. We arrived at the school about 1 hour ahead of time, as usual for me.

She was surprisingly well-behaved the first three classes, but revealed to me a gaping hole in my planning in the fourth--the one with the more advanced students: I hadn't brought enough for her to eat. Of course, after the long day she'd had, waking up at an unusually early hour with a full day of activity gone through, she was combining little to eat with little to sleep, and so was more active and interruptive. So I will pack more to eat for her.

I also plan to get her to bed earlier, Momma. We'll see how that works out.

And I plan to clean the apartment, and keep Natalie's toys off the floor, and teaching her to do the same. I have hopes and dreams. . . We've had a good night. We both made Annie's Mac and Cheese and cooked a few pieces of French Toast, the latter which we've been straining toward since the weekend. Natalie delighted in being instrumental in preparation. She remembered impressively what her mother showed her.

We actually were lying down reading some of her books by 10:30, teeth brushed and all. She said not a word about nursing, which she is adamant about when her mother is within reaching distance. I hope that this will prove her drumbeat of independence from it. The new baby will more than take her place in that regard. She was reading to me when I fell asleep, and was asleep when I woke up to write this.

Feels like my heart is being torn in two...

2010-04-30T11:57:00.002-05:00

This has been one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make and no doubt, there are many who would condemn me for it too by saying that I'm not being as good of a mother I should be and a good mother would do anything and everything possible in order to make the other choice but it wasn't just my decision either. I am not my daughter's only parent. She has another parent, a parent who is equally as important to her as I am. Why is it that ONLY the mother is the best parent? Is that ALWAYS the case? I can understand that when a child is very young, a newborn and an infant and even the first years but isn't there a point at which this changes? John is just as much of a good father, if not a BETTER father than I am a mother. All I really can offer (especially right now) are the boo-boos and maybe some story time. I cannot give her as much of the play time or the patience or the religious influence that John can give her. I've tried (and struggled) to help her with learning but John does better with that too, understandably as he is the one with the teaching experience! And right now, he can give her the attention she needs more fully than I'm able to. My attention right now is divided between her and this baby that is coming. It is attention that will be more and more divided as the time gets closer to my giving birth. It is attention that will be divided in the days following the birth as I learn once again to nurse a helpless infant. It would have been a struggle enough, I'm sure, with John around but without him there, that's one mom whose attention has to be split between two girls and there's no way to make that an equal split. Exactly how fair is that?

Here, she will have the attention of her father. She will be going with him when he goes to work and she will be home with him each night. They will do things together and go places together. He will be here with her when the baby is born (since it's very unlikely he'll get home in time for the birth, not with the price of plane tickets during the summer) and he will be here with her during those first several weeks following the birth. That's more than I can give her when my focus has to be on finding a place to live, finding a provider to help me give birth, keeping track of my health and making sure the baby and I both get what we need, going through the birth, recovering from the birth, getting breastfeeding going, all of these things will need my focus and I really have to wonder, why is it such a bad thing to leave her with the parent who DOESN'T have to worry about all of that? John is also the more laid back parent (not as far as discipline but just more laid back in general) whereas I'm more high strung and easily stressed out. And that could potentially cause problems for this pregnancy. Stress is the last thing I need and I'm already up to my neck in it this pregnancy. Having Natalie with me will bring about more stress, stress that I don't need at this time.

But, realizing this and knowing all of this doesn't help the guilt. I do feel like I'm abandoning my child. I feel like I'm shortchanging her for a baby that's not even born yet. I feel like I am, in a sense, telling her by leaving her here that I love this baby more than I love her. I don't want her to feel that way; I DO NOT feel that way, if anything I love her FAR more than the baby at this point and have a hard time not resenting the baby for making me choose her over the daughter I already have, I daughter I was perfectly happy having only one of so that I didn't have to make these kinds of decisions. It's one of those cases of making the best decision you can with the resources you have. If I had more resources (in this case money), Natalie more than likely would have been going home with me. That was the plan but money is a huge factor in this right now and stability is important too. I know that it will take me some time to get the situation in the US stabilized. And really, it's not exactly fair to take her home when things are that way. It was bad enough when John left us to come here and I was staying with my family. Natalie didn't do very well then. The changes were hard on her. At least in this case, the only change is me leaving. She will have the same living situation (at least until July), she will have the same space, the same toys, I'm just the one who's leaving. And she did okay with that before. It's just that this time, it's going to be longer but I do feel that ultimately, this is the better solution for her at this time. I just really hope that this will be the last time, that we all will be able to stay and live in one place and have some stability for awhile because I don't know how much more of this I can take myself. I really do feel that we have shortchanged Natalie in many ways during her four short years and hope that this will be the last of that and once she and John return to the US, things will become more stable. Maybe that's wishful thinking, I don't know.

Feeling like a crummy parent these days...

2010-03-31T09:48:00.002-05:00

Living here in Korea has really left me feeling like the worst parent in the world. First of all, we're crammed into a one bedroom apartment which is smaller than most one bedroom apartments you'd find in the US because there really isn't a livingroom area. Technically, the kitchen is the livingroom but the kitchen table kind of takes up most of the space that would be use for a couch and a TV. There IS no room for a couch here so for sitting, we're left with the bed (that's on the floor), the floor, or the kitchen chairs which aren't really all that comfortable. We're all crammed in one room for bed time and I mean CRAMMED, the bedroom is TINY and has room for a queen sized bed, a mat, and the stand for the TV. There's a floor to ceiling closet/storage thing but it's been leaking water since December and therefore is not at all appropriate to store anything in (unless we want mold on it). The bathroom is barely big enough for the tub John bought and many times, we're limited to quick showers. Basically, there really is no room for a second child.

We have not had insurance for Natalie for the last year or so. We have not been able to really take Natalie to a doctor. We tried one time and she freaked out SO badly that we really could not get anything done. We declined the blood draw and chest x-ray which then had the doctor deciding that she would NOT see her. This doctor wasn't a ped but after that fiasco, I have not at all been interested in finding another doctor.

Our eating has been horrendous. There's no wheat bread here; there's very little variety in food period and Natalie STILL will not eat meat. We do what we can but for the most part, we feed her what we can get her to actually eat and sometimes, she gets WAAAAY too much in the way of sugar and junk.

She hasn't been to a dentist in closer to two years. I don't even know how to begin finding a dentist for a child her age. We do brush her teeth at night but still, she's well overdue for a check-up.

Money is WAY tighter here than it EVER was in the US. I can't buy her clothes here. I have to buy them in the US because the sizes here are impossible to figure out. Shoes are even worse than clothes. She's been wanting a bike forever but the money just hasn't been there for it because they are obscenely expensive.

Very likely, especially the way things are going, she's not going to get to see the only person she knows as a grandparent before he dies. And that just kills me.

So, with all of that and more on my shoulders, I can't help but feel like the crappiest parent in the world. We really had it together back in the US and then we came over here and it all fell apart. I'm trying to get us back to the US but it just seems like when I'm finally making progress on that, something goes wrong. I don't know what to do. Sometimes, I can't help but feel that I don't at all deserve this baby I'm carrying, that if anything, I should go back to the US long enough to give it up for adoption. I'm barely able to take care of the child I have now much less the one I'm carrying. I'm just feeling very overwhelmed and very depressed and I just don't know what to do anymore.

This last month has been a little calmer at least.

2010-02-28T23:31:00.002-06:00

We're all adjusting to having a four year old with another on the way. Natalie has lots of questions about the baby and asks all the time. She's a little concerned about sharing her boo-boos but I keep explaining to her that babies can't have other foods and need boo-boos while she's able to eat other foods and therefore, doesn't need boo-boos as much. She's still very much aware that when she's all done with boo-boos, she'll get a bike but so far that hasn't provided the motivation to fully end nursing. She's down to once a day, at night before bed as I'm usually too sore to keep it up much more than that.

No doubt, many would see the fact that she's still nursing as some failure on my part or a desire for me to hang onto to her youth or hold her back but that is definitely not the case. She still has a need for nursing and since nursing does provide immunity along with other benefits, I see no reason to force the issue. As it is, the issue may end up being forced when I have to return to the US to have the baby. We still have not fully decided if Natalie will be returning with me. John doesn't want me to be overwhelmed but I'm concerned with leaving her for two months or more, especially since John would have to find a baby sitter again. It's one of the many decisions we are trying to figure out as we stumble away along this pregnancy route again.

One of the things that Natalie still struggles with though is eating. Getting her to eat has been very much complicated by coming here to Korea. The food here isn't as familiar, and the things that she was used to eating are simply not here. We struggle with having a variety in our diet because there really isn't much of a variety here, at least not as far as Western foods go. The things we are used to finding easily at home are either rare and VERY expensive or simply non-existent. We've really had to compromise on many of the things we were strict about in the US. Wheat bread is impossible to find so that was one of the big changes. It's also been much harder to find things that don't have some form of sugar in them. Pasta is a bit of a constant and one of Natalie's diet staples. She does get a lot of fruit but many of the veggies are rather unfamiliar and there are few options as far as they go. Mostly, you find them fresh though it can be hard to find them at reasonable prices. Fruit is also pretty expensive and can go bad VERY quickly. John and I have both agree that we'll never complain about $.49/pound bananas at Wal-Mart again. That's a steal compared to how much they cost here, especially since they go bad in a day or less. With apples, you're limited to one kind though fortunately, it's a kind that's pretty sweet and tasty so we tend to go through a lot of apples. Natalie goes through a lot of strawberries too when they are in season which, ironically, tends to be in the winter time. She's not big on oranges though so that's a struggle and getting her to eat a lot of things period is a huge struggle.

I finally had to put my foot down and tell her that if she didn't eat dinner, she could not nurse at bedtime. I have wondered if nursing hasn't affected her eating at dinner so I wanted her to be more aware that she still needs to eat food at night even if she is going to be nursing at bedtime. Otherwise, there was no reason to let her nurse. She still doesn't really eat meat though and I have no idea how to fix that. It's just a huge struggle to get her to eat period and I really hope that once we return to the states that will finally get better. In the meantime, we ALL struggle to really get much of a variety in our diets at all, it just takes a lot more effort when all you really have to cook with is a microwave and a two burner stove.

She is picking up a lot though. Since John puts a lot of movies on the computer for her, she's been working her way around and figuring out how to use the computer to get to her movies and play them. She can play some easy games on there as well. She was doing some coloring on the computer but that comes a little too easy for her since she doesn't have to worry about coloring outside of the lines. Still, she has a lot of fun creating pictures with crazy colors. She's gotten more into writing and can write her name by herself now. She pretty much did that on her own likely remembering some of the practicing she did last year on the tracing paper. With some help, she can write a short note to her best friend here and make a card with a picture (but she'd rather have her dad draw the picture for her since he can actually draw decently). She's really big on hopping on one foot. That seems to be her favorite thing to do right now. She enjoys going to the park and will start bugging John to do that at the oddest times. She is growing somewhat but still at a fairly slow pace. That's fine by me as then, I'm not going through clothes so quickly here but she's somewhere around 39 or 40 inches now. I don't know how much she weighs but probably not much more than 40 pounds since John is still able to carry her everywhere. She's fully potty trained including overnights though she has the occasional accident both during the day and overnight. The day ones aren't too bad but the night ones can be pretty wet. John won't let me put anything on her other than panties though. She hates having her hair brushed and fights us almost every night about it. She still expects her dad to wipe her bottom but he's finally starting to put his foot down about that. I will not do it at all. She plays pretty well by herself though she tends to talk loudly in a high pitched voice. She has John play with her and has him pretend to be various things including Friendly Monster and Wall-e. She has imaginary friends and this week, it's a number of Carebears and Twinkle who I guess is a star. She enjoys Veggie Tales (though I'd rather run from the room screaming) and John has corrupted her by getting her into Mr. Bean. And she still tends to attract a lot of attention when we go out though it doesn't seem to be as intense as it was. She's gotten better about being on the subway and she doesn't mooch anywhere near as much as she used to.

Overall, she's growing up and becoming more of a little lady with likes and dislikes. For example, while she likes pretty much all colors, she prefers pink and purple the most. She's just getting more and more complex and more of an individual every day. Still, I look forward to the day when she stops whining for things!

Four is proving to be as difficult as three so far.

2010-01-31T08:48:00.002-06:00

Three was difficult because of the defiance thing and that got old pretty quick. Four is proving to be difficult so far due to the testing thing. The testing thing is Natalie doing things that she knows that she shouldn't be doing (and definitely at her age knows she shouldn't be doing) but does anyway.

Very shortly after she turned four (and mind you, just getting her to SAY she was four took two weeks itself, she did NOT want to be four, she wanted to be three), she cut her hair. Now, her hair had been in braids and some of it had come out of the braid. That was what she cut. Fortunately, it wasn't too much but I did have to play around with it and the bangs look a little goofy now near the part. I'm going to have to deal more with that at some point but it's not a huge deal when her hair is down, in fact you can't even see it then.

Not too long after that, John and I are in the bedroom where John is rubbing my back when Natalie comes in crying and freaking out. She had stuck a bead up her nose and couldn't get it out. At first, you couldn't even see the bead. Now, we are not in a situation where we can just pack her up in the car and take her to the doctor (one reasons why I'm really getting sick of living here). So, I had to try and get the bead out myself. I had her blow out the nostril the bead her was (blocking the other one). Fortunately, she cooperated and the bead started making it's way out. It took several times and I went looking for tweezers to help get it out while John continued working with Natalie to blow out the bead. She finally blew it out on her own without needing the tweezers which was good because I couldn't find them (thanks to John putting them away somewhere) and other than a little bit of a bloody nose, she was none the worse for wear though I kept warning her that the next time we may have to take her in and the doctor may end up having to use a vacuum like the one I saw did when I stuck a bunch of paper up my nose (yeah, this is obviously karma getting revenge on me for doing the same thing to my mom at about the same age).

Later on in the month, Natalie had a playdate with a little boy (the daughters weren't available). The two had a blast playing with dinosaurs and cars (she's almost more into those than she is into dolls and stuff) and when he and the mom were getting ready to leave, Natalie gave him a hug. Aww, so sweet. Well, when I went to get our things, she also kissed him. Not long after that, I got an email from the mom relating to me the funny story of how her son then thought he was married because my daughter kissed him. Too cute but John didn't think so. He was NOT happy about his daughter already kissing boys (though this was not the first time, she was kissing boys well before this back when we were going to LLL meetings, well, one boy anyway) and I tried to explain to her that she should not be kissing boys because Daddy didn't like it. To which she replied, "I am NOT going to stop kissing boys!" So I asked her WHY she liked kissing boys.
"Because they're cute!"
Oh boy! She is going to be a handful in about ten years!

She's settled down a little since then but I do worry that she's going to be difficult when the baby comes. She still does a lot of whining and is prone to temper tantrums at times. She's also not always willing to dress herself or wipe herself or things like that and expects us to help her all the time. I'm doing the best I can to prepare her for the baby and we talk about the baby quite a bit. She'll ask questions about the baby and I do my best to answer them but I know that it's not really going to sink in for her until the baby is here. She did get to see the baby a little bit when I got my ultrasound and hear the heartbeat but that's been about it so far and I know how I was when my little sister was born which is why I'm really working hard to prepare her. I'm hoping that not having had a big brother or sister herself, she won't be as confused as I was when my mom was pregnant.

We finally got up to Ilsan last week and she got to see her friends for the first time since October. She enjoyed that a lot. We also used that as a chance to have a little birthday party for her. Nothing major but we got a cake and her friends all got her a present which she enjoyed a lot. It was a Winnie the Pooh doctor kit. One thing I do have to say about her is that she does play very well and gets along well with the other kids. She's not perfect about sharing or waiting her turn but at least she doesn't hit kids upside the head like I did at her age so there's hope for her yet. lol She had a blast though, spent four hours playing with her friends before we finally all decided to head home. She was very good on the subway too though it helped that I had put The Lion King on my MP3 player. The only problem we really had was that she did NOT want to give up the player when we finally got home (the ride is two hours long).

So, while she may be a challenge at times and not the easiest kid to put up with, she's still a good kid most of the time, bad jokes and all.

Hope to update more and even add some pictures in soon (been neglecting that with all the pregnancy exhaustion).

Natalie is four!

2009-12-27T02:26:00.002-06:00

Another year has passed and my little girl has become a four year old (though for some reason, today she keeps insisting she's three). It's been a very full year for her with a lot of firsts: her first plane trip, her first international trip, her first time being in another country (actually, those have been a lot of firsts for me too!), and more that I'm not thinking of at the moment. It's been a challenging year as Natalie has definitely been trying to assert her independence more and more and yet wants to depends on us for many things like boo-boos and having her bottom wiped after using the bathroom. This next year is going to be especially challenging for her as her reign as an only child will end with the arrival of her new brother/sister in mid-July. I'm not sure how she's going to respond to this but we're trying to do everything we can to prepare her for this momentous occasion. I only hope that before too long, a trip home will be in our future as I think that will help Natalie deal with some of these big life changes. I know it would help me!

Not sure at this point what I will be going as far as blogs go. I can either have this blog be about both kids or have a new blog for the new baby. We'll see as time goes on, I guess.

Not much is planned for today. Natalie unfortunately woke up with quite a bit of a cough and I've been battling a particularly nasty case of morning sickness today. She was supposed to be getting some pictures done but we canceled that for next week. She still has a few presents I'll be giving her today and John has already picked up her cake. That totally was cheating too; it came free, a gift from one of the parents at his school. We took her to the aquarium yesterday since it was the last day she would be free (I know, we're awful). She enjoyed it. She got a huge kick out of the exhibits where fish are in weird places (soda machines, traffic lights, washing machine, etc). She liked seeing the sharks too and the jelly fish. And, as always, she enjoyed finding Nemo. So, not a really big day for her but then I didn't even get my first big birthday party until I was 8.

I'd say I hope that this year won't be quite so difficult behavior wise as last year but considering we have a new baby coming, I'm not going to hold my breath. If anything, she's likely to become more difficult as the year goes on and sibling rivalry rears its ugly head.

2009-12-01T18:55:00.005-06:00

Since my wife has gone, we've been taking up the study of the calendar. Through it, not only has Natalie improved her counting from 1 to 30, but every day marked off until her mama returns is one more chance to work on perfecting her 'X'. For November, I printed out the month from online; November 30, however, I bought a real Calendar with 14 months, so the boxes are a bit smaller and there are 12 beautiful scenes from around the world to look at.

Tonight, I gained a closer perspective into the differences between her view of a lot of work and mine: she was coloring on the floor, and had a few papers scattered about. There were no more than ten sheets, so I asked her to do her own job of picking them up before she went to bed. She came over at second request and began to collect them. Suddenly, she stopped and, looking over the lay of them, exclaimed, "no way am I going to be able to pick up that many things!", and promptly walked off. I guess it looked like more to her up close.

But she's sometimes easy the other way as well. I replied that she was able to scatter them out, so she definitely could pick them all up. She replied with a voice of discovery, "Yea, I guess I can!" then gathered them, leaving the pile on the floor where they were.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a tempor...

2009-11-30T12:36:00.013-06:00

Day what is it now? since mama went away; day not long now before her arguably triumphant return.

Some say that I haven't spent enough time updating this blog. She's observant, I must say. However, since I've spent much time with our daughter Natalie--crowning myself her father protector, and all that--I can only finally retort: okay, okay, I'm updating. What's sleep to me? It's something my daughter had better get to at least 5 times a night before she actually does; a vacation I promise myself I'll take someday.

When I started this venture I got us all into, I thought Korea was the vacation I'd promised myself. But this bit of advice I've learned, and I emphasize: If you're going to work, work; if take a vacation, then do that, because 'working vacation' is the most expansive oxymoron I've encountered since I learned the meaning of that word. Truly. Note my sentiments in the November 14 entry.

And Now, here in Korea, time has swept on to this first day of December 2009. Many things have happened to us--to our family--and to us--Natalie and me, in the past, let me see, 23 days.--, the latter being reassuringly routine and not out of the ordinary. Except that every day is a wonder and a whirl as my daughter grows up. I must admit that she is an attention grabber. Just ask any Korean, child or adult, who's encountered her. I have a hard time dragging her away from the attention she gets. Even after almost a year, when she herself has become a bit jaded by all the fawning, the Korean penchant for fair-skinned Western little girls has lost none of its luster. Just recently, when we entered an LG Electronics store, she was given 2tootsie roll pops at the door, and, by leaving time, had 5. It's hard to keep her off candy at that rate. Koreans seem to feel that candy is the ultimate way to introduce oneself to a young child of Western extraction. Anyway, she sure receives lots of it, to my chagrin. How can I decline it all and stay polite, especially when Natalie never wants to decline. By now, she's learned that whatever she has going is a key to whatever anyone has for her. At LG, as she was standing by waiting for me, suddenly she yowled and showed me blood on the tip of her index finger, a small nonlife-threatening cut. The clerk raced to get her a tissue, which made everything all better for her, as I hugged her and asked what might have happened. She wouldn't tell me at the time: despite the attention, she still is light on the conversation among people she doesn't know. Later, she admitted that "I might have got a cut from that paper", whatever paper there was there. When we got home, she simply had to have a bandaid on it, as awkward as it was to secure. By the, of course, she'd devoured her fourth bandaid, even with no visible reason to have used so many.

She's played with clay that was given to her in the past week, and that's for the first time I can remember since we bought her three canisters of it when she was still too young to use it. This stuff, called Angel Clay, has a different feel. I'll likely invest in more of it. She flattened out the pink molding clay, made it round, and called it a lollipop. To decorate, she stuck all kinds of small beads and colored paper clips into it, until it looks now like a flat, beaded, paper clip-covered. . .thing. A lollipop, if you will. I told her she can't eat it, and the look I got said, "Oh, and I didn't know that?"

I've been using my new computer to high capacity. A whopping 596 gigabytes are available on one of two hard drives, and I sit before a 22-inch monitor that can double as a TV screen. All the typicals of the wired world are here, and yet, I've communicated comparatively little with my wife since she left on November 8, a stunning--to my mind--and too-long--to Natalie's, I feel sure--24 days ago. Yet, that's the hallmark and point of the modern age of communication: the capacity to be close to someone's action from anywhere in the world breeds an air of familiarity unsuited to thinking about how really gone that someone might be. So, my main concern has been to get the webcam up and running, so that Natalie can actually see her mother during their time of separation. The visual is so important, enough that there's a way in which I could view the webcam as the single most important human-to-human technological development of the entire computer age.

More than that, however, Natalie has reached such an age--she'll be 4 in December--that she's quite able to wrest from me much more than just webcam time before the computer screen. She has a favorite site, www.starfall.com. There, she's really enjoyably learning the visuals and vocals of the alphabet. She seems daily to need her time 'doing my alphabet'. beyond that, she's getting lots of video time, since we don't plan to invest in a DVD player here. Why should we? Mainly, I've had the chance to introduce her to Schoolhouse Rock: all the classic '70's cartoon shorts dealing with government, grammar, and, so far primarily, the multiplication tables; all that 'education on TV' that I grew up with, and that still seems to mesmerize, if she is any indicator. Yesterday, she watched My Hero Zero fourteen times in a row, and in the process learned how to click the icon and press enter to replay it to her heart's content, along with ably recounting the dialogue and lyrics. By now, she's seen all the multiplication videos and a couple of the government ones (by watching them again, I can tell that there was a time when our government, as the citizens, still had a vision and a sense of its heritage and of the humorous in itself). The ideals in those videos, if simplistic, are what I want her to hold to, and not the pompous overweight that today's government feels is its own manifest to heave upon us. End of soapbox.

She now knows and has experienced that a series about policemen on motorcycles in California was one of my favorite shows growing up; that there was time in American cartoon history when Anime wasn't king and that Canada has produced some passably fine and possibly humorous viewing for the man who likes the great outdoors and the life of a handyman (don't panic, mama: she's only seen one episode, but I must tell you that she's taken in a little of the native version: Hee Haw. A very little. So far.). Also, simply put, she's had the opposite ultimate out-of-country experience: the British historical fantasy ideal of temporal displacement and alien life exploration. For those who know, that's Dr. Who. For those who don't, feel free to retort 'Dr. Who?'.

Natalie has found the joy of hamsters and of puppies, and especially the latter. We visited a household which had a small white puppy, very furry, and she and it just seemed to fall together. It chased her, she chased it, the rest is little girl history. Later that night, she revealed that "I miss those guys (the family)". I asked her if she meant the puppy. "Yeah. I wish we had a puppy." I knew it. But we won't, I've determined. So far, her years are far too few to be ready for that responsibility, and mine at any age are too many to do it all for her. Pets are, for us, much better experienced randomly, briefly and in memory. Some don't feel that way, but I've known pets to be the family's equivalent of a spouse, in terms of care and responsibility. They are, anyway, an elective attachment.

My daughter's drawing has been focusing. Circles and lines are becoming more distinct, and she's recently actually put together on her chalkboard, and immediately again on her white board on the opposite side, a physically discernible 'person': A large circle represents the head and body, and two line legs and two line arms complete the man. And there's curly hair. She drew them this morning as we were getting ready to be on our ways for the day, and I captured them and her comments about them on video, which I would post here if I only knew how.

Finally, for now, this update: after 22 days of not even one reference to the nursing she is going without while my wife is gone (I have referenced it briefly in talking about the new baby needing mama in that way, as well), she finally broke her silence Saturday night, lying in bed and on her way to sleep: " I guess I don't want booboos anymore". Not a word since, and I haven't discussed it with her, afraid to break what may just be a thin and temporary resolve. Just before we go to the airport on December 8th, I may re-emphasize to her what she said. However, I have to say that she sounded to me as if the time spent without it has brought a realization of how to not nurse and still survive. Guilt and hope, hope and guilt. But achieving separation of the parental module is the goal. Now if she would only begin eating the breadcrusts.

The foregoing accounts for our time together. The time Natalie and I spend apart remains the more complicated, in that she longs to get on her way upstairs on weekday mornings, yet still is that little bit reluctant to go in and leave me behind. However, the time spent getting inside is considerably less than it has been, and she is nights a lot happier to greet my return. With the babysitter, her sister and her 18-month old daughter, Natalie went last week to the conservation museum, located close to us, in Yangjae. I'm told that afterward, they went to a Korean restaurant, where Natalie proceeded not to eat the noodles she was given. A lot of things that are difficult for her to do with her parents, like going to a restaurant, seem that much harder to do without us around. Aside from that outing, she hasn't been to a sit-down restaurant since November 8th, because I know how disinterested and distracted she gets when she has to go. A restaurant without a play area is a quick pass on her list. The babysitter says that her daughter and Natalie are getting along better, 'not so much struggling', as she says. I've seen, though, that once in a while Natalie still likes to overhug the baby and call it 'the baby'. The sitter has also begun putting a white cloth square around Natalie's neck for keeping her very slight cold and cough in check, which she always has on when I arrive, but refuses to wear after she leaves the apartment. I ask her to wear nothing of that sort in the apartment, but make her wear a scarf when we go out, though the weather has been no worse than rainy and the temperatures stay between forty and fifty degrees around the clock. They'll worsen, though, and it's just good practice for her.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

2009-11-14T15:34:00.008-06:00

On Wednesday, I was struck with the thought that life as a noncitizen in Korea certainly has been conforming more to the world of work and life that we all are familiar with, and far less to the dream of travel, adventure and sightseeing that one sojourns to a foreign country to live out. Of course, we are experiencing quite a bit that we haven't before, but that result has more to do with the simple fact that we are here and not at home, and less with any time we have to actually plan and carry out sightseeing trips. The main difference that we are living out in this country is that my income is modestly increased and the apartment size is markedly decreased. I had come to Korea unmarried and forethought-free in 2001 to work in this same manner, and I left in 2003. And, though I believe I've been doing work-wise and finance-wise better with my family than on my own, as has been the case since I married, I still cling to that goal of Natalie growing and expanding in those ways unique to interacting with countries, cultures and ways of thinking not generally encountered in one's native country. And she has done many things here that won't be possible once we return home. However, just experiencing life here trying to raise her has somewhat steered my sights and tempered my expectations. I have a feeling that when we do reach home again, the urge to keep them in place and build relationships will outstrip the desire to have her experience every little new thing that comes along. She is running into people, and people are human. In significant ways, we all act like each other; we all, as societies, manifest habits and quirks that require our best individual attempts to avoid them.

The day after she had to go to The Lady Upstairs, as we both call the upstairs mother, so unkindly early, I realized that she seemed, and to this point still seems, to be exhibiting regularly two conflicting behaviors: Upon arriving, she couldn't bring herself to go in for a short while, showing actual reluctance to enter and having to have her shoes removed for her and be placed into the room. She's always been wary of the unknown person that way, but, after all, she had been going up there for more than a week and should have been used to the routine. I did then and do now put it down to her inability to leave her most enduring daily routine, that of spending her time within the circle of family almost exclusively. Through the daughter experience, I now understand her dependence on her family. I have developed that same dependence.

Then, as if her hours had granted some kind of release from that mindset, when I got back in the afternoon to pick her up, she ignored my calls to get ready to go, preferring to play for several more minutes. She wasn't unpleasantly insistent about staying, but I resolved to give her the time to transition. This divergent morning-late afternoon pattern has continued, and I don't see that it will alter itself, nor does it have to. I've learned to expect a brief period between the time I arrive and the time we actually say goodbye for the day. The only time this changed was yesterday morning, Wednesday, when she was all ready and I was getting a few things together for her before we actually got out the door. As usual, even though I knew she would hesitate at the upstairs door, she was insistent that we get going, for she has her fond conceivings about her day place. Suddenly, she announced, half out loud, that "I'm gonna go up by myself", and, without hesitation, she was out the door. Now, she has heard beyond many times counting that I never find it acceptable for her to be anywhere at any time where I can't see her. However, Natalie Alyzabeth White is a strong will with a world full of things she wants to do by herself, and I knew that what she had said was the thing that she really was going to do, and the echo of the stairway told the tale, so I still lingered to finish my own preparations. And, since what I was doing was cutting carrots to take upstairs for her, I had to decide to follow her up and give the speech about running off that we both knew she was going to get. Yet, she was definitely there, as if made for the space, and our brief meeting and goodbye were amiable. I am not aware that she had any hesitations at all that time about entering, because she did it all herself. I know that she is a mere child of 3, but I wonder sometimes about the mind I can't see. Has it grown beyond her years? Does she know anything about doing and feeling and acting that she cannot express yet and her physical self can't indicate? I am keen to prepare for change and averse to it at the same time.

I'm sure that all this is some small manifestation of having her mother away, a replacement environment, no matter how temporary. I'm sorry for every moment I can't be with her, especially since she's gotten used to seeing at least one of us all the time. Especially since this is her mandatory breaking-away period from the constant of nursing. That's been her security blanket, Janeen's worry as it has gone on, and my opportunity to reassure my wife and prolong my vision of my daughter's innocence and childhood. Now, Natalie is missing for the moment all that her mother has represented for almost four years. I guess it's only natural to expect her to try to fill the empty space with the available materials. However, this has been my opportunity to fret: about too-rapid change and about my abilities as a solo bringer-upper. If I didn't before, I now surely realize that my daughter and all sons and daughters need the mother-father balance. The fulcrum is centered deep inside the child.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

2009-11-12T17:17:00.024-06:00

At 3, a child is not past interest in the toys a much younger child plays with. So, Natalie, though twice and more the age of her temporary companion, has from the start had an affinity for and identity with that play area upstairs, and again, all in all, I'm relieved that there has been this place available for her. What I hadn't remembered--and what the mother obviously also had not seen coming--, however, is how an 18-month-old girl who hasn't known any world beyond her mother can react quite possessively when confronted with anyone, however benignly positioned, encroaching upon her world. That she might have been wasn't apparent nor mentioned when I picked up Natalie Monday night, not even by Natalie. I reminded the sitter that I had to bring Natalie up at 8:00 am, far earlier than usual, because I had an appointment to keep, and that I thought to be back around 10, and to bring her back to her around 11:30, as usual. Then we took with us the backpack full of colors and coloring papers she had brought and not used at all, and three hairbands that the mother had given to her and casually allowed us to bring back the next day.

The baby smiled and waved as we left--that girl, whom the mother says she refers to simply as 'Shu'(same sound as Shoe)is always smiling and waving at me--and I asked Natalie on the way downstairs if she'd had a good time. She confirmed that she'd had a good day, and was really happy about the sparkly hairband she'd been given. Were there any problems? No, she didn't think so. But that baby figured prominently on Tuesday.

We ended Monday simply, by visiting the modest playground area behind the apartment building, after dark, as it always seems to work out during my working days. But, uniquely, Natalie quite enjoys swinging with the streetlights shining down upon us and running around in the dimness of the playground. The weather wasn't cool, but toward warm.

Tuesday morning, I awoke at 7:00, giving me about an hour to get Natalie--and myself--up and ready for our respective days. She had delayed bedtime as long as possible, so getting her up and dressed and generally sorted out was no picnic, and thus she started her day with very little to eat, just one piece of toast with butter, hold the crust--her morning mainstay (Janeen says I do too much handholding at this stage in Natalie's life, including cutting the crust off her bread for her. But lately, she's made a game out of doing it herself, calling out "Who wants the crust? Who wants the crust?" Adding, "Now, daddy, you say 'I do, I do!'"). But we did make it upstairs by 8:00, but I wasn't exactly in and out of that apartment. Natalie couldn't bear to see me go. She wanted to go along and made quite a loud, crying scene at the apartment door. She was still tired and too unready to be left somewhere so unceremoniously so early in the morning. The sitter kept telling me 'just go', but, faithfulness or failing, I couldn't tear myself away until we'd reached a level of understanding that would appease and satisfy me. I just can't turn from the tears of my child. So, by 8:15 she had calmed down sufficiently that I did break away. She wasn't finished protesting, but I had reached the conclusion that she would be shortly. Maybe I will never learn to know that my daughter--nor my wife, for that matter--will be fine without me; maybe I'll never even hope that will be the case. For my part, Natalie did come with me, though I'd coldly left her behind. I stepped out of the building to a gray, chilly day and was convinced that I'd made the right decision to leave her behind. And glad I was, because my appointment, an interview for a new teaching job at Suwon Science College, was not conducted two subway stops from my area, as I'd pictured; my contact drove me from there 30 minutes to the college, where I met with the high ends in their high office for all of five minutes and spent upon that meeting roughly 30 minutes before and after, at which time I was driven back to my school just in time to prepare for my class day. So, far from getting back at 10:00, I had had to call from my contact's cell phone to notify the sitter and Natalie that the day would turn out very long for all of us. I was relieved to discover that Natalie seemed to have gotten adjusted and resigned to the reality of her fate that day. With a laugh, I can always look at other children and exclaim about getting over things and understanding difficulties that 'kids always do'; I have to wait until my daughter actually does, however, before I myself adjust to the horror of being pulled by necessity.

When I finally did arrive to pick up Natalie, I felt such a large apology inside me, and yet there were no outward signs from any of the three that anything was out of order in their collective world: the baby was standing smiling and waving, Natalie was happy to see me but was surprisingly unmotivated to leave, and the sitter, as she always does, listed for me what Natalie had eaten that day. "She's a good eater," she always says, and told me this day that she had eaten two apples and some eggs, which was no surprise, since apples are as constant in her preferences as buttered toast, and eggs are not on her mental 'always reject' list. As we finally were leaving, she ran back in, because "I forgot about the horsie": She climbed back onto Shu's rocking horse one more time, for all of 5 seconds, as she'd told herself she wanted to do. She's a great one for unceremonious detail, to the point of time consumption. Then again, I hate to admit that I may someday find that I am just that type in small ways myself. Curious how the unflattering becomes the gloriously admissible when your offspring is following in your footsteps.

That night, we went together to the pizza place my wife has made 'our' spot by actually liking the pizza. It isn't easy for an American to get used to pizza in Korea. You have to specify 'no corn'. As is the custom of the craze in Korea, our spot has one of those incomprehensible English-language names that, of course, only a non-native, essentially little-speaking enthusiastic society could dream of being content with: Pizza School. Even Natalie, when she first heard of it, exclaimed 'Pizza School? That's a funny name!' Now, however, when we go, she has to ask for her water glass and have her one slice of pizza there, after which we take the rest home, most times with me carrying both her and the pizza. This outing was no different, and along our way we stopped to tickle the Wavy Man, that faceless, towering pump-driven air-filled column of canvas, with its two arms up high on either side, bowing and bending to all sides as it advertises its user's new business. Natalie has found that with a few pokes, the Wavy Man bows and bends even more than usual, as if being tickled. One of those is hard to get past as we make our way anywhere.

To end our day that much more short of perfection, the sitter came to our door not long after we returned to hand me a handwritten two-page note detailing how sorry she was that she would be unable to watch our daughter any longer. Her 18-month-old was under all kinds of stress, cried every night, and just couldn't bear to have someone else in her space. She then handed me back the money I'd paid her minus three days and finished by saying that she'd be glad to watch Natalie one more day, but after Wednesday I'd need to make other arrangements. She offered that some services offered sitters for 6,000 Won per hour, about US $5.30, or 28,000 Won for four hours. Besides not making sense, those prices added up to a whole lot more than I was paying this lady (or so I thought, though she had paid herself 10,000 Won per day for the three days); than I'd ever want to pay anyone for something I'd much rather do myself, anyway. But I had figured out that I had around 110 hours left to have Natalie cared for and no other options. It certainly was the perfect irony, if not the perfect time, to sit down at my computer and finally achieve some contact with my wife, only to have her announce that she had discovered that she was carrying our second child. My emotions were mixed, like experiences up and down on a roller coaster are mixed.

At left: The Wavy Man at the grand opening of the Incheon, Korea Holocaust Museum. Yes, all grand openings have dancers, too.(courtesy theyangpa.wordpress.com)

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

2009-11-12T06:45:00.007-06:00

At the airport, we didn't take the bus heading home. Not right away. I needed a cell phone, and a cheap prepaid one at that. So, we were off to Yongsan, electronics mecca to which an occasional pilgrimage seems mandatory for the average foreigner. The subway store plaza isn't only electronics, having floors of expensive furniture, cheap clothing and other stuff, and not even the only game in the Yongsan area, but, by and large, Yongsan is electronics. Natalie likes to ride the escalators there, as everywhere, and look down upon the sparkly floor of the third level as we get higher and higher above it. There's a safety net up high that stretches across the open expanse between the escalators and always draws her attention, especially if anything has dropped onto it. She never fails to ask what that net is for, and I always explain that it's a safety feature, but the looking out over the railings sure does hold its manifold fascinations for both of us.

Actually, though Natalie adds immeasurably to any and all outings I take with her, and I can't imagine how I came to Korea 8 years ago and survived an engagement as a single here, there are times more uneasy for me than not when she is with me. Wrangling with a vendor in Yongsan for the time it takes to get a bargain is definitely one of those times. As everywhere in Korea, here on this day, as I sweated the details of buying a used phone, sampling many and liking few, she made this one of her moments of friendliness and curiosity, wandering behind the counter as freely as you please, picking up phones she liked, calling me on them--more loudly as I tried to concentrate on what I was doing--, bringing them to me with a decisive 'daddy, buy this one!'. And she made no bones about the fact that she had decided what I needed. And it was a good-looking one--which satisfies the one of her two criteria for purchase, the other being that she be the one to decide. In retrospect, had I taken that one, I might not have ended up having a mechanical problem and having to wait for a replacement to be delivered three days later. Well, at least she seems to know what she wants.

That's why I have to look so diligently toward her needs. Being her dad has constituted my own ongoing revelation about what to need and what not to want. She so eerily represents my own imaginings when it comes to expressing her wants that I more often than not shrink back into the litany of her needs--and my family's and my own--that has accompanied me since she was born.

From Yongsan, we took the subway back to Jukjeon station, our home area. This was about 5:00 pm. It was the near-end of a long day for Natalie. And, since we actually did get her up much earlier than she expected we would Sunday morning, she was very tired, to the point where she actually admitted she was, and it takes a lot for her to say that. Even so, we had to visit the grocery department of E-mart, a Walmart subsidiary, right there near the station. Natalie got into the cart and sat down, then lay down, promptly falling asleep as I wheeled around the store. Even in that state, she was the object of doting smiles and quiet attention from many we passed. When it was time to leave, I hated to pick her up, but she stayed asleep on my shoulder as I carried her home with one arm, reviving just before we reached the door of our apartment. At home, she slept for 2 more hours.

Monday, November 9, was her first day with the sitter we'd been able to get. The teacher in the classroom adjacent to mine had called some daycares, but they wouldn't accept Natalie because I only needed a month with them. Finally, I ran into a mother with an 18-month-old on the fourth floor, we being on the second, of our small building who said she would do the watching noon to 5:45 for the 22 weekdays we'd need it while I was at work two minutes' walk away. I counted it a blessing, since I'm never easy putting Natalie with anyone not immediate family, that, having no real choice this time, she would stay close. And the apartment she'd be in was relatively clean, with space to play, much more than we have. The sitter--and is--mild-mannered and quite friendly and caring, as I expect any mother watching my child to be. We had been up there for a trial half-hour during the week before Janeen left, and everything seemed to go well. Still, things didn't really show themselves until the sitting got underway for real on Monday.
That day went by without incident, except for my separation anxiety as I ran through my classes. I had a break and visited Natalie for about 30 minutes in late afternoon, and she and the baby seemed to get along, or at least have had a separate peace established, a mutually friendly new acquaintance.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

2009-11-11T19:36:00.006-06:00

So. My wife tells me, long before she hops her November 8 flight for her month-long return to the US from our makeshift home in Korea where I teach English for the money; she says, now be sure to continue to update this blog. Take care of Natalie and give her a bath and feed her properly and take her to the babysitter every day and pick her up; send money and shop and talk to me on the phone and internet and Messenger and wash the clothes and dishes and don't let Natalie watch too much TV and, oh yes, get to work on time. And be sure to update this blog.

To be sure, I planned to plan to coordinate everything. But isn't a month up yet? After all, it's been five (she left Sunday morning) long days. The only thing I really have gotten a handle on is getting to work relatively not-too-much-later-than-on-time. And taking care of Natalie, who also won't let me forget that 'Dad, I'm here!' Mama's gone and so is the strand of nursing Natalie still clings to, so whatever father-daughter bond there is gets exploited as we forge on together while mom luxuriates in the Land of Plenty.

Believe me that many things have volunteered to heighten the suspense in these past days, so I'd better start from the beginning. That happens to be Sunday, November 8 at about 10:15 am, when we waved Natalie's mom goodbye and left her to the ravages of customs at Incheon International Airport, Korea.

There was a glass wall that separated us once she was allowed into the Harassment Zone, aka security (my wife, I think, would tell you that her experience there warrants that). Natalie continued to look through the glass, with me holding her, until she could see her mom get through the security gate and walk away. . .and finally disappear out of sight. Really, that's when the first wave of 'I miss mama' began gently nudging her. She called out 'mama' loudly several times, after one of which Janeen did actually see us and wave goodbye.
Since the beginning of the month, we'd been marking off the days until Janeen would have to go, and she'd eagerly await every bedtime, when she could X out another box. Natalie was happy for momma during this time, if unsure about the thought of separation, and I could see that whole week the revelation just waiting to take her over.

We walked away finally, back into the airport, to replace the luggage cart. It was during that walk that she first said 'I sure miss mama': it didn't take long. She liked riding on and pushing the cart, though, so we spent time looking around at everybody coming and going at a busy, busy Sunday airport. We rode the glass elevator up to the third floor and down to the first, saw a fountain area (Natalie's a great fan of fountains) and hurried past all the shops available before someone's eyes got hungry for what daddy wasn't willing she should stomach. I wanted to take her to the airport arboretum, small but interesting, but we walked around for a while without seeing signs for it until I realized it was in a separate building across the driveup road to the airport and accessible by a long walk across two long moving sidewalks on the second floor. We just had to walk the sidewalks for Natalie, but it was still a way off, so we got on our way to the first floor to wait for a bus to take us away from it all. Away from mama, who had already taken off into the skies by that time, anyway.

Another busy month approaching an end...

2009-10-31T09:42:00.001-05:00

...as we prepare for my month away from both Natalie and John. John will be taking over the blog while I am gone and hopefully he'll do better with updating it than I have especially since I will be coming on to see what is happening with her.

It has been a rather busy month starting with John's vacation at the beginning of the month due to the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which is basically a Thanksgiving/Christmas combo deal as far as holidays go. It's a harvest holiday like Thanksgiving is but it is also the time for families to get together and there tends to be a lot of gift giving. It was interesting seeing all of the various packages of things for sale. You can find packages with bottles of wine with cups to drink from, packages of bath and beauty products and even very large packages of spam. Adults and children put on traditional Korean costumes and it's just a holiday of tradition and culture just like any other holiday and naturally, it also meant days off of work. So, we took full advantage of those days, getting out and about including a trip to the zoo which did not go quite as well as I hoped due to it being at the last minute and the zoo being all UPHILL. Who in the WORLD designs a zoo on a hill?! lol Now, admittedly, if we had done our research better, we would have found out that the best way to tour the zoo is to take a chair lift to the TOP of the hill and walk DOWN. Yeah, well, it didn't quite work out that way and we did far more walking uphill than I could handle so I spent most of the time resting and recovering and John and Natalie walked around. We did see some animals in the end and Natalie came up with a GEM of a response to something John said. He was telling her all about the petting zoo that you can go and see and Natalie says, "You mean you can pet PEOPLE?!" It was just priceless! I love some of the things she says. Unfortunately, I can never remember all of them! She absolutely enjoyed the ride on the chair lift leaving the park and I took the time (since I wasn't hesitant to go on being slightly afraid of heights) to do a little souvenir shopping.

The next weekend was my birthday and Natalie got to visit her friends Laura and Lillian in Ilsan while John and I got to go on our first date in two years (actually over two years since we didn't really get to go out in 2007 because we were too broke; we stayed home and watched a movie). It was nice to go out and have a meal and be able to talk without distractions and we got to do a little shopping as well and bought Natalie a little backpack since John and I both wear backpacks when we're out and about (much easier to carry than a purse!). We met up with the gang and had some cake and went home, a two hour subway ride. Ah well, took less time to get home than it took to get there! I will NEVER take the bus to Seoul Station on a Sunday AGAIN!

The weekend following that was lunch with John's co-teacher and her family which was nice. We went to a place called VIPS which is a steak and salad bar restaurant but the steak is VERY high end and the salad bar definitely had a lot of very good options and can be bought alone which John did. I had the steak. Afterwards, we went to a park and Natalie and the co-teacher's little boy had a lot of fun playing and chasing each other with leaves and throwing them at each other and at us adults. We had very beautiful fall weather (and still do though it looks like that's going to change soon) and the scenery was beautiful to look at during our walk through the park.

Definitely a lot goes on during the weekends since that's the only time that we all can head out and do something as a family. Sometimes I take off for the day and do things with members of the knitting group I'm in but we do try to fit activities in here and there for all three of us. It's not easy because Natalie is not the easiest person to travel with and traveling through Seoul is a challenge whether you go by car, bus, or subway. Tomorrow the plan is to head to Insadong and do some shopping. It's an area in Seoul known for shopping especially art so that should be interesting and fruitful, I hope.

Natalie still enjoys painting and other forms of art. Painting though is probably her favorite and she paints with a joy and abandon that is absolutely fun to watch. And no two paintings are alike. She changes her color schemes each time and I have two of them that are very special favorites of mine that I may take home with me to enjoy and remember her while we're apart.

I won't deny that I'm a little nervous leaving her for so long. It will be the longest that she's been without me and before that, the longest was maybe a full day. I'm trusting that John will make the month easy for her and the two of them will have plenty of their own fun while I'm gone. I do worry at times though because being here has had it's ups and downs. Natalie has had a few rough patches here and there and I worry at times that something may happen while I'm away that would make being here difficult. However, I also know that feeling the way I'm feeling right now, I need the time and the chance to get a little space (absolutely impossible in this shoebox of an apartment), get my bearings, and take of things I'm just not able to take care of here (including buying clothes and supplies that we all will need as the months go by). Fortunately, Natalie is of an age where her needs are not overly great and her dad can take care of most of them.

The one that is not going to be taken care of is her need for boo-boos. While I have now cut her down to once a day and will do so until I leave, Natalie is still nursing. I was hoping to avoid having to do this while she was still nursing but at her age, I'm hoping she will understand. For sure, I cannot continue going the way I have been going without a mental reprieve and I feel bad for saying that but it is what it is. Coming here has been SO outside of my own comfort zone that there always has been that need for an escape if I should need it. Without someone to go to and vent when things became too overwhelming for me (as they have so so SO many times), it has become very easy for me to become worn down with day to day living here.

I do believe that Natalie is able to handle the separation and the end of the nursing. It has been going in that direction for some time starting last year when I cut her nursing down to just a few times a day. I think she would prefer to be able to nurse as often as she would like but having gone on MUCH longer than I had EVER planned (I mean, John wanted me to get to the age of two!) but she doesn't seem to have the NEED for nursing as she once did. She has had her difficulties here and there (sometimes she wants one of us to help her go potty) but for the most part, she's a very independent and happy child so I'm hoping that she will handle this transition as smoothly as she has handled others.

At any rate, she hasn't shown any signs of wanting to suck her thumb or attachments to a lovey that cannot be left behind anywhere so I really do think that we're going to be okay but you know how it is when it comes to that old "mommy guilt".

I just wish she had more friends. I think she would enjoy having friends to play with, she seems to be very interested in making friends and with playing but it's been next to impossible to get that going here. I've been able to find friends for myself but for Natalie, I'm not doing so well. I just can't seem to fit in with a lot of the parents. I do think that has been hard on her because she does enjoy playing and I don't think that John is quite enough of a playmate for her (though he tries very hard, more so than most fathers would--or even mothers). Here and there, I take her to where a bunch of kids and parents meet up each week. Unfortunately, it's for a religious service and that doesn't work out very well for John. We go but only until the services start and then we leave and I'm sure that's not taken very well by the parents. It's not that we're snobs or anything but John doesn't believe the same things they do and it does not work for him to have Natalie there to listen to those things. I understand that but many people are just not and are likely to take it the wrong way. Unfortunately, that's only going to get worse when I come back since that will be in the middle of the holiday season. *sigh* It is a bit of a concern though, especially after Natalie introduced us to her new friend, a mannequin at a department store. Poor thing.

Still, she and John do have a lot of fun. She's in that "knock, knock joke" age and John being John is absolutely amused by it. Me...not so much, especially not after hearing the same lame jokes over and over again. A few examples:

Knock knock
Who's there?
Box
Box who?
Box full of a whole bunch of crayons!

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Sarah
Sarah who?
Is Sarah doctor in the house?

Just two examples that they do over and over and over again. Like I said, fortunately, John is VERY easily amused. This is the guy who likes to watch Mr. Bean, the animated version while I wish the apartment had at least one more room so I can go and hide.

John also recently bought her an easel so she's having a lot of fun with that. One side is magnetic and is like a dry erase board. The other side is a chalk board. It came with paintbrushes, magnetic letters and numbers, and dry erase markers. She's had a lot of fun with that too. We haven't done a lot lately with homeschooling but at three, she doesn't need to be pushed too much with that right now. Her painting once a week and access to things like her letters and numbers help out a lot. She does show interest in books and John reads to her here and there but other than that, we just let her play. She has developed a liking for the show Little Einsteins which focuses on a classical song each episode. Tonight, while nursing, she was humming Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (aka Ode to Joy). So she's picking up something. lol

Which reminds me, she now has her own MP3 player (called MP Player by Natalie). I gave her my old one and she enjoys listening to her favorite CDs. At this point, they are mostly kiddy CDs and one Abba album (she really got into Mama Mia last winter). It helps keep her occupied at times when we're on the bus or the subway and she can't do very much. She also likes to listen to it sometimes while she's relaxing and it has helped her fall asleep. It helps that the one she usually listens to is Priscilla Herdman's Night Songs and Lullaby CD, the CD she had been listening to off and on since she was 4 months old and has my classic favorite, Waltzing with Bears. I never thought I'd give my three year old an MP3 player but it has helped out a lot. Now, I just need to find some headphones that will fit her head better.

Whew! Another long update. This is what happens when I don't update for months and months but there's just too much going on to be able to sit and write! Maybe with November being the blog writing month, I'll get more written though it will likely be on the other blog. And hopefully John will keep us all updated on the going ons of Natalie during the month of November after I leave.

And yes, I need to add pictures but they're a pain to add in so I'll wait and add them in another day.

Some news and updates, maybe a few pictures...

2009-09-30T00:15:00.006-05:00

I started this entry a month ago and never updated it. At this point, until I have time to sit and type, I'm just going to make this a picture entry for the most part. lol So, this is some of what has been happening with Natalie during the last three months (eek, I can't believe it's been THAT long since I last updated!):

July:

Okay, I don't really have any pictures from July to post on here. We saw the fireworks in Seoul and Natalie did pretty well with those. She was a little scared but not as scared as she usually is of them. John found a new job so the month was mostly spent preparing for our large move to the Bundang area. That was pretty exciting. We did that the 19th. We went back to Ilsan for Natalie's friends' birthday party (it was a double birthday party for two girls). That was a lot of fun as it was Natalie's very first birthday party that she had ever attended.

August:

John had a few days off so one of the things we did was go on the Korean express train. It's a high speed train that goes up to 180 mph. That was a lot of fun for all of us and we took the train from Seoul to Deajeon which was where John worked the last time he was here in Korea. August was also Natalie's first hair cut which she wasn't too sure about. It went pretty well though and her hair was left long, just evened out.

Here, she's being prepared for her hair cut.

Mom, I'm scared!

Okay, this isn't too bad.

All done!

August ended with a trip to the local water playground which was pretty much our one and only time we were able to go. Fortunately, John had been taking Natalie to the water fountains to play and fortunately, water fountains are acceptable to Natalie (it helps that she REALLY likes water fountains).

One last picture to share for August. I took this one of Natalie one day while we were at the park behind our apartment. It turned out really well:

September:

Another busy month for all of us, especially with the change in John's school hours. He now works from noon to just after five though he doesn't usually get home until around six. We've been spending a lot of weekends (and weekday nights too) out and about and just finding things to do. That's kind of what you do when you have money yet live in an apartment that's roughly the size of a shoebox. Natalie has been healthy for the most part but she did run a temp a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, that was the worst of it, she was over it after 18 hours of sleeping. She has also had a slight growth spurt this past month as well. She's now up to 38 and 1/4 of an inch, 1/4 of an inch taller than she was two months ago (or even one month ago). There's an article I recently read about treating fevers and illnesses that suggested that strides in physical/mental growth tends to occur shortly after a fever. I have to wonder if part of the reason for her fever was the growth spurt that occurred afterward. I still wonder if her biggest growth spurt is yet to come. So far, she's had a massive one just about every November and I wonder if this year will be the same. We'll have to see.

This month, she's really been getting into art. She LOVES to paint and paints these very beautiful and colorful paintings. I can't tell what they are supposed to be of but they are just absolutely creative and she has a total blast painting. I bought a printer not too long ago so I've also been able to start printing out pages for her to practice her writing again. I'm amazed at how far she's come in the last six months. Her control has improved SO much since March and that's been without even having much in the way of practice. I really am glad that I kept the early writing sheets because it was just amazing to see the difference in her writing in that amount of time. Admittedly, she's still mostly tracing but we've been working on some non-tracing writing too. The only problem we've been having is that she's still wanting to color on things that are NOT paper and has colored a number of walls and furniture in the apartment. While that's frustrating enough, she also lies about WHO has done the coloring. She tends to blame her imaginary friends who are mostly the cast of characters from Super Why (one of her favorite shows). To say the least, I'm not impressed. She's also learning to use scissors and glue (glue sticks) and is having a lot of fun with those as well. So far, she hasn't attempted to cut her hair or anything like that though she knows full well what the consequences will be if she were to ever cut her hair. And since she wants her hair to be down to her butt, I'm hoping that will be enough to keep her out of trouble on that end of things. No pictures to really post for September yet but once I get them all resized and cropped as needed, I'll post them here for you all to see. At least I finally got an entry in before the month ended!

We're halfway through the tyranical threes...

2009-06-30T21:12:00.004-05:00

...and I'm really hoping the fours are fabulous instead of frightful. I know it's a combination of things and not just her age but it seems that from the time that John left for South Korea, Natalie has been more difficult than she was during her toddler years. And it's a challenge that has really left me feeling very frustrated many times. Don't get me wrong, she has her adorable moments and she's a very smart little girl who can figure things out pretty quickly. At the same time, she's also a very high needs little girl who demands a lot of attention from her mom and dad. It's not too bad when it's just one of us with her but when both of us are here, she can be really difficult. Having a conversation between the two of us is sometimes almost impossible because she tends to become very demanding for attention. And when we're out, she definitely demands it which can make going out anything but a joy. John does a much better job dealing with her than I do. He tries to do what he can to get her into a more agreeable state whereas I'm losing my patience. At times, I wish we could just leave her with a babysitter and actually spend some time just the two of us but that's not such an easy deal here.

At three and a half, Natalie has reached quite a few milestones. She is, for the most part, potty trained. For some reason, she seems to do better in the pull ups than her panties. Maybe there's just a larger margin of error with those or something but she was constantly going through panties whereas pull-ups seem to last especially compared to the cloth diapers I was using for overnights. I finally got sick of doing all the laundry with those and set them aside. I realized it was just pointless when I was leaving diapers she had wet for close to a week. Not good. Not to mention, I really haven't had access to the detergents that those who cloth diaper in the states have access to. I was using the regular detergent in a front loading washing so I really don't know if I was making things worse doing that or not and eventually, it just wore me down. I never was all that good with the cloth diapering stuff and can understand why some people just don't get into them period. It is a lot of work. So what I try to do is get her into the panties during the day while we're at home and John is at work and then have her in the pull ups when we're out (and it's harder to find a bathroom, especially one that has an actually toilet instead of a porcelain thing in the floor and toilet paper IN the stall), when John is home (since she uses accidents as a way to get attention), and for bedtime. Hopefully we can get her out of those at some point but it's nice to have the back up and for the most part, they do stay dry so we're not going through them that quickly.

Natalie also had her first big haircut. I still did her hair and it was more of a trim than anything else but it really helped to even out her hair and it cut down on the amount of curling it was starting to do. Still, I think I'll be doing it again in about two months because I'm trying to catch up to the front of her hair which is a little shorter and she's got some hair in the back that is shorter as well. My goal is to try and get her hair all one length except for her bangs. And then, I can just keep up with her bangs every couple of months and trim the rest of her hair a few times a year. Getting Natalie to agree to this though isn't easy. She wants her hair to go down to the floor or at least down to her butt. I think I could deal with it being down to her bottom but down to the floor is another matter entirely. Fortunately, I have a TON of hair pieces for her including bows and pony tail holders with decorations on them like shoes, stars, and hearts (like the ones they had out in the 80's especially on Punky Brewster though I've had no luck so far finding pony tail holders with suns on them--believe me, I've been looking!). I also picked up a bunch more of the small elastic pony tail holders, especially in colors of red, white, and blue in preparation for the Fourth of July. Not sure what we're doing yet but I at least want her to dress the part (she has a pair of navy blue shorts and a red shirt). Hair pieces here are quite cheap so I've been able to stock up but I'll admit, I've been having a hard time finding purple. I do have a ton of pink and red hair pieces though. Here are a couple of pictures from when I did her hair. There's not too much of a difference but there's some and her hair definitely looked better once it was trimmed.

BEFORE:

AFTER:
The biggest difference is that it's not curling as much in the back anymore which was what I wanted. As cute as curly hair is, it's more trouble than its worth!

I've also been playing around with different hair styles. It's been fun trying to do different things with her hair and learning how to do things with her hair like french braiding. I really would like to get good at underbraiding but so far, that's been a bit of a challenge. There are a few website with hair styles I've been checking out and I'm still working on a style that I'll do for the fourth but so far, inspiration hasn't really struck me yet. While some things for hair are easy to find, other things not so much. Ribbon especially has been tricky but I'll figure something out for that day. Admittedly, she does tend to have her hair put up a lot in pigtails but they look cute on her, especially with the hair pieces and people come up to her all the time and tell her how pretty her hair is (and her eyes too, her blue eyes definitely stand out here). Keeping long hair free of tangles is definitely a challenge though but no more so than dealing with my own hair which is FAR more curly than Natalie's. We're still playing around with the whole no-poo thing though I have found that using the Kiss My Face brand on Natalie works really well. While not quite no-poo in that we're not doing the baking soda and apple cider vinegar for her, there's no sodium laurel sulfate in the shampoo we use and we use the bare minimum for her as well. Since she's only bathed (actually showered) once a week due to her skin issues, I don't see it as a huge deal and that and the conditioner leaves her hair nice and shiny. The AFTER pictures were taken not just after cutting her hair but also after using the shampoo and conditioner on her. I figure if it works, why not use it? If her hair starts to dry out again like it did with the Johnson and Johnson stuff, I'll figure something else out. Maybe by then I'll have more coconut oil and can use that in her hair too.

Other recent milestones include being able to stand on one foot and hopping, both things she likes a lot. Sometimes, she'll do that one yoga pose that requires standing on one foot. There's a show she watches sometimes where the kids and the other characters on there do yoga poses at the end and she likes to copy them sometimes. Fortunately, they're not too hard for her to do. She's also trying to learn to skate though her way of doing that consists of putting on the pair of skates that John now owns (ones that were left by the last teacher), and skating around the apartment. She doesn't do too bad at it either but I have no intention of paying around 90,000 won for her to go skating for real (between $75 and $85). What Natalie REALLY wants is a bike. She wants a bike SO BAD and rides one whenever she can (usually at the one apartment we go to for play dates). Unfortunately, those are VERY expensive here and I will spend that much for a bike when I KNOW we can get one in the states for $40. It's quite disappointing for her but I'm kind of saving that particular milestone for when she's finally done nursing.

Yeah, she's still doing that but she's down to twice a day: morning up to noon and then at bedtime. She would do it far more often if I let her but now that we're here and somewhat settled in, it's time to start encouraging her to be done. Sometimes, I think I should have done this last year because really, things are not going to be ideal for weaning for sometime. In fact, we're going to have to move again within the next month but I really wanted her to have that security while we did the big transition so I didn't push it. I'm having to do it now because she's really starting to get demanding about it and cutting it down to twice a day still gives her some of that security she needs but gives me a break too. I was really starting to feel touched out and resentful and that wasn't good either. Still not sure how long she plans to go but for now, I'm okay with her deciding when she's done. She knows that when she is, that is when she'll get her bike. That may sound mean but it gives me an extra reason for not getting her a bike other than just not wanting to spend that much on one which, while a good reason, isn't one someone Natalie's age is going to understand. Still, if she's still nursing at four, we may have to revisit this issue. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about that. As it is, I totally did not expect to be nursing this long but here we are.

So, that's kind of what's been going on around here with Natalie. The next month should be fun as we prepare for our move. Here, at least, she's had an area to keep her toys and play. I'm not sure how that's going to be when John finds a new job. So far, it seems that most of the schools do not really provide adequate housing for families, especially in these areas near Seoul. However, moving to the rural areas is not going to be an option. Food that we'll ALL eat has been difficult to find as it is and we need to be in somewhat of a busy area just to find things to do because otherwise, it's just WAY too easy to get bored. Hopefully, since John won't be seeking another position with kindergarten age students, he'll have more time to spend with Natalie and the two of them can get to the park more. That's definitely been something that's been lacking for her this summer and I do think that gets to her at times. She's been kind of sad at times too, telling us she wants to go home and that she misses her cousins. It's hard to listen to that but I know too that with the way things are in the US economy-wise, we're just better off being here. I wish that wasn't the case though. Here, we can get Natalie things and do things with Natalie that we never really were able to do at home because we were always broke. But still, it's kind of a catch 22 because neither place offers it all. Still, I'm hoping that the third time will be the charm and John is able to keep the job for the full year because Natalie really needs the stability.

Natalie's three year pictures are FINALLY DONE!

2009-05-08T21:09:00.005-05:00

Yeah, four months later, I finally got her pictures done. It was NOT easy to find a place to do them with the language barriers and eh, more could have been done with them but they are done and that is all that matters. Hopefully, her four year pictures will be a little more on time but we'll see what happens. I have a dress for them too so they will HAVE to be done over the winter at least.

Anyway, here are the top four pictures:

This one is the one we got in the 8x10 and wallets. I liked the smile she has in it. Interestingly enough, it was also the last picture taken, 26 total were taken by the photographer.

This one and the other two we got in 3 1/2x5s since that is the size I end up getting most of her pictures in since I usually get them done at Wal-Mart. I would have liked to have gotten some more wallets but I was kind of limited at the time and eventually, I may get 5x7s of a couple of the poses as well.

I kind of wish more had been done as far as props and things, all they had her do was stand in front of a black background. She really wanted to sit in a wicker chair for some of them but they wouldn't allow us the option and while I was trying to find out what I could get with more money, they weren't really helpful with figuring that out, it just seemed like they only want to do a little bit. So that was really frustrating but we did get a CD and that has all of the pictures on it.

Some of the pictures are pretty interesting though because she was REALLY shy at first and didn't want to cooperate and then a couple got taken of her picking her nose. *sigh* I'm looking forward to the day when picture taking is not such a chore. BUT, if my own picture taking years are any indication, it's going to be another two years before that happens. The only way they were able to get me still for my 3 and 4 year old pictures was to give me a puppy to hold (stuffed, I believe). In Natalie's case, it helped to have John singing goofy songs to her.

In other news, this has been kind of a rough week for Natalie. For some reason, she's been popping fevers. Tuesday she had a mild fever but she was in good spirits and wasn't too cranky so we didn't worry too much about it. Today though, she has another one and it's higher (over 102) and she's definitely feeling it. She's been very cranky, restless, and sleepy. So, we've given her some Tylenol and are keeping an eye on her. Still, this is the second time this week that she's fallen ill on a day that John has had off of work (he was off on Tuesday for Children's Day). Hopefully, she'll be better tomorrow when we go out for Mother's Day.

A Day at the Fountain...and other updates.

2009-04-18T00:53:00.007-05:00

The area we live in has a lot of outdoor mall areas very close by that go on for probably a good mile or so. I enjoy walking through them because it's all pedestrian and it's outdoors so it doesn't give me the issues that regular malls do. We happened to travel mostly through the mall areas on the way home from the park last week and found this music responding water fountain just a block from our apartment. Natalie naturally wanted to go into the fountain so I let her.

She had a blast but got very wet. I had also used that day to play around with a new hairstyle as I'm trying to find something to do for a hair style for her pictures (her three year pictures STILL have not been done!). This is one style I tried out that I liked a lot. I have a couple of other ones I have tried too that I may consider. One of the things I LOVE about South Korea is that there are these stands ALL over the place (stores too) with all these different kinds of hair ribbons and bows, things that aren't so easily accessible in the US unless you happen to find yourself on Etsy. I have become VERY addicted to ribbons and bows now and some of the hair styles I've done make it easy to put the hair pieces in where they'll actually STAY. Not only have I been play around with braids and ponytails, I'm also trying to figure out French braiding, both under and overhanded. Overhanded I think I've mastered but I need to get a little more used to underhanded braiding before I try a French braid. It was NOT easy, that's for sure. I had to basically sit Natalie down in front of the TV for a good hour/hour and a half with a spray bottle and braid her hair, then braid it again, and again before I got it down. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of of the French braiding I did, I'll have to do that next time. They turned out okay but I really want to get the underhanded braiding down, that looks SO cool. Still, I'll probably do something fairly simple for her pictures, I don't want to do something that's too overwhelming just yet.

Her hair has gotten very long though and I just love it. When it's wet, it's just about all the way down to her waist. It shortens as it dries and curls up a little. Once pictures are done though, I am planning to take her in for a hair trim. Her hair is still pretty uneven and since she's never had a REAL haircut yet, I think the time is coming for her to get one. I'm probably going to wait though until her bangs have grown long enough to get them done too, so probably around the beginning of June. This gives her hair a little more time to grow too and then she'll have the summer to grow it back out. I hate even cutting a little bit of her hair but I really thinks she needs it cut at least a little bit. It's starting to get a little scraggly at the ends.

Anyway, here's a close up of the one she wore at the fountain last week:

For the bows, at the time, I just had those Goody plastic barrettes. I have since picked up a few actual bows and I do have a set that I plan to use for Natalie's pictures that goes with her dress.

This was from last week. Here, I took out the braids, and put them into ponytails instead and put the bows in front of the pony tails.

So far, my plan is to use either the braids above or this style for her pictures. This next one isn't really much of a hair style but I thought it was cute anyway.

John had also recently gotten his hair cut. It took several hours but we did finally find a hair place that didn't cost too much and it wasn't too far from our apartment either. The really nice thing is that they give you free refreshments too and they have internet access. That's probably where we'll take Natalie to get her hair done (and probably mine as well when it comes time to do that). My only problem is that they really do not cut John's hair as short as I would like it to be cut and I still think I should invest in my own pair of clippers and do it myself! lol

These last two pictures are from today. This one I came up with myself though I'm sure it's not an original and I've probably may have even seen it on one of the hair blogs I frequent (links on my other blog though I'll probably put them here too). The only problem I have with this one (like the French braid one) is that there really is no place to put bows. Though this would work well with really cute butterfly clips.

It took a little work because I had to wet down part of the hair, and then the parting and putting the hair pieces in took a little time too. I think the hardest part though is just getting Natalie to hold still while I put all the ponytails in. Still, it turned out really well and I can't wait to play around with it a little bit.

Well, in other news, the move here to South Korea has been an adjustment to all and Natalie is no exception. She's having a hard time adjusting to not really having a bedroom to sleep in the most and the results of that has been that she is next to impossible to get to bed unless we ALL go to bed. *sigh* This is NOT making it easy for John and I to have a little adult time. Then again, lack of adult time might not be such a bad thing if we're not really trying to get pregnant right now. Still, she does eventually settle down and go to sleep and at the very least, when she gets to sleep, she sleeps a long time, usually 9-10 hours at least. Another huge adjustment has been that since moving here, Natalie has been trying to increase her nursing. I think if she could, she would be latched on all day. However, having nursed her this long, I'm starting to get burned out. I had never thought I would go this far with nursing, two years even seemed like huge goal and the fact that we've made it to past three is just mind-blowing sometimes. The idea of weaning her has definitely crossed my mind but at the same time, I know she's still adjusting to the last six months of changes. I think it's something that we're just going to have to wait and see about for at least another couple of months. To be honest, I don't think I would have so many problems with it if she wasn't so demanding and aggressive about it. When she wants to nurse, she REALLY wants to nurse and she wants to nurse NOW! I really do think a lot of it is boredom or a desire to be close to me and she feels that that is the only way that will happen. I don't know. I'm sure she still finds a lot of security in it and I'm very hesitant to take that way. Just have to go at it day by day and see what happens.

Potty learning, at least, has not suffered too much. She was really close to night training and I think she probably could stay dry in just panties most nights but she does tend to have an accident here and there. Still, I think I may soon stop stuffing the pocket diapers and give that a try for overnights. That way, if she does pee in them, she has a little bit of a buffer and she won't get the bed or herself all wet. Hard to say though. I wish training pants weren't so ridiculously expensive but I refuse to pay $20 for a pair of underpants JUST because they can be stuffed. Absurd!

John has definitely been adjusting to an older and therefore more difficult Natalie. I think he has finally figured out that I was NOT exaggerating the issues I was having with her. She can be VERY outspoken, at times VERY defiant, and unfortunately, not always truthful. She is, however, VERY articulate. She's able to tell us what she wants and how she feels and sometimes even why (for reasons other than "because I said so!" or "because I want to!"). Today, she told us she was mad because Daddy won't always let her do the things she wants to do. She very plainly spoke of her frustration with that and her frustration with not always being able to do something she wants to be able to do because she doesn't have the skills to yet. And it really pointed out to me that being a three year old has to be really hard sometimes. There's a lot she can do but at the same time, a lot she can't yet do. Sometimes, she talks about things she wants to do when she's bigger because she knows she can't do it now. I hope she's not in too big of a hurry to grow up. We're sure not in a hurry to see her grow up.

I'm teaching Natalie to write...

2009-03-01T13:12:00.003-06:00

...which will probably annoy her father who, I'm assuming, wants to be the one to teach her but there is this page I ran across where you can print off a page of their name done in dots that they can write over. You can do it in both upper case only or normal. Right now, I'm doing it in just upper case and so far, she's been doing a great job! She really picked up it quickly and is having a blast at it too! Some letters she has trouble with and her I's came out looking like II's but STILL! for a first time really doing this, she's doing GREAT! John just found out that Natalie could be enrolled in the school he's working at and it wouldn't cost anything. Not sure how I feel about that. It probably wouldn't be a bad thing for Natalie and it would definitely get her used to people but I'm not sure. Oddly enough, John is all for it which is strange considering how he is SO against schools here but I think it has more to do with the schooling in this country itself more than anything else. So, we'll see what happens I guess. It might end up being an option if I go insane from being in a studio apartment with the two of them for too long. *sigh*

Potty training is going VERY well. She is almost totally trained both day AND night. The cloth diapers really helped with the night training. Here and there she has a wet diaper in the morning but it is VERY rare and usually as a result of not getting her to the potty right away in the morning. She'll wake up to go potty during the night before wetting the diaper usually. That's been helping a lot because that means not having to buy diapers or pull-ups. She is still in pull-ups here and there, usually for going out or for overnight if she's had signs of diarrhea. She does pretty well going by herself but she still hasn't gotten the hang of keep her pants and panties on her while she goes so I end up having to put both back on. She also needs help with wiping her bottom after she's pooped. Other than that, for a just past three year old, she's doing pretty good.

She's really been getting into singing lately. Her cousin is into Mama Mia which is a musical of all Abba songs. So both she AND Natalie have gotten into singing Abba songs. It's funny watching them sometimes especially as they pick very interesting times to do this like right after stripping for a bath (before I was READY to give them their bath, of course!), climbing onto the side of the bathtug or on the potty and singing Dancing Queen, outloud, almost totally tone deaf when they do it. What is also interesting is what they'll replace some of the words with. Natalie, who is especially aware of people's gas movements these days, likes to replace one word in the song with farted. *sigh* Life with a three year old is NOT boring at all.

A few other gems:

She's really gotten interested in belly buttons lately. "Everybody has a belly button!" she told me. And when a guy took of his shirt on TV (it was on the news, HONEST!), she pointed out, "He has a belly button!"

Along with belly buttons, she has gotten interested in bellies. Mainly, what is IN bellies. My younger sister, pregnant with her fourth child, is close to her due date and her daughter is very excited about the soon-to-arrive baby. She'll pull up my sister's shirt and hug her belly. Now, Natalie will not touch her aunt's belly. She has told us flat out that she does NOT want to do that and one time, when I repeated for about the 10th time that there was a baby in her aunt's belly, she said VERY loudly, "No, I do NOT want to touch her belly!" Here and there though, she'll get this idea that there's a baby in MY belly! I would tell her that no, there is not a baby in my belly.
"Yes there is!" There's little point to arguing with a three year old. Most of the time, you can't win. So, not only is there a baby in my belly, there's a BOY baby in my belly. She wants a little brother. I told her to talk to her daddy about that one. Makes me wonder what will happen if the baby is born before we leave for Chicago next week. Oh, and she's willing to share her boo-boos too! I'll believe that when I see it!

I just found out that the apartment John just moved into in Korea is a studio apartment. There are no bedrooms (I'm NOT happy about this either, especially after almost four months of dealing with a VERY demanding three year old). I've been keeping Natalie up to date on what is going on and told her that the apartment doesn't have bedrooms. Her response was pretty interesting:
"No bedrooms?! OH NO! We can't sleep over there!" See John! Even Natalie realizes the importance of a bedroom and she's only three!

So that's just a few of the things that are going on with Natalie right now. There's definitely more going on with her, things that she's doing all the time, both good and bad. The bad gets frustrating though and I know she's WELL overdo for a trip to the park. Haven't checked height or weight lately so I don't know where that is at but it does look like she's thinned out a little from before. She's not eating quite as much as she was at my older sister's. I'm not sure why that is either. But I'm glad she's not eating as much. She is still in some 3T items but I'm working on getting her more 4T and 5T stuff. Shoes, surprisingly enough, have stayed the same so I'm not sure what's up with that. Hopefully she won't hit a massive growth spurt after we get over there. That wouldn't be good at all. I keep thinking about getting her another pair of shoes before we go. She still hasn't gotten her pictures done which I'm finding a little frustrating. I really should try to get that done before the end of this month. It's already been over 14 months since the last set was taken. John wants me to wait until we get to Korea though (and probably get family pictures done--we've NEVER done any of those).

So, just a lot going on here and a lot to do and try to figure out and definitely not a whole lot of time for blogging, especially on just Natalie since that always tends to take longer than planned. Hopefully once I have more time, I'll be able to get more posts in.

It's hard to get a decent picture of a three year old.

2009-02-03T23:04:00.003-06:00

Today, I cut Natalie's bangs because they were getting long again. This, in and of itself, can be a very frustrating thing to do just to try to get Natalie to HOLD STILL but I find it absolutely CRIMINAL what hair places charge not only for a child's haircut but for a simple bang trim so we've made do with my halfway decent trimmings (though John won't go near me when it comes to getting HIS hair cut, CHICKEN). Eventually, we do plan to take her to an actual salon but it won't happen until I'm ready for her to get an actual hair cut which will still leave her hair pretty long (AT LEAST below her shoulders). Until then, I cut her bangs which happens about every month to two months depending how short I cut it the last time and how long I allow her bangs to get. Yeah, I could let them grow out but with the birthmark on her forehead, I figure the bangs are a good to have. It's not very dark but she still has her stork bite and it can be noticeable at times.

ANYWAY, after getting all that done (including going over AND over again just what the term holding still MEANS) and giving her a bath with the vinegar hair rinse (I rarely use actual shampoo on her anymore--and nothing with SLS-- and her hair is just beautiful for it, she could be in a Pantene commercial), I thought I would grab some pictures. She was all for it and actually held still for once but POSING for the pictures was another story... Really, all I wanted for her was to look at the camera and SMILE. That shouldn't be too hard, right? Uh...wrong, especially when her cousin is pretending to take pictures of her with an itty bitty Barbie camera next to me. So here are the pictures I got of her today in the order I took them in including the final picture, the one that ACTUALLY turned out pretty well. *sigh* I can't WAIT until we finally get her three year pictures done. Anyone have any suggestions for a decent local photographer who doesn't charge an arm and a leg for kiddy pics?

Picture number 1. As you can see, she closed her eyes. No, that won't do, that won't do at all.

Picture number 2. Um, pretending to do mug shots? Working on her future driver's license picture? You be the judge.

Picture number 3. The cheesy grin. She's trying but maybe a little too hard.

Picture number 4. The SUPER cheesy grin. I think at this point, she was about ready to be done with the whole picture taking thing.

Picture number 5. Ah, PERFECT! This was actually one of those ones I managed to catch of her being a little more relaxed than she had been for the other ones. What is it with those candid pictures anyway? Still, I find it scary how grown-up she's looking these days. Her daddy better hurry up and either come home or send for us before she grows up on him anymore.

Believe it or not, she's actually been sick the past few days with her worst illness yet: a really nasty cold that's given her a fever three days in a row. She seems to be on the mend though, still coughing and still has a bit of a runny nose but it at least looks like the fevers have stopped for now. Whatever it was she had really gave her immune system a big job to do. Still, other than being a little bit peaked last night, she's been going along just fine, it hasn't affected her activity at all which was a little unfortunate for me, I could have used the rest. Not only was I dealing with the same head and chest cold, I also got nailed with a stomach bug. NOT FUN. Hopefully we'll both be well enough by Saturday to attend services and the social that will be following.

As usual, I'm behind on updates...

2009-01-31T22:39:00.004-06:00

Things have kind of gone to pieces around here as I try to figure just what exactly is going to be going on in the next month or so. We were at my older sister's and now I'm staying with my younger sister trying to help her out so that she doesn't go into labor too early. Natalie is dealing with the changes as well as can be expected but now, she's got a couple more influences too and that has been a challenge. She's the youngest of the three cousins here and at first, things were going well but now they've gotten sick of her playing with their toys and have full out turned on her which is REALLY getting me annoyed. I did want to bring some of her toys with here but wasn't able to due to amount of stuff already going the day I left my older sister's (and time was a bit of a concern too, with the power going off every 30 minutes for 30 minutes, we wanted to be out before sundown) and now, I really wish I had found a way to anyway because I haven't been able to get back there and like I mentioned, the two cousins have become a tad hostile as far as sharing toys have been concerned. I'm sure John is going to have a hard time in dealing with Natalie when we finally rejoin but there isn't much I can do about it. My options are few as far as where I can stay at the moment not to mention, I am needed here but I'm sure it can't be an easy situation for Natalie who, once again, is going through another major transition again yet no clue whatsoever as to when she's going to see her dad again. To be honest, I don't have much of a clue myself. It will be another week before we know for sure what he's going to do. So far, no job yet but he still has another week to look too and you know how it is, something things pop up out of nowhere at the last minute. I'm just not sure how we're going to make it all work out if he does end up having to come home. *sigh*

Anyway, here are some pictures from her birthday party which was back on Christmas Day.

Natalie opening one of her presents (I think this was the snail puzzle).

Natalie wearing wrapping paper on her head like a hat.

The cake! This year it was strawberry from a mix and cream cheese frosting that I made myself, the cake was made by my younger sister.

Natalie eating her yummy cake!

That's it for updates for now. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get another one in before too long but this last month was just CRAZY around here and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

2008-12-27T20:58:00.003-06:00

She's three years old today! Unfortunately, it wasn't all that great of a day as she woke up very early this morning and threw up the previous night's dinner. Ugh. So, no services, no going to the play place, no dinner, no Rotary lights. Just some quick grocery shopping so I had enough food to last me three weeks and it was back home we went. We're lucky we made it too, the person driving us home hit some black ice and we were ALL over the road including at least one, 360 degree turn. By the time we were all done, we were actually facing the OTHER way so we had to drive VERY SLOWLY down to where we could get turned around and going the right way again. It was VERY scary, I had never been through something like that and I'm just glad I was with someone who knew what he was doing on the road (he's a semi-driver) because it could have been a VERY bad accident had it been another driver. We were also fortunate that no one was behind or in front of us coming from the other direction and I'm very grateful that Natalie slept through it all. But yeah, it was a pretty yucky day all around and I'm just glad to be back here. I'm planning on sticking around for the next two weeks and not going anywhere at all, and maybe by then I'll know when I'm leaving for South Korea with Natalie.

More updates and pictures will follow later. The "family" party was Christmas Day which was not my idea but was kind of decided on by everyone who was going to be there. We did the cake and presents and while Natalie didn't get too many presents, she enjoyed what she did get which was good. She also really liked her cake. Her Aunt Nessie made a strawberry cake from a mix and I made the frosting which everyone agreed was REALLY good. So it all turned out very well considering though Natalie didn't want to be held by her uncle when it was time to blow out the candles so I didn't get any pictures of that. Oh well. Hard to believe it's been three years now; time sure flies on you.

Another month gone by and quite a few updates...

2008-12-04T23:10:00.005-06:00

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.

Just some updates while I have a few minutes here...

2008-11-04T11:23:00.003-06:00

Natalie's out with John right now so I have a few minutes to sit and think. Lots has been happening in the last month which has kept me from doing too many updates on here. We've all been preparing to move and that has taken up a TON of time. We've also been trying to get Natalie prepared for what will be two major moves for her in a span of a few months. First, the move here to her aunt's house (my older sister here in De Soto) and then the BIG move to a city just north of Seoul, South Korea (and only 10 miles from the DMZ). The hardest part though, is yet to come and that comes all too quick. Sunday, we're taking John down to Chicago to the airport where he will fly out from there to Tokyo and then Seoul, South Korea. I've been trying to explain this to Natalie as best as I can that her daddy will be going to work but he'll be going FAR away and he won't be coming back but we'll be going to HIM after once he's able to get our plane tickets. She's a pretty smart cookie but she's also only about three and certain concepts are just not going to be comprehensible to her for some time. And a 7000 distance is one of those concepts. For someone who is not even really aware of time, places, etc, how can she? Fortunately, the internet will make it somewhat easier to keep in contact with her dad but it's going to take a little work as we get all the bugs ironed out. Money is going to be tight for a little bit for all of us and things are going to be a little rough for awhile. Fortunately John will be getting paid twice a month so there shouldn't be too much of a delay but still, it's not going to be easy for at least the first couple of weeks.

So, that's kind of the big thing that's going on this week. And it's already been a little bit of a struggle for her. Moving is never easy on anyone and for a little person who has been in the same place for two years, it's even harder, I think. Plus, moving in with other people is not always easy. She enjoys spending time with her cousin, who is nine, but at the same time, access to parks is not as good as it was in Beaver Dam. We're out in the boonies where the closest ANYTHING is a good two miles away and actual civilization is about 10 miles or more away. At the most, it will be until just after her birthday but it would be nice if we were all back together by then. And the time will go by quickly (though I try not to think about that TOO much). Another thing we're struggling with is listening. She hasn't been too big on doing that right now and there is a lot for her to get into. The biggest has been the CATS. My sister has several including one in house cat and Natalie cannot stay away from them. She is either trying to pester the one in the house, let the ones outside in, gets into the cat food, pulls on their tails, etc. To top it off, she's had allergic to reactions to the cats. It's nothing major, itchy and watery eyes for the most part but she just cannot seem to grasp at all that it's the CATS that are doing it to her and she won't stay away from them for ANYTHING. So we keep trying to tell her and tell her and now it's pretty much resulted in that she cannot be anywhere without one of us right there with her pretty much at all times. That should be fun once John leaves. *sigh*

Still, there are some positives. She's at least kept up with the potty training and hasn't regressed other than having one accident the other day. So most of the times she's in panties unless we go out and I haven't been big on using panties while out because being out in the boonies, bathrooms are few and far between and I'm not ready to test her bladder just yet. She seems to have grown again as she's in her 3T jeans now (at least, they fit enough so that I could use them but I'm keeping them packed away for the moment). I'm not sure if that is the result of last month's 1/4 inch growth spurt or if she had another one me while I wasn't looking. She's also sleeping pretty well at night and is at least going to bed when we do which has made life VERY easy on that end. And interestingly enough, since moving here, I have been sleeping better too since I have been going to bed much earlier than I was in Beaver Dam. Moving and unpacking and just wearing yourself out will do that I guess.

Natalie's vocabulary is also growing by leaps and bounds. I would say she's talking in six word sentences or more but they are definitely full sentences. She talks a lot too and knows what she wants and how to ask for it. She does get some things confused, like she will still sometimes say, "Carry you." instead of "Carry me." But nothing major and she's a very empathetic little girl too who hates to see anyone being sad.

So, those are the updates for the moment as I need to go check on laundry and find something to eat. Hopefully I'll have some more updates (and pictures!) soon.

Another growth spurt on the way?

2008-10-06T16:31:00.004-05:00

Natalie's taking a nap right now which, I have to admit, is quite unusual for her. Especially as she has been taking quite a few naps lately and eating more than usual. This little girl would eat applesauce and yogurt all day if you let her (especially if there are raisins in it). But yesterday, John made pancakes and she downed a number of those (helped John eat his too) on top of what she had had earlier for breakfast! So who knows! I guess I better keep watch over the few 24 month items I have as if she does hit a growth spurt, she'll be out of them for good and maybe even out of some of her 2T clothes. How in the world does any mother keep up with her kids clothes-wise?! And shoes! Oh my goodness! She's in a size 8 now but I think it's time to go up to 8 1/2 or even size 9! It makes me SO glad I got her boots already in a size 10, I think that is going to work out just fine by the time the snow flies. I remembered being worried about the size when I got them but for $2, I thought it was worth taking a chance on them not fitting when she needed them.

Right now, we're still preparing to depart Beaver Dam before the end of the month so that has meant paring down her toys BIG TIME. And, even though I have cut down on her toys drastically (especially the ones that are out in the living room), she has managed still to make a huge mess. But I think that is going to change once I pare down even more this next week. By the time we get to next Monday, I want her to be down to just a few items. I know that seems almost mean but I really only want to have to worry about a few things to pack that I have to keep track of. If she has her Dora house and all that paraphernalia, the doll set (that I plan to be giving away anyway), her three ponies, stuffed cats, dump trucks, and other vehicles that should be enough, I think for her to play with. Everything else can be packed to go or given away. I hate giving away things but most of it she has outgrown anyway and the rest she more or less ignores or just really can't be taken with. She'll have PLENTY of toys to play with while we are at my sister's and once we get over to Korea, we'll have her 3rd to prepare for and there should hopefully be plenty of money there to fund it including a decent chunk for lots of toys. Plus, I do plan to stock up on little things like My Little Ponies and small dolls and I'm still hoping we can pull off having John take the doll house with. Still debating that one but darn it, we got that for her right after she was born and I had planned way back then to give it to her for her third birthday. I would still like to. After two years we can either try to take it back with us or give it away, whatever works better.

I need to start packing clothes too and all of her supplies and things. Right now, we've been working on getting laundry done and I have gone through some of her clothes and have sent a few off. Still have a lot on hand though and would like to get a few more things including another set of fleece pig pajamas in a larger size since she is SO attached to the ones we have now. I'm also working on getting some more cloth diapers and have three more on the way including a couple more of the Green Acre Design diapers. I like how they look and feel so far though I haven't had a chance to test them out yet. Waiting to have access to a washer and dryer before I do that.

With all of this going on, it can be easy at times to not pay as much attention to her as she needs. It is also a struggle for me to keep even tempered with all of the stress which I tend not to do well with in the first place. But she does have her moments where her personality just shines through and I can't help but smile or laugh, especially as she is very quickly picking up a sense of humor. The other night when we were at Wal-Mart, she happened to be running around (since she is a girl who likes to run around and just be very active) and was running full speed down one of the aisles when she fell down onto her front. That kind of stopped her for a moment but she picked herself up, looked up at us and said very clearly, "I fall down all the time!" before taking off again. John and I both had a good laugh over that one.

She's quite a little actress these days too. Since she has seen Annie about 20 times now, she likes to reenact the scene where Annie is hanging from the railway bridge. She's done it with her doll, with her stuffed cats (Have I mentioned she has a think for cats, ducks, and pigs right now?), and even did it herself one time by sort of hanging over the chair or something. I kind of wonder about that since that is kind of a scary part but then remember the days where I used to reenact the scary scene from The Wizard of Oz where the witch had threatened Dorothy with her demise once the hour glass emptied so it must be that whole dramatic thing there or something. She is showing signs of a very vivid imagination which can sometimes come in handy when she wants to ride the horse at Wal-Mart and we're out of quarters. She rode anyway, shouting, "I'm a cowboy!" I sort of reminded her that she's actually a cow-GIRL but I'm not sure if it made that much of an impression on her.

Still, at 33 months now she has become QUITE a character! Here's her most recent couple of pictures:
Here she is pretending to iron her jeans with a cement truck. A iron did come with her kitchen set but she decided, I guess, that cement trucks are more effective or something. Probably, it's just more fun to use. lol She has always had some fascination with vehicles just as I have (though mine was with airplanes and helicopters because we lived by Fort McCoy) and I don't believe in just giving her girl toys.
She got her bangs cut again too. They grow really fast so I cut them a little shorter this time. That seemed to work out well and they look pretty even...for the most part.

So that is what is going on for the moment. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some more fall pictures soon. The weather here hasn't been the greatest though, lots of rain which Natalie doesn't mind too much as she LOVES to jump into the puddles but us adults are not so fond of it. lol I'm starting to wonder when I became such a...parent. lol I used to like a lot of the stuff Natalie does now but somehow in the last oh 15 years, I've become practical, boring, and somewhat of a clean freak at least in the sense that I'm just not big on squishy things anymore. I guess it happens to all of us when we grow up. I guess that's one attraction to having kids, it's at least a little bit of an to be a kid again yourself.

Grr! Stupid eczema!

2008-09-19T13:24:00.002-05:00

I either have to find a really decent soap (most likely a BAR soap) or cut Natalie down to ONE bath a week. I found a dry patch of skin just under her elbow the other day. Compared to her cousins, she has VERY mild eczema (probably due to the fact that she was breastfed) but all the same, she's got it. And more than likely, there was no way to avoid it. My dad has some BIG time issues with his skin. He was only able to use one kind of soap and even that dried him out so he RARELY took a bath and by rarely, I'm talking less than once a month, he had that many problems with it. So, I think my sister and I got mercifully got skipped but our kids get to suffer for it and thus, I have been spending the last almost three years trying to find a soap that will not irritate the heck out of Natalie's sensitive skin but what it really comes down to is cutting her baths pretty much to once a week. Anymore than that, and she starts drying up. I thought I would try twice a week for awhile because she's a toddler and she gets dirty from going to the park. Not to mention, people think you are out of your ever loving mind if you don't bathe your kid at least once a day. I'm not joking, I have seen people practically threaten CPS on moms who bathe their child less than at least every other day. So, not too long ago, I upped it from once a week to twice a week. And even that is too much. I will NOT give her steroid cream just to be able to give her a bath more than once a week (seriously, this has been suggested to me). And we do use lotion on her after every bath. Usually, I use body butter from the Burt's Bees brand.

So, I'm totally open to suggestions. I'm finding most of the commercial body washes for kids to be too harsh for her and to have a lot of chemicals she doesn't need. I have used a homemade casteel soap but that's running out and I have nowhere to get more as the owner shut down her business. I've used the California Baby soap but considering just about ALL liquid soaps have some form of citrus acid in them (and I HIGHLY suspect that Natalie is sensitive to citrus acid--and this would be since birth) I'm really beginning to think that it's going to have to be a bar soap. Even Dr. Bonner's which many swear by has citrus acid in it. I've heard from some that using only baking soda seems to work out pretty well so I may have to give that a go as I'm already using baking soda for washing hair. I'm just finding it all very frustrating right now. Even worse, Natalie really likes to take a bath. She enjoys swimming in the tub but I have to watch and make sure I don't overdo the bathing with her. Even worse, more than likely, there will NOT be a bathtub in our apartment in South Korea. That's another thing that's not overly popular over there along with ovens and dryers.

So, I'm not quite sure what to do here. At least, if I do cut down to one bath a week, she doesn't break out. Her cousins break out no matter how many baths they get a week. And naturally, I want to avoid having to use steroid creams. Once in a GREAT while is one thing but I do not want to have to use it on her all the time. Skin problems are just SO frustrating! I'm grateful that that is pretty much the extent of her issues but still, it's one that is very frustrating to deal with.

Poor thing...

2008-09-16T23:25:00.003-05:00

She just does not want to go to sleep tonight! I'll probably have to take her to bed with me soon as she keeps waking up just enough to nurse, then falls back asleep only to wake up later to nurse. She's sleeping on the love seat in the living room which is where I have my laptop. John is already at work now, he left about an hour ago after checking the mail for me. No cloth diapers yet. I'll have to check the tracking to see where they are at. I had ordered a few pocket diapers for Natalie for overnights so we'll have to see how those work. It would be nice to not have to worry about finding disposable diapers over in South Korea, especially as we will have a washer in our apartment. We won't have a dryer though so that's going to make things kind of interesting.

I have been trying to keep Natalie on a schedule now as far as bath time goes these days. I'm not able to give her a bath every day or even every other day because if she gets too many baths, she starts to dry out. So, she's scheduled for two a week, a Monday morning bath and a Friday night bath. I have this foaming bath stuff that she just loves and depending on what day it is, she either gets the cheerful orange bath or the calming lavender bath. I get them from the co-op in Madison for about $3 each and they last awhile since I don't use it all for one bath. Basically, it is baking soda, a few other things, and some essential oils. Smells nice and Natalie seems to enjoy it too.

Unfortunately, her bath days are nearing an end as I don't believe they will have a bath tub in our apartment in Korea. Showers are more commonplace especially full room showers. Should be interesting adjusting to all the differences between here and there. It makes me a little sad though because Natalie does like her baths. I may have to invest in an inflatable pool somehow before we go over there. She'll tolerate showers but as she enjoys "swimming" in the bathtub, baths for her are more fun.

So, she gets her bath with her foaming bath soda and I let her play and "swim" in there for a little. Soap right now, I'm trying to work on. I have some California Baby stuff I'm using but I also have some Aquifer stuff I'm using too as well as a bar of castile soap which doesn't seem to work up much of a lather unfortunately. Still trying to do more research on the body washes and soaps as I'm not totally sure about the stuff I'm using on her but at least it isn't Johnson and Johnson. That stuff, I have heard, is BAD so I'm trying to limit that at least. Hair washing now is a bit interesting. Shampoo dries her hair (even the stuff that is supposed to have conditioner in with it) so, what I have been using lately is just a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar diluted with water and that's only for the daytime bath, I don't use it on Fridays. It's actually the same thing I use in my hair only before I use that, I will wash my hair with 1/2 a tablespoon of baking soda diluted in water. This is my no-poo routine. Natalie's hair doesn't get greasy like mine does (at least it hasn't yet, hasn't had a chance to really be ruined by the overuse of shampoo and conditioner) so she only needs the apple cider vinegar. It rinses out nicely without leaving a smell and her hair has been very nice and shiny. It could stand a little bit of a hair cut though (a trim to even things up) but I'm too much of a chicken to do more than her bangs right now so I may have to drop the money to do that at some point before we leave the states.

Once she's all done, I do a final rinse with the shower, take her out, comb and braid her hair, put lotion/body butter on her, and then she's all done and ready to get dressed and maybe head out with her dad to the park to play. Of course, now that I have written this, I realize that I'll probably want to give her a bath on Thursday before taking her to the Le Leche League meeting. Ah well, it's not the first time the schedule has been changed though the only thing is is that she may still end up getting a bath Friday night as we're planning to have either pizza or lasagna for dinner that night. But maybe it will be okay so long as I don't use any soap on her that night. We'll see. I always have to make sure she doesn't start drying out and getting patches of dry spots which is a sign her eczema is coming back. Baby skin can be SO hard to care for at times.

Anyway, figure I should post some new pictures:

Here is Natalie wearing John's lettermen jacket from high school (I never got one, my mother felt they were too impractical--BOO!) but John still has his. It's huge on Natalie though, falls all the way to the ground. It still fits John though, just a little short in the sleeves now compared to when he was younger (though he says it was a bit bigger on him back then).

Here's John helping Natalie get a mitten on. I was trying clothes on her and she decided that she wanted to accessorize her outfit so that she was prepared for ANY season, I guess. She has the mittens and the scarf on but notice the beach hat and the sunglasses too. She's getting more into dressing up so I have a bunch of stuff in a drawer for her to go and put on if she wants. I may have to check out some costumes though at some point to give her even more things to try on and play around with.

The finishing touches. Notice the HAT that is on her left foot. And now, she has her purse and I think she even has a set of keys too. She's all dressed up and ready to go out on the town. Toddlers, what can I say?

Hopefully, Natalie is down for the night...

2008-09-16T19:19:00.002-05:00

It certainly would not be good if she wakes up four hours later and decides to stay up. That has happened quite a few times now. That is one of the downfalls having an open schedule the way we do here, a necessary thing in light of John's constantly changing upside down work schedules. Admittedly, she hasn't had any dinner but then again, she is still not the greatest of eaters, toddler pickiness having struck full force here. Even things she loved to eat previously she's not really too big on now and it is a constant struggle getting her to eat ANYTHING, even things she requests to eat. But, it's one of those things I don't push right now in light of the drastic change we will be making come October and November for even while we more than likely will not be going over right away with John to South Korea, there will be some adjustments as we stay with my younger sister for the month and then some adjustments again once we actually get over to Korea.

In the meantime, I am doing the best I can trying to keep things somewhat normal here even as I prepare for us to go. I'm sure she is confused by the constant rearranging of items in the apartment as I prepare for our rummage sale (unfortunately, including some of her toys, specifically ones I had gotten her from Discovery Toys that she has already outgrown) and she probably doesn't understand what John is telling her at all as he tries to explain what will be happening in the next few months. One of my concerns is how she is going to deal with a month without her dad. The two are very close and I can see her becoming quite distraught once she realizes that he is not going to be coming back right away (actually, not at all as we'll be going to him). I wish there was another way around this but there just hasn't been anyway to get enough together to get the tickets we need considering the problems we keep having with vehicles. The two weeks of work John lost due to our car going kaput and the loss of his full time hours for over two months have really hurt us. We were able to at least pay bills but saving any extra money hasn't been an option.

We're trying though and I'm hoping that the rummage sale we have next week will help us too. I was actually hoping to have it this week but I want to be able to have it on Thursday and Friday and this Thursday is just going to be too crazy. I have my Le Leche League meeting this week and I'm REALLY hoping to go this time. Last month, we were not able to attend because Natalie ended up running a fever the night before. It was a pretty high one for her too, just over 102 degrees. And while there were no other symptoms and she was over it by the next morning, I didn't want to take any chances and drag her out to a meeting with a bunch of other kids (thereby possibly exposing them to whatever it was she had) and tire her out too much. As it was, she had had a hearing appointment that afternoon and that we did go to, it would have been a bit much with the 30 minute plus drive there, then the meeting, then the drive back and THEN the appointment, not when she had been SO out of sorts just the evening before. Fortunately, whatever she did have went away pretty much as soon as it hit her (the power of nursing, I like to think) but still, didn't want to push it. And therefore, another month went by with me not being able to go to my meeting. I have not had much luck with getting to my LLL meetings. I guess that's what I get for choosing Fond du Lac instead of Madison for a meeting location but I was hoping to use that as a good time to see my mom too. However, visitation has yet to be approved. And it wouldn't be that big of a deal if it wasn't for the fact that I borrowed a book that I have YET to return. I forgot it when I went to the last meeting back in May and haven't been at a meeting since then. If I DON'T make it up there this week, I'm going to have to make some other arrangements as I don't think I'm going to make it up there next month with all the planning we're going to have to do to be out of here. Then again, if I can get visitation approved by then, that would be a good time to go and see my mom.

Anyway, these days Natalie is VERY much asserting her own brand of independence, much to our dismay. Listening is the last thing she wants to do and being demand is the in thing for her right now, especially when it comes to nursing. Therefore, I have really come down hard on her with the nursing bit, expecting her not only to ask but to ask in a very specific way including being grammatically correct when she asks to nurse. What else can you expect from a former English major? It has taken some work but she is getting much better with it and at the very least, is not trying to drag me to the couch by pulling on my shirt (a rather popular way for her to ask me previously). I do not see weaning in our immediate future because I don't want to push that on her when we have so many changes to go through before she reaches the age of 3. Not to mention, I do believe in letting her decide when she is done and so far at least, have the full support of John in that process. But, when she asks the way she does towards it at times, it has had me wondering if I should put more limits on the process. At the very least, that nursing "on demand" should not be quite as SHE demands it! But, I like to think that it is just another step in our nursing relationship and, as I really do not know very many moms (in real life or online) who have ventured this far with nursing, I just have to figure out the ropes on my own. It sure would be helpful though if she would just EAT a little more.

Well, I just heard her wake up so that not being much of a nap, she's a bit on the cranky side so off I go!

Natalie and the spider...

2008-09-05T16:59:00.003-05:00

So the other night, while John was at work, I noticed a little spider crawling on the kitchen table. Our apartment complex has been having HUGE issues with spiders and we have have quite a few of them here including an egg full of baby spiders that I had John suck up with the vacuum cleaner. Well, this was a pretty fast moving spider and running all over the kitchen table. I happened to say something to Natalie and the first thing she did was run for one of her little plastic bowls in a drawer. She then proceeded to "catch" the spider under the bowl. John is one who catches unwanted bugs and then takes them outside. Well, Natalie was more interested in playing with the spider than taking it outside and so I took a few pictures of her playing with the spider:

The very little black dot in the picture above that is in the middle of the table is the spider.

Here, Natalie is somewhat gleefully watching the spider under the bowl. Eventually, I tried to transfer the bowl onto a book to take the spider outside but unfortunately, I killed it. Oh well. It was fun for Natalie while it lasted, I suppose.

In other news, Natalie had her hearing appointment two weeks ago and I'm VERY happy to say her hearing is great. So far, she has not at all inherited any hearing problems from me. In fact, her hearing is MUCH more sensitive than mine which is creating a few problems already. One, she is constantly holding her hands to her ears as I talk FAR too loud for her at times and two, she tends to talk VERY softly so half of the times, I can't hear what she is saying. The two of us falling in two extreme is going to make communication very difficult for awhile, I see.

The hearing test itself was pretty interesting to see. I went in with Natalie so that she had one of us with her. The doctor had me put her on my lap and then told me that she was going to play sounds from one of the two speakers in the room and then what Natalie is supposed to do is turn towards the sound. I'm not to help her at all. In fact, I wasn't even supposed to move my head to look for the sound myself. Sadly, that turned out to not be much of an issue. While Natalie had NO problems and heard the sounds, whipping her head towards where the sound was coming from, I could maybe hear about TWO of them. That was it. And even then I wasn't positive that I wasn't just hearing phantom noises like I sometimes do. It's no wonder at all that Natalie can hear the train whistle a good minute or two before I can. It kind of hits home too just how bad my hearing is. I wonder sometimes if I have made things more difficult for myself by acting like it wasn't that big of a deal. For a longest time, it had been more or less blown off, that my hearing really wasn't THAT bad. I'm only now starting to realize just how bad it is.

I really should update more often...

2008-08-10T23:56:00.006-05:00

...it's kind of hard to though when no one even comments on here. *sigh* Anyway, Natalie is now 31 months old and has definitely become a regular toddler in the throes of the "trying twos". She likes to say "NO!" A lot. So John has taken to doing LOTS of reverse psychology which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Now, instead of talking about going to the park, she talks about going to the park, in the dark. Toddlers, they're cute and crazy at the same time.

SO...Natalie continues to grow and confuse the heck out of me when it comes to keeping clothes on her. Summer clothes are a riot to figure out too. Right now, with shorts, she's in anything between 12 months and 4T (don't ask me!) and shirts, between 18 months and 4T depending. It's all kinds of fun trying to keep track of everything AND be getting stuff for her for the fall and winter months. We are still at the moment keeping our move in mind though it has been put off to the end of October for the moment (and if things don't improve financially, Natalie and I are going to end up at SOMEONE'S house for a month until John can send for us--YUCK!) but that doesn't mean that I can relax about trying to find clothes for Natalie. Either way, whether we are here in the states or out in South Korea, Natalie WILL need clothes for the fall and the winter and with her rather erratic growth spurts, I need to be prepared. So, I will probably have clothes from 24 months all the way to 4T. So far, I have two totes full so I just have to start putting things into the suitcase. For the most part, I am set now, I just need some more 3T pajamas. I have lots of 2T pajamas but only two sets of 3T for the fall and two for the winter. So I really could use more than that. I think she's set on everything else including jeans, especially jeans. She has lots of pairs of jeans. She's got quite a few sweaters too which is good because you never know when you need sweaters.

So as we prepare for leaving the area, I have also been getting Natalie's appointments in that she needs before we go. This has included not only the doctor's but also her first trip to the dentist. Now, the ones around here do not take kids under the age of four but we got a number for a dentist in Madison that takes the state insurance (thank goodness!). Not only that but I was able to nab an appointment the VERY next day! So off we went and Natalie had her first dentist appointment. She did VERY well. No cavities and she was just perfect when they cleaned her teeth. Getting her to leave was another story! Here's a picture of her that I took while we were waiting for the dentist to come in:

That's "Dollie" next to Natalie in the dentist chair. Natalie is quite attached to her and unfortunately, that same day, she got left at the bank when we had stopped over to make some deposits. She was found by the workers there and put into the lost and found until John was able to pick her up at the drive-through Friday morning but poor Dollie did have to spend two nights at the bank much to Natalie's dismay. "Dollie at the bank?" was her constant question until Dollie finally came home Friday morning. So that was my bad mommy moment but at least it wasn't Natalie we left!

So anyway, after we left the dentist, we went over to a park that we saw while driving around (Natalie insisted we stop, of course) and while we were there, I got a couple of pictures. Since I had done something new with Natalie's hair that day, I made sure to get pictures of that too. This is Natalie's hair from the side:

And Natalie's hair from the back. You can really see how long it is here.

Other than her bangs and one VERY small hair trim in the back, I have not cut it with the exception of the two very long pieces that were on either side of her hair. They were a good two inches longer than the rest of her hair in back so those got cut over a year ago. Wow, if those had been left, they would probably be about halfway down her back now but it would look pretty goofy had I kept them. As it is, at some point, I will need to deal with the section of her hair in front that is still only down to her chin from the hair cut she had before I started parting her hair. Until I did that, I had to cut a lot more bang on her than I do now. But now, she has at least two different lengths of hair going on and that does not include the bangs. Oh well, I will deal with them eventually but I have no desire to cut her hair right now as I know I'll just regret it.

So that was July 30th. The next day was Natalie's doctor's appointment. She is now at 35 3/4 inches for her height which is the 50th percentile. Her weight is 31 lbs and 9 oz which is the 77th percentile. So even with her being as picky as she is (she will NOT eat much meat at all!), she's still gaining weight quite well probably due to the fact that she's still nursing. But, as you can see, she doesn't look heavy at all. But if you pick her up...you can tell! lol She's a pretty solid little kid! Everything is going very well with her. We are dealing with some potty training regression but I'm not worrying about it because I'm sure she'll regress again until we move. John and I just aren't fully in agreement on how best to deal with it.

Saturday, August 2nd was a bit unusual for us for a Saturday. Normally, we spend the day at home but Natalie's adopted grandfather was going to be in the area and he has plates for our car to deliver. We also had milk to give him from the local dairy farm where we get raw milk. We had hoped to meet up on Friday but being a trucker driver, he got held up. And, being a truck driver, he had to stick to the road he was on which was the interstate so we met up in Madison. After we met up with him and talked to him for awhile, we decided to stick around town and hit the zoo since Natalie had never been there and since it had been YEARS since I had been there too. The last time was during the summer after I had met John. So, here are a few pictures from that:

Here she is posing on a rock in the zoo.

Here she is sitting on the carousel with her dad.

And here's a penguin swimming around in the pool (I didn't get to see the penguins the last time I was there so I made sure to see them this time).

Again this was VERY unusual for a Saturday for us as normally we stay at home due to John's religious requirements. It was nice to get out though and do something besides sit around at home which we tend to do.

So, that's pretty much it at the moment. I'll leave one last picture for you all to see. This is a picture of Natalie and her cousin Gabby taken while I was up in La Crosse back in July. Hard to believe but Natalie is almost as tall as Gabby now! They're only off by maybe 1/4 of an inch, if even. I can remember pictures from last May when Gabby was a full head taller. Just mind boggling! Anyway, here they are! As you can see, Natalie has quite a bit more hair than her cousin, who is four months and ten days older, does.

There are more updates, of course but I'm going to save those for another day. Though I will mention that Natalie LOVES her new shoes. We had to get her a pair of size 8 shoes when she suddenly grew out of her 7 1/2 sandals (not only grows out of clothes but also shoes at an alarming rate!) so we found a pair of shoes on clearance for $10. The best part is they're light up shoes! Natalie REALLY likes that part! Makes me glad I got her the size 10 boots for the winter though. I have a feeling she's going to need them by then!

Not much going on at the moment...

2008-07-11T22:34:00.002-05:00

It's summer. It's hot and I hate it. John is thinking of a position in one city in South Korea. The contract he was considering he did sign and send out all the stuff for but then I found out that it would basically be in the middle of NOWHERE. Or, as a friend of mine who has been to Korea has put it, "the American city equivalent of a population of 5000." Oh heck no. SO, I made him drop that one immediately! Fortunately, the actual contract wouldn't have started until the first day he taught but it did kind of mess everything up and now almost a month later he has found another possible contract in a MUCH bigger city through the same recruiter but eh, now we're less than two months away from going and I'm scared out of my mind just about. *sigh*

So, after that whole deal (thank goodness I found out BEFORE we got there!), I took off with Natalie and spent a week in La Crosse for a vacation. It wasn't much but it was nice to get out of Beaver Dam for a few days. Natalie TOTALLY FREAKED at the fireworks we went to the Sunday after we got there and spent 43 out of the 45 minutes show under my shirt, nursing, with her hands over her ears. Poor thing. The rest of the week I think was kind of rough on her too as she is not at all used to other kids, especially not two kids who are a bit scrappy.

She dealt pretty well though and we did have a pretty good time up there but as always, it is good to be home. It does have me worrying about how she'll adjust to the big move to South Korea. I think she will be okay as long her dad is around and she can go to the park.

Not much else going on. Monday will be a year since my little sister delivered her stillborn. Hard to believe how fast time goes by. Got a letter from my mom this week and got the news that my older sister (my dad's oldest daughter) had a heart attack last month. She was treated and released so I guess she's fine but she's only 41. Makes me think about my own health sometimes.

And here we are, 30 months later!

2008-06-27T23:30:00.002-05:00

Natalie just turned two and a half years old today. It's not much of a milestone, just between two and three but it is a big one for me because we are still nursing. Now some may find this odd, or worse but this has been what has worked for our little family here. There are many benefits to nursing a toddler and I hope she continues to do so until we are at least through what will likely be a very insane move to South Korea. It's hard though because there are many who do not understand the reasons for breastfeeding past a year. Well, consider this, there are commercials that are out right now for something called Flintstone Gummy vitamins. These vitamins have choline which is an ingredient that is found in breastmilk. These vitamins are for children at least ages 2-3 and can even be taken by older kids and adults (just take two instead of one a day). So, I ask you, if a vitamin on the market is seen as being better because it has this ingredient that is found in breastmilk, then why is breastfeeding said to not have any benefits past a year of age? It makes no sense. Obviously, there are those little ones who have already weaned but why push a child to wean when I can continue to give her all she needs just by nursing? Obviously, she does eat normal foods and she does all of the normal toddler things. She's even now in her own toddler bed (though right now, she's sprawled on my bed with her father, go figure lol). All breastfeeding has done has been to be a liquid vitamin of sorts with the added benefit of being able to come to mom and cuddle when she wants to. What more can a toddler ask for? Life is rough on a toddler so anything I can do to make it easier for her, I will. She will eventually stop asking to nurse and our breastfeeding time will end and we will move on to the next stage but as she is growing so quickly and becoming SO independent, it is nice to know that she still relies on me for something.

Breastfeeding was a huge struggle for us at first. I'm sure many did not think we would make it to a year at all much less two and a half. I'm thankful for the wonderful support of my husband (even when I resented it at times), and the excellent support of various breastfeeding groups that I turned to even after the lactation consultant threw up her hands. I wish more moms can find the support I was able to because I truly believe that the kind of support you have can make/break the breastfeeding relationship. It was also my husband who expressed his desire for me to breastfeed until our daughter was at least two. Having this time led me to groups, which led to me learning more and more about breastfeeding. It's hard to fight the constant push to wean that society tries to impose on mothers who dare go past a year but with knowledge and support from my fellow breastfeeding mommies, I'm able to do so, one day at a time.

I have a few new tickers that you can find on the right hand side. One is a BF milestone ticker and one is a cute ticker about breastfeeding toddlers. I deleted a few links too, especially ones that weren't very active.

Just a couple of quick updates while Blogger is working...

2008-06-23T19:40:00.002-05:00

I have been having TONS of issues with Gmail and Blogger lately and I have no idea what is up with that so hopefully I'll be able to get this post in.

Natalie will be two and a half on Friday. She's now 34 and a 1/2 inches and weighs around 31 and a half pounds. We just recently converted her crib to a toddler bed to start getting her used to not sleeping in a crib since we will not have a crib in Korea.

John is VERY close to signing a contract and having a job. More than likely, it will be in September. Lots to do and not much time but with the car troubles we have had of late, John has been home A LOT. His Madison job is down to 2 days a week since he hasn't been able to get to work and he started a part time job here. I will probably be looking for work soon myself.

Not much else going on at the moment. Did get an email from a member of John's family. This gets a little confusing so bear with me, the granddaughter of John's niece who is only three drowned at a pool in Iowa on Friday. This was her first time swimming and the babysitter took her. No idea what happened exactly and I guess the aquatic center is under investigation (where the heck were the life guards?). Not sure where the babysitter was either. This is why even John is not allowed to take Natalie to the pool alone. John can't swim and I won't take any chances. *sigh* The funeral is on Wednesday.

That's it for now, better see if I can get this entry published.

Well, now that John's diploma is here...

2008-06-10T16:54:00.002-05:00

...he can finally get a position lined up. We're shooting for sometime after August 21st, before October 1st. We'll know more soon enough. One position that he was considering is in a smaller city (45,000) but only half an hour from the coast and the apartment didn't look too bad (TV was NICE though, better than anything we have here!) BUT...it's on the 12th floor! YIKES! I don't think I have EVER been in a building over 6 stories except for the last time John went to South Korea and we stopped at the consulate office in Chicago and that was 27 stories high and I do remember being a little freaked out by that. lol So, we'll have to see. That's the first one so far and I'm sure others will pop up and so we should know about at the latest, two months before we have to be there since I do want to give the apartment management two months notice of our leaving at least. That's it for now!

I didn't think potty training would be THIS easy!

2008-05-25T12:54:00.003-05:00

I had always kind of dreaded potty training. I don't know why but it just seemed to be one of those things that was going to be more difficult than anything else. Going from diaper to panties, relying less on a diaper while out and about, no diaper overnight...it all just seemed to be a big complicated process. You have videos, books, Dr. Phil shows, groups, etc. All of these things made it sound SO complicated. Then you have pull ups, cloth training pants (which are more bloody expensive than underwear for ADULTS!), training pants, panties, it's endless! And that's before you have to pick out the potty! And don't forget elimination communication!

I had this fear that Natalie was going to be as old as I was when I finally was potty trained. My mom never really pushed it and just let me go when I was good and ready which was almost four! YIKES! Um, no, I did not want her in diapers that long. So, I think around 14/15 months, we got one of those little Bjorn potty chairs and introduced her to it. Not a huge deal. We were not trying to train her, just let her know that there was a place other than her diaper that she could go potty in. And she did go in there a few times (including poop) before losing interest (picture below)Her next step which she was doing I think before she turned two was to let us know that she had "uckies" which was a poopy diaper. This made life much easier because then I didn't have to guess when she had a bad diaper, she would tell me and I would change her right away. Then, at some point (since she wanted nothing to do with her little potty chair--go figure) we got one of those potty inserts and she would occasionally inform us that she wanted to go potty. She was still wearing a diaper at this point but we gave her a chance to go and use the potty when she wanted to usually after she got up in the morning. Eventually, I figured out that she LOVED stickers (she would go after the stickers on bananas) so I started giving her stickers from a batch of smiley face stickers I had. When she used the potty, she got a sticker. This went a few months until I decided that maybe she was ready for underpants. This was last month so I got a package of underpants (meanwhile also looking into cloth training pants instead of pull-ups) and I gave it a try. Um, no go. She had several accidents and I just gave up. About a month later, I noticed that she was telling us when she had to go potty with her diaper on, would strip off the diaper, run to the potty and go. This gave me the idea to try with her again and I did that a couple of Saturdays ago when I knew we would be home for most of the day and ever since, Natalie has been wearing underpants and using the potty. Yes, we still use some diapers but it's been for night time or when we go out and we've used some of her pull-ups too (since John had gotten a package of those before we really got going on the panties). When she wears her pull-ups, she has been going in the potty. The pooping in the potty has been somewhat hit and miss but she's getting better at this but in all honesty, it has not been as difficult as I thought it would be, I just needed to wait until she was ready for that stage.

Now, I'm hoping to get her potty trained as much as possible before we leave for South Korea but I'm a little nervous about that since 1. we have to somehow get her weaned off of the toilet insert by then (or take the insert with us) and 2. get her used to going in public restrooms. We're talking AT LEAST a 13 hour flight out there and so far, looking at plane tickets, stopover will either be in San Francisco or Japan. But I'll be honest, I'm not planning to go seeking diapers in South Korea. I have three and a half to four months before I worry about that now that we have somewhat narrowed down the date of departure (though that may change if John decides to get a job in town).

Not much else going on, just lots of planning, lots of going through stuff and deciding what to keep/not keep, and basically just lots of trying to get all of the details in place. We're still waiting on John's diploma (go figure, we get the passports first and not the diploma) and once that is in, then John has all he needs to get employment. Then it's just a matter of figuring everything else out including plane tickets and visas.

And of course, we're already dealing with the few naysayers (those who absolutely will not support what we're doing) but what those against it don't understand is that we're already really too far into this to change our minds and one way or the other, it's going to happen. Not that I don't have my worries but at this point, I have more concerns about staying in this country where the economy is getting worse and worse and our ability to survive is dropping more and more than going to a country I have never been before and trying to make a living there. At least John has done that before and once he got over the bumps he had there in the beginning did pretty darn well until June 28, 2003. Then it all went to hell. Well, not on his end, just on mine when I ended up homeless because my apartment became a crime scene.

Did I say four weeks? Try six DAYS!

2008-05-18T00:25:00.002-05:00

I'm not kidding! We have our passports back ALREADY! WOWZERS! They have electronic chips too which I think it kind of creepy. Things are happening really fast and we're shooting for September now, maybe early September depending on when they are hiring for the public schools out there. John has learned that the public schools pay more and are more reliable than the private schools which makes sense, I guess. While for the most part, the response to our decision has been positive we have gotten a few negative responses, most notably from John's buddy who reamed my butt good tonight. Just what I needed too, NOT.

Anyway, in other news, my younger sister ended up having a D&C on Monday as she still hadn't miscarried the baby that passed. She's decided she's done and at her follow-up appointment, she will be making plans to get her tubes tied. She's not even 23. Makes me kind of sad. I still haven't told my mom yet and I'm hoping my sister will before she calls her again. Poor Mom, that leaves me as being her last hope for anymore grandkids as my brother's future wife can't have any kids either.

Passports are ordered and should be back in about four weeks...

2008-05-12T16:16:00.002-05:00

That all was done on Friday so it's just a matter of time before they come back. And then I guess all that is left after that (besides getting rid of all of our stuff) is for John to find a job. There are recruiters calling here all the time! Kind of exciting. We're looking at leaving now the end of September so not much time as I thought before. I think (and John actually thought the same thing!) that it would be funny if we left September 23rd. That's when he came home almost five years ago, just less than three weeks before our wedding. CRAZY times, I tell you. I do plan to set up a new blog for all of this, will probably move some of my posts out from the Simply Janeen blog and set that one up for all things South Korea related instead.

I got my laptop on Friday and I LOOOOOVE IT! It has a web cam on it and everything! And oh does it play The Sims 2 like a DREAM! I'm still doing most of my internet stuff on the desktop though because I really haven't gotten the typing down yet on the laptop. So the big purchase for South Korea is done and now we have just a few other things to pick up though I'm trying to be cheap and find some of them at rummage sales. Hey, we found Natalie's carry on bag, in GREAT shape for just two dollars! Can't beat that. There is SO MUCH to do though! We need to have at least one, if not two rummage sales. I need to put stuff I'm keeping that is going to my sister's in the foot locker. I need to get all of the pictures developed and in a photo album and decide whether that goes with or what I'm going to do with it. Again, SO much to do and less than five months to do it. I think it's really going to get scary once John finds a place to work and I don't think that's going to be hard at all. If things were set now, we could go now but there are stupid little things like all of our belongings and a lease to deal with. lol

And yet, we're trying to keep going on like normal here including potty training Natalie. Just under a month after that failed attempt at potty training and this time, success! I noticed the other day she was taking off her diaper and running to the potty so Saturday, a day we never go ANYWHERE until after sundown, I started her in panties and there was only one accident that day. We did diapers while out yesterday but panties at home and again, success until she had a coughing fit and a little accident. Today is day three and she's even pooped in the potty so I think we're getting ready to make the diapers go bye-bye! I'm still doing diapers overnight though and I have NO idea what we're going to do about a 13 hours plan ride. Has anyone ever used a potty on the plane? Are they kiddy friendly?

Well, better take off here and get John up; he's supposed to be doing the milk run today.

I suppose I should also mention some of Natalie's recent naughtiness...

2008-05-07T01:57:00.002-05:00

...sigh...she's going through a bit of a streak here with frustrating me and with it being that TOM, NOT what I needed as I have been VERY grumpy. Her first was the night before when I discovered that she had stuffed her doll into the TOILET! This is not a doll that is supposed to be getting wet. It has a soft body and getting shoved into the toilet I'm sure was further loss of dignity to the doll, not to mention the fear of drowning that's probably been instilled within her. So, I took the doll away, hung her up to dry and Natalie has yet to get her back. I wasn't too impressed even if she did tell us the doll was in there by pointing to the toilet and saying, "Dolly!" Her other rather obnoxious thing was getting into my back, into my coin purse where I had money, took the money out and threw it in the garbage! ARGH! That I was not too impressed with. Money is NOT so lucrative that I'm okay with it literally being thrown away. Fortunately, I did at least think to look into the garbage and was able to fetch the money before too much junk was thrown in on top of it. However, several coins and a battery are missing so it's John's job tomorrow to go digging in the trash. *sigh* John of course says I need to put it where she can't get to it. Hmm, would LOVE to know where that is! Even having my OWN room here is not effective as she's in it pretty much ALL the time and getting into stuff in here anywhere. I guess that will be one nice thing about not having as much stuff, there isn't as much for her to get into but still, it would be nice to have a place to keep things where she won't get into them or John won't mess it up either. But, I don't see us having a three bedroom place to live anytime soon as I doubt we'll get more than a two bedroom in South Korea the two years we plan to be there. *sigh* Is it too much to ask to have a place to have my things so that no one is getting into them?

Hasn't there been enough pain already?

2008-05-07T01:35:00.002-05:00

Kind of going off subject for this entry. Not sure who all is reading my blog here but for those of you who don't already know, my younger sister suffered a pregnancy loss over the summer. She was 28, almost 29 weeks pregnant and the baby suddenly passed. No one knows why; no one knows how. The baby was fine, kicking the night before and then the next day, nothing. Well, since then, she's tried to get pregnant and has gotten pregnant two times only to have lost both of them during the first trimester. The first one she lost back in February at about 8 weeks and now, she just lost this one at almost 9 weeks. She didn't even know until she went to get an ultrasound today. The doctor wanted her to come in because she was getting some light spotting after intercourse and since she had miscarried before, they just wanted to keep an eye on things. Well, there was no heartbeat. Now, the OB feels that it's some kind of an auto-immune disorder where the body is not allowing her to hang onto the pregnancy. She believes that the clot my sister had last year due to being on the birth control is now happening during each of the pregnancies and is what killed Emmah. She's decided she's done and will be taking steps to make sure she can no longer get pregnant whether that is getting her tubes tied or having her husband get fixed (whichever is the less invasive procedure). Emotionally, she can no longer handle it and I can't say I blame her. I think one pregnancy loss would have been enough for me. Fortunately, it takes a little work for me to get pregnant.

It does have me worried though. I'm the only one this generation of females who has not had a pregnancy loss. And I fear that with my weight, the fact I had a cesarean, etc that if I try again, I may end up with a loss. Right now, that's the last thing on my mind though the idea gets jiggled now and again whenever I hear a mom is having a baby or I see baby pictures of Natalie. I think as long as she's nursing, I'll be okay. Once she weans, that may be a different story altogether.

We've made a monumental decision.

2008-05-03T12:29:00.002-05:00

Or rather, I did. John had always known what he wanted to do, it was just a matter of getting me to agree. Taking a look at our situation here and realizing that we were just repeating the same pattern over and over again with no hope of ever really getting ahead or anywhere really, I decided that if John can get all the arrangements made by the end of August, we can go to South Korea for two years. Yeah, it's going to be a really big move for all of us but I see no other option with the way the economy is going. Korea is where John can get a job that he enjoys, that fits his talents and the demand is high. We could survive on less than he would make there so we could save some money and come back with money to set us up while we decide where to go from there. Maybe I could go back to school and finish my degree. Or maybe John can go back and get a teaching certification and be able to have an actual career instead of just being your run-of-the-mill entry level worker. We would have options, choices, neither of which we have now. And it would be an adventure to go, there's no doubt about that. I'm just scared about half to death about it and a bit overwhelmed. There's SO much to get done before we go, SO many things to go through and sell/get rid of. There are SO many details to hash out and planning that has to be done and I wonder if it will all work out. I'm afraid at times it won't. Moving is a pain in the butt enough but this isn't just any move, this is a move where we will be having to empty most of the apartment out before we leave. We will be leaving here with one suitcase and one carry on each. That's not much. I'm not one to travel light folks. I can go with several bags of stuff for an eight day trip to the Dells. Here is a two year trip and I have to carry FAR less than what I'm used to. I think I took more with me to the dorms! So yeah, I'm pretty nervous about that and about trying to figure everything out because I don't know the first thing about traveling. I've never been on a plane, never been outside of the country, never traveled outside of WI, MN, IL, and Iowa. So for me, this is HUGE, monumental. But it has become necessary.

Natalie, of course, doesn't really know what is going on and I have no idea how she will respond to this when we do leave. We moved to my older sister's when she was six months old, here when she was 10 months old and this is all she's known for the last 18 months. I hope it isn't too much of a shock for her. I'm actually kind of hoping she's still nursing so that the transition is a little easier on her. I certainly have no plans to wean her anytime soon though I wouldn't mind having her potty trained before then. I would just need to get off of MY butt and be more consistent about it. I think if I do put her without a diaper, she will let me know when she has to go and we can work with that. But I keep thinking too that maybe I'll let her go at her pace so that I'm not pushing her. This is kind of an area though I'm a little unsure about.

Lots of unknown, lots to do but it beats not having any plans at all and just spinning our wheels indefinitely while the country goes to heck in a hand basket.

Just a couple of pictures I took of Natalie on Earth Day.

2008-04-23T02:05:00.003-05:00

Since I happened to get her a t-shirt for it so why not?

Here she is smiling for the camera. She's getting SO BIG!

Here she is again with her doll. Note both she and her doll have barrettes that match their shirts.

You are my sunshine...

"You got it DUDE!"

For those of us who still remember the Olson twins as cute toddlers and not as scary looking anorectic 21 year olds.

ACK! Slow down the growing PLEASE!

2008-04-15T16:25:00.002-05:00

Today, getting Natalie ready to go outside (since going outside and going down the slide are her favorite things in the WORLD right now), I noticed her pants were a little on the short side, her 18 month pants. So, a week early, I checked her height and yeah, she grew yet again, only 1/4 of an inch but enough to nudge her pants up and put her into 2T pants albeit just a wee long on her.

This seems to be a trend though, growing at least 1/4 of an inch every other month with some months growing as much as an inch or near and inch (she did this twice over the winter). I am having quite a time trying to keep up with her spurts of growth here and thus I am CONSTANTLY going through her clothes. I can't get through a season without adding and subtracting clothes as least ONCE. And we will not discuss shoes. In the last year, she has grown SIX inches and has gone from a size 4 to a 7W in shoes.

Thank goodness I get MOST of her clothes from either Freecycle or rummage sales. Otherwise, I would be very unhappy. As it is, she's got two 18 months outfits that I'm going to need to get her in a few more times since I did buy those this year around Feast Time. I have more outfits for the spring and summer though that I have bought and I am really, really hoping that the growth slows down a little bit. Because right now, I just can't keep up with her!

What's really frustrating is that the FEW dresses I do get for her I'm lucky if she wears ONCE before she grows out of it. We do so few things that require dress up clothing that buying dresses is almost impractical. She just does not grow on the "normal" schedules that kids are expected to grow on. She spent most of last year in a size 12 month only to from that to 2T in less than six month's time. How is a mom to keep up?!

The only thing more overwhelming is her TOYS! But that's for another day.

Potty training and other stuff...

2008-04-13T23:27:00.002-05:00

It's that time, or so I thought, to begin Natalie on the road to freedom from diapers. Somehow, I don't think it's going to be all that easy. She will tell us when she has a poopy diaper (most of the time) and sometimes when she's wet, she'll tell us. She has used the potty on occasion and gets stickers for that which she LOVES. Whenever she does use the potty, she'll say, "Sticker? Sticker?" but again, it's not consistent. So, I got some underpants and just from the bit I did today, I have determined that we have a little ways to go yet, especially with our crazy upside down, messed up schedule that we have around here. Routine is not a word in ANYONE'S vocabulary. It doesn't help that while John does have his schedule of working most nights 11PM to 7AM, the days of the week CAN and HAVE changed which makes life interesting. And since it is impossible to get HIM to settle down and rest when he should, it just makes it more difficult for me to put Natalie and therefore myself on a schedule. I don't know how some of these families do it, I really don't. So, today, we tried underpants and she went through five pairs before I said "forget it." The last time was the kicker. John had taken her to the bathroom and sat there with her for probably about 20 minutes before she finally did go potty. Less than half an hour later, she peed in her underpants while I was trying to get some baking done and John was trying to sleep. I'm sure some would say I probably gave up too soon but to me it just wasn't worth it. She'll be potty trained eventually and she will get more into it, I'm sure. Now just isn't the time. But it's frustrating as I'm sick of diapers but we don't have a washer or dryer here to use if we got cloth and John is absolutely opposed to the idea of getting a set. Just one more thing out of about two dozen that we don't agree on. *sigh*

So, with finances being the way they are, I'm trying to earn a little bit of money here and there. I've been making nursing necklaces and so far, it's been going pretty well. With Cafe Mom, I've been able to at least get moms interested in nursing necklaces especially as I am in quite a few nursing groups. So, I advertise what I sell, have pictures and the moms come to me with their ideas of what they want. Sometimes, it takes a little help but I'm able to figure out what they are looking for. I have a slideshow of what I have made so far and I'll post it on here:

My plan eventually is to set up a website that has not only nursing necklaces available but other nursing items from moms who are looking to earn a little extra money. That's going to take awhile though as I need more time to sit down and complete such a lengthy task. The first will be to create a new blog where I can post my necklaces and the links for other websites. Coming up with a name would certainly help too but there again, I'm kind of stumped. I'm sure I will figure it all out eventually. In the meantime, if there are any nursing moms in need of a nursing necklace, feel free to email me. I have mommy necklaces too and necklaces for older kids but I haven't gotten a chance to put those in my Photobucket album.

Not much else going on really. Natalie got a doll tonight because the one she got for her birthday ended up un-armed. Since the doll freaked me out anyway (got it from someone on Freecycle), I figured it was time to get a new one. I let Natalie pick the doll out and she seems to like her a lot which is a good thing. So, with adding the doll, she has MORE than enough toys to play with and sometimes I think too many toys. But really, can a two year old have too many toys to play with? Hard to say but I do think a two year old can have too many toys out in the living room for mommy and daddy to step on. Our apartment is definitely too small for a all the toys she has but I'm making plans to get rid of furniture as we have too much of that too.

John is hoping to move us out of Wisconsin this fall. I'm a bit opposed to this because, well, I'm just not big on long distant moves. I wasn't big on the last one! But it is getting to where it is either that or South Korea which isn't giving me too many options. I just want to stay in Wisconsin until my mom passes which from the way she talks at times, could be anytime in the next two to five years. Yeah, don't see John waiting that long. I just wish he wasn't so RESTLESS. Army life would have been good for him if he had stuck with it. He's hoping to move us out of the Midwest period and somewhere south and west. I'm not real big on heat so this is not sounding very appealing. Then again, I have lived my entire life in Wisconsin thus far and haven't traveled beyond Iowa/Minnesota so of course the thought of moving somewhere that is hot 9 months out of the year and warm the other 3 is a bit daunting. But he is convinced that if he just gets me far enough away from everything I've grown up with, that will make me more livable or something. I've got my doubts on that one.

Natalie is 27 months on the 27th!

2008-03-27T23:12:00.003-05:00

Well, for a few more minutes anyway. It's been kind of hard to steal a few moments today to get on here for a journal entry. She's doing well though. Her illness, whatever it was, ended with that one session of puking so that's a relief. She was very eager to eat later but we made her take an easy until the next day. So whatever it was, it was in and out and fortunately it didn't stick around to make anyone else miserable.

Natalie is growing bigger and bigger all the time. Her last measurement was taken here at home five days ago and she is currently 33 and 5/8 inches and 30.4 lbs. She's pretty much caught up and where she should be for her age in clothes (though could probably use another half inch for some of her pants). Her growing two full inches over the fall and winter have made keeping her in clothes pretty fun. Now that spring is coming, I'm trying to go through and figure out just what clothes of her fit and which ones don't. The ones that don't fit include all of the dresses I had bought for her for church last summer. grr. They were 12 or 18 months and now they are all too short. While I'm hanging onto a couple for her to wearing in the house over the summer, the rest I'm more or less sending off to a mom who is looking for casual dresses for weddings over the summer months so that works out. I'm still trying to decide if I want to hang onto one in the even I have another baby. I'm constantly torn on that issue though and probably will be until I either get pregnant again or become unable to have anymore children period. It certainly doesn't help that I'm not on any birth control, just trying to keep track of my temps and other fertility signs. But so far so good.

The last week has been a flurry of activity here. John has been starting to do some spring cleaning around here in preparation for the Days of Unleavened bread. I figure I would give it a go this year mainly because my weight has gotten out of control again and maybe if I can't bake and all that I can also forgo the sugar and stuff for the week too and maybe some of the weight will drop off. I definitely need to do something about it but motivation has been REALLY hard to come by this year. Then again, so has money. *sigh*

Natalie has become a bit obsessed with the DVDs that John has been getting from the library. They are DVDs of nursery rhymes. I don't know why but she really enjoys them and wants to watch them over and OVER again. And since she can now work the DVD player, she doesn't even need either of us in the room to start it up. Next I supposed will be the computer she tries to learn how to use. Her other big obsession has been to go out and CLIMB. She LOVES going outside and doesn't mind the snow at all (though John isn't too big on it). She loves climbing on the snow piles, walking in the water, stepping in the mud, all things I remember doing myself when I was young but not something I like to do now! I can remember the driveway of the place I lived at when I was a kid having this large ice puddle and around this time of year it would start to melt so I would "skate" on it and then the water would start coming up and get my boots all wet. Fun times then, not so fun now. I like dry feet. lol She also enjoys climbing on the ladder to the slide and going down the slide. She likes to swing. We took her to a park not too long ago and she was able to climb up a few things that are set up for the older kids. And she doesn't do too badly on it either! The only thing that I worried about was when her and John climbed up on this one thing and they were both above my head! That's when mommy paranoia kicked in and I told him to bring her back down!

It's not always easy to deal with a toddler who likes to go out so much because naturally she doesn't want to come back in. Also, just going out somewhere can be a bit of a trial because no matter why we're going outside, she thinks it's because she's going to climb so when we go to the car instead, gigantic temper tantrums tend to hit. *sigh* We weather them as best as we can, giving her words for her feelings by asking her if she's mad at mommy or daddy and she does get over it pretty quick which is good but then there are times when she gets upset at the drop of a hat and we can't figure out why because her speech still isn't the clearest. I know it will get better with time but it is definitely a struggle sometimes.

Life with our toddler is rarely dull and just to show you how interesting it can get with her around here, I will close this entry with a recent event where she managed to outsmart me by thinking VERY much outside the box.

Natalie has a box of these blocks in the living room. These are regular wooden blocks that she got for her birthday. There are 130 but I split them up in half and keep one half in my room. She had the box in there the other night and she wanted to play with the blocks. So I gave her the box and left the room to do a couple of things. I know, bad mom but if she needed me, she could find me, I wasn't that far away. Anyway, I go in there later after I had put her to bed (I had been in the room several times but didn't notice until after she went to bed) and I noticed that the blocks were not in the box. They were not anywhere that I could see. Okay, weird. How do 65 blocks just disappear? So I'm looking in the living room, behind the couches, under the couches, under the cushions, in the desk drawer, in the kitchen under the cabinets, in my room, her room, the bathrooms, the oven, the fridge, the freezer, everywhere I could think of because there was NO clue at all where these stupid blocks were. These are not little blocks either! I'm quickly getting frustrated and upset and totally confused and mad at myself too for not keeping a better eye on her. I was even thinking that someone had come into the apartment and stolen them! FINALLY, I figure it out. On the SIDE of the couch, under the arm, there is a tear in the fabric and I notice that it is bulging below this tear. That is where ALL of the blocks were. Not something I would have noticed unless I was staring right at it. Little stinker's too smart for her own good. I don't want to know how she's going to be when she's a teenager.

Poor Natalie.

2008-03-22T09:11:00.002-05:00

She's sick. She just threw up on me--REALLY threw up on me. She's NEVER thrown up this much before in all her almost 27 months of life. Fortunately, she only had yogurt so far today and breastmilk but I was nursing her at the time and she was kind of pinned to my right side as I was laying on the couch so there wasn't really anyway to get it so she wasn't throwing up on me. It was EVERYWHERE. I had to take a shower to get it all off because I was dripping in it. Not fun. John's giving her a bath now. I had completely forgotten to tell him this morning to watch what he fed her because she did have a really bad diaper yesterday (she crashed REALLY early yesterday evening) but John had his suspicions when she didn't eat her raisins--she LOVES raisins. Hopefully it's nothing too serious, just a little stomach bug. The only thing that worries me is that if it is this bad for her, I'm going to get NAILED. Obviously my immune system isn't where hers is at, not to mention, I'm fighting a sinus infection as it is (a VERY stubborn one, I might add).

Ugh, I need to do something with my clothes, they REEK! And I thought formula barf was bad.

Just got the most recent roll of film developed...

2008-03-21T20:44:00.002-05:00

...so I made it into a slide show. Enjoy!

I'll also probably put some of the pictures I have taken recently with the digital camera on here too at some point. I've been suffering from headaches since I had my eyes dilated last Wednesday. After a trip to the chiropractor yesterday where I got readjusted, I'm doing MUCH better. Headaches will probably always be a fact of life for me after getting knocked off of my pony when I was 8 (it pretty much screwed up my neck for life). Chiropractic treatments help TREMENDOUSLY but if I wait too long between sessions (like years), my back does start acting up again. Actually, it is mainly my neck and shoulders I have issues with and it's been that along with a bit of a sinus congestion. So while I was at it, I picked up some generic Sudafed. NEVER AGAIN! Ugh, with all the trouble you have to go through to get the stuff, they may as well make it prescription only again. I go through less trouble to get my anti-depressants than I went through to get decongestant. Good grief!

Otherwise, not much is going on today. Fridays are usually when we go to get milk but we got nailed with another LOVELY winter (even though it is TECHNICALLY spring) storm. I'm making plans to make some biscuits tonight with the cream we do have (maybe butter if there's any cream left) as well as some cinnamon oatmeal bars. YUM!

Not sure if I shared any of these...

2008-03-19T00:29:00.004-05:00

Someone on a group I was in was looking for some pictures to play around with and I sent her a couple of Natalie I had. This is what she did with them. Pretty cool huh?

I also thought I would share some of the scrapbooking pages I've done on the computer thus far:

Huh, that's kind of interesting.

2008-03-15T13:17:00.002-05:00

I just realized that in one of my posts, a picture was deleted. It was a picture of Natalie nursing but it wasn't THAT obvious (and I've seen obvious nursing pictures). I'm guessing someone complained and the picture was deleted. Too bad, really.

This is why I have very, VERY few pictures of me nursing Natalie. That was like the first one I had taken since she was three or four months old. Those you couldn't tell either--I don't have the obvious nursing pictures taken. But it is very sad that society is SO screwed up when it comes to the care of our children.

Sometimes the whole thing has me feeling like a failure, in so many ways. I feel like no matter what I do, I'm not doing enough or I'm doing it all wrong. Sometimes I want to run away and forget all this being a parent and being married garbage and just do something for ME. I just wish I knew what it was that would make me happy. I don't even know anymore.

I know this kind of went off on a "pity me" tangent but I seem to get it from all around how much of a failure as a mother (and a wife) I really am and I'm just sick of it.

Natalie's first total eclipse of the moon...

2008-02-21T01:49:00.002-06:00

...well the first that she actually got to see. She really likes seeing the moon (thus my reason for having all things moon related on her blog). And watching the eclipse was something else. She would ask me to turn off the lights (dark, dark) so she could look at the moon better and she would say "moon gone!" when the moon was completely in shadow. She LOVES talking about the moon. "I see the moon in the sky!" And yes, she says it pretty much like that too! If she sees the moon while in the car, it is the ONLY thing she will talk about. lol It's pretty funny.

She hit yet another growth spurt between December 22nd and January 22nd so now she can actually wear 24 month clothes at 24 months! I'm impressed. It's taken her close to a year to get back to her age matching her clothing size. She's been anywhere near 3 months to one year off depending on what I put her in. Of course, this meant that for the second time this WINTER I had to go through her clothes to figure out what fit and what didn't and some of the 24 month already didn't fit! grr. I hate how clothes don't match the size. I do not have the time to sit there and try clothes on her, especially not when I get a bunch of stuff from freecycle. I want to throw the clothes in to totes until I need them. *sigh* Oh well. The one outfit didn't fit because it was just too tight so it probably wouldn't have fit even when I had gotten them. Still, it's kind of frustrating when things don't fit which makes me glad that most of what I get for Natalie is free.

As of her appointment last month (January 25), she was 33 and a half inches tall (47% for height) and is 29 lbs and 4 oz (77% for weight). Her weight is definitely up there but she's not fat. She's just a very solid little girl and definitely not a lightweight when she's walking on you. The terrible, terrific, tenacious, and trying twos (to quote a fellow mom with her own two year old) have definitely struck. lol Most of it, I have no doubt have to do with an immense case of cabin fever aggravated by the 17 + inches of snow we have received THIS MONTH alone. Actually the 17 inches themselves took only two days to fall here where I live. But, no matter when they fell, the fact that that is more than half of my daughter does not leave going outside and playing in the snow as much of an option unless I want to send a search party out for her. So, pretty much like last winter, she's more or less LITERALLY climbing the walls. lol Basically, she's climbing on every single piece of furniture she can get on. Which is really making life fun considering this is not a very large apartment and once again, I'm starting to fear for her life due to that LOVELY half wall we have in our living room (that I have already rearranged the furniture in about four times now for this very reason). But now, along with climbing on the couch and love seats, she's also taken to climbing on tables and bookshelves and basically anything that will support her weight and a few things that haven't. Spring can't come soon enough and if all goes well, this may be the last winter we'll have to deal with this nonsense as John is fed up with the whole winter deal and is making plans for us to move to Arizona next year.

We are working on potty training but that is a blog post in and of itself. We're not pushing her but letting her go kind of on her own time table. She does seem interested in using the potty but just hasn't gotten to where she can let us know she has to go potty before she goes. I'm sure she will with time though. She's not even 26 months yet.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures that I took today. She's growing up fast and even with her trying days, she's a keeper. I'm just not in any hurry to give her a sibling. lol

Having a two year old definitely makes life interesting...

2008-01-14T14:35:00.001-06:00

...but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love watching Natalie in her day to day activities. She just gets more fun all the time as she discovers the world around her. She is so interested in EVERYTHING and is is just amazing the connections she makes. She loves to watch it snow or rain outside and when she goes out, she'll kick at the snow or pick it up in her hands. She'll say "cold" when she's holding the snow. She'll look out the window at night searching for the moon and gets excited when she hears the whistle from the train. She loves to color and wants her crayons and paper all the time. She has her own table to color on and actually color ON. lol That's okay though; they are washable crayons and it comes right off. She likes to watch Bob the Builder and can work the VCR. I'm not joking either. She's able to put the video in and get it started. And when that's over, she can take it out and put another video in and start that. She likes Blue's Clues too. We're trying to cut down on the videos a little since she wants to watch them ALL DAY everyday. lol She loves to play with her blocks and her stuffed animals. She'll play act with them too, putting shoes and socks on them or bringing one over for me to "nurse". Her imagination is all over the place. She got a package in the mail from her aunt Mia. It was a set of puzzles. The puzzles are a little advanced for her but she loved the envelope they came in. She made it a hat, coloring on it to make it her very own and putting it on her head.

Being two doesn't come without its frustrations though. She doesn't always know how to tell us what she wants and sometimes, she can't make up her mind. She'll want one thing, then another, and will get frustrated and upset. So, yes, there have been some temper tantrums as she struggles to adjust to her wants and needs and how to voice them but they are few and far between. Obviously, she can be more difficult when she's tired, just like any adult can be so we work on that and try to be as patient with her as we can.

Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. She's an enjoyable member of our family and I look forward to each and every day with her. If I had known parenting was going to be this enjoyable, I probably would have had a child sooner but I wonder if it would have been the same. Not that it hasn't been a struggle, as it has as well. Things certainly haven't been easy the past two years, especially concerning John's employment and I know that my not working has made that all the more difficult. I'm hoping though that 2008 will be a better year in that regard. The past two months have been rough as John lost his full time job back in November but he was just recently hired this morning for which I am VERY grateful. Now, we just need to get back on our feet then with any luck, we can make plans to move by the time the lease ends here. I'm not sure where we are destined to be, but something I'm sure will crop up for us somewhere.

Well, that's all the time I have for now. The little one has woken up from her nap and is seeking a bit of nursing. I should also go and make some lunch for us. Hope someone stops by and leaves a comment. It's been awhile since I've heard from any of my readers.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T14:11:00.000-06:00

Anyone out there?

Two year pictures!

2007-12-18T19:42:00.000-06:00

Just got pictures done tonight. At least this time they had a CD so I could get that and have the pictures on hand. She was at least a little more cooperative this time. Still, we ended up with two photographers because one left early. Grr. Because of that, it was a huge PAIN to get the last two pictures done. The good news is that these are THE LAST to get done here. The next set will be done in Madison as spring family pictures and then after that, we should be elsewhere by next December...hopefully.

I think that's enough for now.

2007-12-15T16:54:00.000-06:00

At least as far as changes with the template. I will probably add some links though. I added a bunch of blinkies too, including breastfeeding blinkies. Hopefully that won't offend anyone; I'm a bit of a breastfeeding enthusiast. Natalie turns two on the 27th and yes, we are still breastfeeding. The agreement John and I made since she was one was that I would go until she was at least two and after that, if I wanted to wean I could since the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding up to two years. Well, we're almost to that time and while she has tapered off a little, she still nurses quite frequently in the form of fly-by nursings (usually while I'm at the computer thus the need for a NAK blinky). But she eats regular food, drinks regular milk and can be put down for a nap and put to bed without nursing if needed. I'm not going to complain, especially as she's been barely sick at all since she's been born other than a couple of ear infection and a few mild colds. I've been sick more than she has! So the plan is to keep going until she decides she's done...whenever that may be. It definitely raises a few eyebrows in my family but fortunately, I'm not planning on going anywhere for Christmas so I'm not going to worry about it.

Thought I would play around with my template a little bit...

2007-12-11T22:10:00.000-06:00

...and got this. Hope you all enjoy it. Natalie's really into the moon and the stars right now so I looked around for a template. Since nothing really struck me as being something for a toddler, I came up with this on my own. It's the same layout but I just changed the graphics. It took me a few hours but it turned out really nice. I thought I'd change the tickers too while I was at it.

That little growth spurt of Natalie's...

2007-11-27T00:01:00.001-06:00

...has caused her to grow out of some of her clothes. Grr. So today, once again, I had to move her clothes around in the closet as the several pairs of jeans that didn't fit a month ago now fit and the pairs that did fit are suddenly too short. That is what happens when the little one shoots up almost a whole inch in one month (though I'm thinking it might have been even less than that!). If this keeps up, she's going to be in 24 month clothes before too long. It's a good thing I gave away those 12 month outfits though; she would not have fit into them.

Pictures of Natalie and a short update.

2007-11-24T11:59:00.001-06:00

Photobucket Album

The pictures are not in order. I can't seem to find a way to do that but the first one on there is a remix that I have done so click on that since those pictures are all in order going from most current back. I'll probably add more pictures later but this is what I have so far. Most of the current ones have been taken with my new digital camera. I still like to use the film camera but at least with the digital I can get more pictures taken at once. It's nice to be able to do that again especially with the high price of film.

As of Thanksgiving day, Natalie is about 32.5 inches and a whopping 28 pounds! I'm trying to figure the weight part out because she's still not real big on eating food but I guess she's eating and nursing enough! She's not too chunky though, just a very solid girl. I gave her another haircut not too long ago but just the very front bangs this time, not the rest of the bangs. I'm trying to part her hair more so that it grows out rather than having to be kept short because of it being over her eyes. We'll see how that works. It's not too bad as long as I make sure to put her hair up in pigtails after her bath. The the part will stay. If I don't, her hair tends to hang over her eyes.

She's hitting milestones like crazy and I can't even keep up with the number of words she can say. She loves to read her books and can memorize parts of them so she can help read. Sometimes, she'll read them out loud in her own gibberish. It's pretty cute. She can sing "You Are My Sunshine" and it's just absolutely precious. She LOVES to talk on the phone and will take the phone from me whenever I'm on it with someone and say "hi" or "hello". She's still a little shy but going to the Feast helped a lot with that so she's not quite as shy as she was. I haven't been going to play group though so we'll see what happens. If I can find a La Leche League closer than 30 miles away, I'd like to join that. It would be nice to hang out with other nursing moms, especially moms nursing their toddlers.

Yes, Natalie is still nursing and is showing no sign of stopping whatsoever. lol Some days she's not nursing quite as much especially as John is home a little more often (he lost his full-time job and is currently just subbing for various local school districts) but it just depends on the day too. We probably will end up going past her two year birthday though and that's fine with me though I do wonder when she's going to want to end this and what will happen once she does finally decide to wean. Will I end up wanting another child when that happens? So far, John and I have been doing pretty well on NOT getting pregnant so I'd like to keep it that way for a little longer especially as we'll probably be moving next year though we don't know where yet.

Little stinker.

2007-11-10T22:21:00.000-06:00

So tonight we're out running the usual Saturday night errands and we're over at ShopKo. We're actually on the way out and I happen to see this thing of chocolates that were new. It's from the same company that does those chocolates with the hazelnuts. Last year, there was a commercial where a Christmas song was play and one of the chocolates was bouncing over the words and the song is interrupted because the host takes the bouncing chocolate. Anyway, there was something new from that company so I'm looking at this package and Natalie is in the shopping cart. I'm curious about the price because I'm quite the chocolate freak and I here this "ah ah ahh." I paused. Then I hear, "No, no, no." So I put the chocolate back, look at her and say, "You really ARE like your father."

It's moments like these that I'm reminded that Natalie is not as much of a baby anymore. She's getting to be more of a little person with all of the complexities of a person. Life is definitely not boring with this little girl around.

So, yeah, it's been awhile since my last update but I'll try to get caught up on the last couple of months. My MySpace venture has kind of fizzled, mainly because I've had a bad experience with another mom and rather than wait for her to write me off, I'm pulling out first. I figure if problems are going to start now, they'll just crop up again. That is what happens when you are married to one with religious beliefs different from most people and you're not quite on the mainstream path yourself. It makes it very hard to find and especially keep friends.

So stay tuned for updates and pictures.

Since my daughter is now in training as a parrot...

2007-09-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

She keeps copying what John and I say. It's very disturbing. John told her earlier this week, "Don't run away" and she repeated it. Then I said "Don't copy me" and she said that too! Little stinker. And darn it, I'm really going to have to start watching my language.

She also picked up a phrase while we were out on Friday. I was talking to John after Natalie did something really cute and mentioned that I just loved the age she's in. However, I had continued, some people really LOOOOVE babies. From the back seat I hear "LOOOOVE babies!" in almost perfect imitation of me. Scary.

Her current new words include:

bar (for the cereal bars we pick up for her--Back to Nature brand)
hot (she says this when something is too hot for her too)
thank you
again
I like it
bird
cat
duck (more clear than before)
way
eat please
ride around
train
go
outside
all gone (this one's been said before but she says it now if YOUR plate is clean)
a dragon (I was quoting this from The Wonder Pets because she had on a dragon shirt)
grape
pineapple (sounds more like apple though)
spider (from the Itsy Bitsy Spider)
rain (Itsy Bitsy Spider)
socks

She's learning a lot of words from her Toots the Train toy and her Leapfrog toy.

She's also learning to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star though about the only word she knows there is star and words that sounds like it.

She is really picking up on the vocabulary though. I'm hoping that she'll also start to pick up on the ABCs and her numbers but that seems to come a little more slowly. She does try to sing the ABC song but she's not at the point where she recognizes any letters or numbers specifically at least not as far as I can tell.

She loves to play and can play independently for longer periods of time. She has a number of toys that she just absolutely loves. Her Toots the Train set is a big one along with her shopping cart, the Fascination Station I got at a rummage sale, and her Leapfrog. Those are the big ones but she'll also play with blocks, her push and ride car, her dino-roar, her shape sorter, and whatever else she's into at the moment. That's when she's not coloring on anything she can with her crayons and bouncing balls in the kitchen. She is just a very active little girl whose interests seem to stem more towards vehicles than on dolls. lol But my mom said I had a thing for helicopters and airplanes so I guess she comes by it naturally. Though, I wonder how much of my interests in those were due to seeing them fly over the farm almost everyday.

She's still really shy though at times seems friendly. She now cover her eyes with her hands or sticks her fingers in her ears when she's not in a friendly mood. She not too bad though if she's able to talk to someone first. She has to be the initiator. She will talk on the phone though and sometimes I can't get it back from her! She'll say "hi" and sometimes sing. Otherwise, she doesn't say too much but sometimes she'll strike a conversation over the phone and that can be pretty cute.

She's just a very active toddler overall. She is also getting in more teeth on the bottom and I figure by the end of next month at the latest, she will have all of her teeth except for her two year molars. It took forever for her bottom teeth to come in though. She got the front two bottom teeth last September, then she got the first four front upper teeth. Then her molars came in. The first of her upper canines started to come in not too long ago and NOW, she's getting the rest of her bottom teeth, almost a year later. Very strange. The bad thing is I just noticed today that she's got a chip on one of her front upper teeth. Grr. I really wanted her to avoid the dental problems I had. I'm really concerned that she's going to end up having a dead tooth like I did. She's such a little daredevil and she falls a lot so there's always the chance. My first experience with the dentist was having that tooth removed when I was about four. I don't want Natalie to have that kind of memory nor do I want her to have the dental problems I did because of it. Having that tooth removed so early really did a number on the rest of my teeth.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our last trip to La Crosse which was for my stillborn niece's funeral the end of July. I'm actually impressed because I got some really good pictures this time around from the last two rolls of film. I think what really helped with some of these was using the sports feature on the camera. Taking pictures of a toddler is a lot like taking pictures of a sports event; they just go go go!

Natalie and her cousin Connor.

Natalie and her cousin Gabby.

So that's the update for now. I probably won't get another update on here until after we return from the Feast. We leave the day before she turns 21 months. We'll be back in October with lots of updates and pictures, I'm sure, especially as we just purchased a new digital camera for the family. I love the film camera and I still plan to use it but it's nice to be able to take lots of pictures of Natalie too, especially when film has gotten so incredibly expensive. It's kind of sad though, like we're being forced to switch to digital for the convenience of technology without regard to the consequences of doing so. I just don't think that pictures taken with a digital camera (those that actually get printed) will last as long as pictures developed from film. But that's a rant for another time.

Sorry I'm so bad with updates.

2007-09-08T00:27:00.000-05:00

I just don't get on here that much these days and I usually try to do large updates on here or at least updates with pictures and all of the pictures I have taken of late, I haven't developed lately. I'm about a good two months behind on pictures almost. At least I will be by the time we get down to Madison to get the pictures developed. I think the last ones I got done included pictures of baby Emmah from her still birth on July 14.

HOWEVER, I am constantly on MySpace so if you have an account on there, look me up. I will be updating the blog as frequently as I can, especially seeing as I get on there at least once a day. I figure if I do that, I may get enough updates to do an entry on here. I know that probably doesn't make much sense but it would be nice to have some place to do daily updates. It gets to be too much of a pain to do daily updates here. Who knows, if I get good enough with it, maybe it will help me have more updates on here. That would be nice too. It would be nice to at least have an update a week on here. Blah, I'm getting so tired I'm barely making any sense to myself.

Oh boy! Has someone got a TEMPER!

2007-08-31T23:14:00.000-05:00

It was bound to happen. I pretty much have had a temper since birth and John...well, he can have a bit of a temper himself. So, it's really no surprise that Miss Natalie has her own little temper. Silly me! I was thinking maybe I'll um be able to SKIP that whole terrible two thing...no such luck. It hit, very shortly after she turned 20 months. Now, she's had a snit here or there but this week...WHOA, such outbursts! She just starts shouting these things that almost sound like certain cuss words that she may have heard from me but fortunately my husband hasn't figured out because if he did he would probably jump down my throat because they are those that would offend him VERY deeply, worse even than the f-word. Gulp. I hope that's not what she's saying but man, it sure sounds like it so I just ignore it. But she's been doing it this week quiet frequently; anything that makes her mad causes her to spout these loud phrases that I cannot understand at all what she's saying but I have to say it sounds like she's swearing even if it is in baby language. But while that's bad enough, she's also resorted to hitting and pinching! She pinched me at play group the other day and left a bruise and whenever she gets mad at either John or me, she pinches or hits! Eek! We're both trying to be VERY patient with her and not slap her hand back but try to calmly say that she needs to be nice but wow, the temper thing is really getting going. She does not want to be polite, she wants to demand things and when I try to teach her to ask nicely (like sign "eat please" instead of just coming over, saying booby and lifting my shirt), she gets MAD. *sigh* I know part of it is her frustration at not being able to say exactly what she wants to say because of her limited vocabulary but I'm sure too part of it is that old temper she's picked up from her mom and dad. And I'm trying to work on things on my end but man is it ever-loving hard to do it.

So that's been one of the big developments going on with Natalie this week. The other big event is the popping in of more teeth which I'm sure is not helping her mood. Now, she's actually a pretty good trouper when it comes to her teeth coming in. She's not usually the crying, moaning type so unless I go looking, I'm not always sure she is teething. She'll have bouts of crankiness but otherwise, she's pretty good about the whole deal. But she's got a few coming in. She's FINALLY getting some more bottom teeth in. Before, she only had her two front bottom teeth and her two molars on the bottom. She's just now getting the other bottom teeth, almost a year after the first two bottom teeth came in. She also has at least one canine coming in on top though it's pretty much broken through. I figure it won't be long before I won't be able to put my finger in her mouth at all without fear of losing it.

She has grown a couple of inches so now, at 20 months, she's just over 31 and 1/4 inches tall. Not too bad, she's now at least able to wear some 18 months pants though some of her 12 months pants still fit her too. Her 24 month pants are definitely too big though and will probably be too big even when she's 24 months old. Oh well, at least she's not going through her clothes too quickly.

She's picking up new words all the time but I can't keep up as to which ones are new and which ones are ones I've heard before. She is working on her ABCs at least and she likes to mimic things, especially her Leap Frog toy and her Toots the Train toy. Her most recent antics (besides the temper) is laying down on the floor and saying "night, night" while waving. It's pretty cute. She's also taken to hiding behind her eyes when she meets new people, another sign of her major shyness but tonight, while we were out, she kept saying "hi" to anyone going by, well as long as that person wasn't paying attention to her of course. lol

She's been going to a play group and meeting with kids there and playing with other kids around though she's not quite playing with them yet. It's at least getting her used to other people though which is a good thing. She does like to go around and point to babies (and older kids too) and say "baby." It's kind of funny because she does this wherever we happen to be.

Still no interest in potty training but I'm not worried. Her cousin will be coming for a visit in two weeks and it will be interesting to see how that all goes. Gabby is 2 now and is very vocal compared to Natalie. She learned her language skills first while Natalie learned to walk. Gabby also very quickly picked up on the potty training skills so maybe when she's here, Natalie will pick up on a couple of things. Who knows. It will be an interesting experience for sure because we will be watching her while my younger sister spends the weekend at a wedding. Her older child is staying with my other sister so it's just Gabby here but it will give John and I an interesting experience in what it would be like to have more than one child. Yes, I know it won't be quite the same because they're so close in age but we'll at least see how Natalie deals with having another child in the house, even if she is older. It may give us a clue as to how she would deal with having a sibling. My hope too is that they will have some fun though and that Natalie won't pick up on her cousin's more obnoxious habits, mainly her tendency to SCREAM at the top of her lungs when she's upset. Because that would just be the last thing we need. lol

Unfortunately with this update, I have no pictures because I'm a good month or so behind getting pictures developed having developed some of the pictures from the photo session last month. I'm going to try and get some pictures developed the next time we're in Madison which won't be until we go down to meet up with my sister and pick up my niece. I will need to get caught up at that time because two weeks after that, we'll be at Feast and then I'm sure we will use up AT LEAST a roll of film during that week. I would hope seeing as I would like to check out a few things while we're down there and we should have the money for it. However, one of the things I would like to get before we go and as kind of a family gift is a new digital camera. Nothing fancy and nothing more than oh $200 or maybe even $150 but considering the digital camera I have now is about 7 years old (I think I got one of the first digital cameras out on the market at the time that cost under $500) and the one I bought for school I sold to my little sister, I think it's time to get a new one but get one that isn't overly complicated and something I can at least set up to get pictures of a moving toddler! I also want something that's at least 5 megapixals and the other two cameras I've had had less than 4. But again, we'll see as money is getting a little on the tight side and I still really should get a new bra or two though there's nothing I hate more in the world than buying a new bra considering for the most part I have to get mine online which means I can't even try them on. Very annoying. But my nursing bras are almost two years old and are almost completely shot. That is definitely one downside to having an overly generous bust line: bras just don't last.

Aww! sniff, sniff

2007-08-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

My baby's getting so grown up! Twenty months old today and she said her name, she insisted on washing her own body all by herself during her bath, and she said "I love you." How did she grow up so fast?

Wow, she's SO smart!

2007-08-26T10:28:00.000-05:00

Either that or I'm making too big of a deal about this but I think it's amazing. Natalie came out this morning after her nursing session and was playing around with the box of a toy that we got her on Friday. I had put the toy in the closet Friday night because I didn't want her losing the pieces for it. That was probably 36 hours before. So, she's playing with the box and she decides she wants the toy. She goes to the closet and points at the closet door which is her way of letting me know to go and open it. I open the door and she looks around. She finally looks up and sees the toy and points to that. I take it down for her and set it up and she plays with it happily. I just think it's neat that she remembered I put it in there over a day ago. She knows where certain foods go in the fridge and she can go looking for them when the fridge is open but the fact that she can remember where I put something of hers more than 24 hours ago when we had just gotten it for her that day I think is pretty darn good! And that she associated the picture of the toy with the actual toy that she played with just boggles my mind. Considering just over a year ago, she would have considered the toy to be gone when it was out of her sight, I find it utterly amazing just how far she has come. Her father's memory isn't even that good! lol

Pictures from yesterday.

2007-08-04T17:44:00.000-05:00

There are over 40 pictures so it's really hard for me to decide which ones I like best; there are so many good ones! If you have MySpace, let me know and I'll add you because I have all of the pictures on there. I may try to move the other ones to either my Kodak page or Photobucket at some point but since most of my family has MySpace, that's where I put them first.

Natalie is 19 months!

2007-08-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

This is a week late but last week was just a little crazy. Natalie turned 19 months on July 27th. There's lots going on with her these days and lots of things she's doing now. She's a very active and energetic little toddler these days. She climbs on EVERYTHING. She loves to climb in my office chair and sit in front of the computer (thanks to her dad) while playing with my mouse. She even managed to turn off my computer a couple of times until I learned to disable the sleep button. She tries to climb up the back of my office chair too. She enjoys getting into all of the things I have on my desk (one of the huge pitfalls to not having a three bedroom apartment, no place for my stuff) and in the set of drawers next to my desk. She gets into things in the kitchen by pulling the chair over to one of the counters and climbing on the chair. I expect her to be climbing counters soon so we're trying to get money together to get a gate for the kitchen. I have knives and things like that on the counters and her getting into that would not be good. She hasn't figured out how to climb in the crib fortunately. She can climb up the ladder to the slide and go down the slide (lots of fun for her and one way to get her climbing urges dealt with).

Her favorite play things are anything but toys at times. She does play with her toys here and there but she loves things that are not toys. Right now, it's business and membership cards from her dad's wallet that he's not using anymore. She's almost obsessive about them, carrying them around everywhere and putting them down and picking them up constantly. She will also sit and "read" her books for minutes at a time. I think she does it because she sees me reading all the time. We're also working on letting her color on paper and in coloring books. That's taking a little more work since she doesn't always want to sit down to do that. She still has her favorite toys though and that consists mainly of her push toys and any toys that make noise. When she gets a little older, I want to start getting her a train set. For now, she has a little train set that she plays with but maybe when she's closer to three we'll get her more.

She's still REALLY shy. She opens up more to people if they don't push themselves on her. If someone's not looking at her, she'll say "hi" but if that person starts to talk to her, she ducks her head and becomes very shy. It drives my family nuts because they all want to be able to hug her and stuff but she doesn't want to go near anyone. Unfortunately, because of that and because of how overprotective John gets when she's around other people, I'm getting all kinds of comments as to how John is causing her to be shy and that it could lead her to have autistic-like behavior which really bugs me. Yes, she is shy because she's not around certain people on a constant basis but she does usually warm up eventually. That doesn't mean she's not going to be friendly ever. I'm not the most outgoing person myself and I too find myself very overwhelmed in large groups. I don't think John's much different so it should be no surprise to anyone that she's shy compared to her cousin who comes from at least one outgoing parent. My little sister is VERY outgoing and has always been. She's been known as a "social butterfly" since she was little. So naturally, the cousins are going to be very much different too. And if Natalie is anything like me, she'll end up feeling mostly at home on a computer. lol Not that I don't like to be around people because I do but I do much better in one to one situations than I ever do in a group. Even large families make me nervous which is why family gatherings tend to make me a little uncomfortable.

She's working on more words. She says momma now and she says it consistently, especially if I'm not around. I heard her say Q,R,S pretty clearly yesterday while she was going over the ABCs. We also heard her say 3 and she now says WHY. Uh-oh, wasn't ready for that one yet! She'll say OH! in this really cute, frustrated way when something doesn't go the way she wanted it to. She also says moon, something that sounds like stars, boom (during a thunderstorm), and balloon whenever she sees a balloon. Her big thing she really says is baby which she says every time she sees a baby whether that baby is her or not. She can say a few French words too including merci, boucou (I don't know how to spell it), and au revoir. She's getting better with head, shoulders, knees and toes and today she was working on saying nose and mouth while pointing to them.

She loves singing. She sings wa, wah, wa, wa, wah for her favorite CD which has the song Waltzing with Bears. She also sings along with most of the songs on the CD. She sings the ABC song (as best as she can) as well as other songs. She likes ABBA. lol We played Dancing Queen the other day and when we looked at her in the back, she had her finger pointed out like she was doing a disco dance. It was too funny. Her mom wasn't even alive during the disco era! lol As much as she like ABBA though, it's no match for Waltzing with Bears. It's kind of funny though because the only reason why I looked for that CD was because of Waltzing with Bears which was a song I learned in music class in second grade. We sang it for our spring concert that year. I had forgotten some of the words to it and went looking for the lyrics which lead me to finding the CD that the song is played on. If anyone is interested, the CD is called Stardreamer: Nightsongs & Lullabies by Priscilla Herdman. We've been having Natalie listen to it since she was four months old at least, maybe sooner than that. It's our car CD and has gotten us through MANY a long car ride. If she starts fussing while we're on the road, usually all it takes is to put this CD in and she settles down.

Nursing is still going strong. I gave up trying to have any kind of a schedule; it just didn't work for me. Some days she doesn't nurse as much though, especially when John is home or we're out. The day we went to La Crosse for the funeral, she only nursed that morning for 10 or 15 minutes on one side and she didn't nurse again until we were on the way home and that was because the side she didn't nurse on was starting to hurt from going more than 24 hours without a nursing session. Other than that, we fed her food and gave her water in her sippy cup. She does get raw milk here and there but mostly in the morning and it depends on who feeds her breakfast. John will give her milk in a sippy cup. I won't. I prefer to give her a little milk in a plastic glass because milk is hard to wash out of a sippy cup. I will also give her cereal with milk. She likes that! And she's really good with using a fork and spoon so giving her cereal with milk is not a problem at all. We still need to work on veggies though but the blame for that rests mostly on me because I'm the one who cooks dinner for us while John works and I'm the one who usually does not make any veggies other than corn. But, she eats all kinds of fruits including berries, grapes, apples, oranges, pineapple, etc. She's not real big on melons though.

Potty training she's nowhere near ready for and I don't try to push it. She will sometimes take off her diaper when it's wet if she's able to but other than that, that's about it. She does say pee-pee though and poop too. lol I'm not worried; I can always work with her on that next summer by getting some fitted cloth diapers. That's my plan anyway unless we get a washer and dryer at some point before that and I can put her back into cloth diapers. Meanwhile, we get the Parent's Choice diapers. They work well and they're CHEAP. I got tired of spending almost $20 for diapers that have less stuffing than the generic ones did.

I don't know if she's grown since the last time I measured her or not; it's been about a month now so I'll check her height again soon. I'm not sure about weight either but she seems to thriving so I don't worry too much about it. She wears a size 12 for pants but is getting a little tall for them so I'm now looking for 18 month pants for her. Otherwise, she wears 18 month clothes. She wears between a size 4 and 5 in shoes. I picked up 3 pairs of shoes for her yesterday at Target (if you are a shoes horse for little girl shoes, go to TARGET!). Two of the pairs of shoes were on clearance and were very cheap (under $4). I got her a pair of size 5 dress shoes in pink to match her pink dress and a pair of size 6 white dress shoes with pink sparkles. The third pair of shoes were a little more expensive. They're a softer shoe and the pair I picked up were more like sandals. The two pairs of jelly shoes no longer work: one pair is now too small and the other pair had the velcro for the snap come loose. I wanted to get her something a little softer for her to wear too but they also had tennis shoes that I may look into getting her the next time we're in Madison. Those and a pair of boots for winter will hopefully be all I need but who knows. Target also carries Robeez type shoes for $13 which is half what you will pay for a pair of Robeez. I wasn't sure what size to put her in so I didn't get any this time but may look into next time. They had lots of clothes I wanted to get her too but we didn't have the money to go nuts. Their toy selection though is AWESOME! They had all kinds of things I would definitely consider getting her including a wooden kitchen set. They had a kiddie keyboard too for age 2 and up and I might look into that since the one she's got now is for older kids, I think. Unfortunately, we only really get to Madison for this kind of stuff about once a month which makes it hard sometimes and yesterday was our one day a month. We happened to be there yesterday for a free portrait session. I will be posting those pictures later.

Whew! A big update for such a little girl! But it helps doing it this way because then when it comes time to send my mom a letter, I just copy and paste some of what I put on here. lol Later today, I'll probably post those pictures. They turned out really well and what's really great is that the photographer releases the photos for printing and emailing. She has a release statement on the CD and everything. I'm planning to go there for Natalie's 2 year old pictures because she doesn't try to pose Natalie at all. Other than to make sure she's in the area with the light, she just lets her do whatever and takes pictures while she does that. It's far less traumatic to her than trying to get her to sit still for pictures. I like that A LOT.

I've added a disclaimer.

2007-07-21T18:49:00.000-05:00

Wish I had seen this several months ago. Maybe it would have saved me some trouble. I do plan at some point to make this blog public again especially as the URL is different. The Simply Janeen blog will probably never be public though because I need a place to vent and I don't need people judging me for the things I say. Same goes for my Diaryland blog.

New pictures of Natalie.

2007-07-20T17:09:00.001-05:00

Well, the Fourth of July was a bust.

2007-07-06T00:59:00.001-05:00

Natalie HATES fireworks. They completely freaked her out. She started crying the minute they started and we decided to leave not five minutes into the show. Admittedly, we were a lot closer than we ever would have been in La Crosse so they were really loud. Still, even after moving quite a bit away from them, she still wasn't too big on them and John thinks that it's the sight of the fireworks that bothered her more than the sound. I don't know. But it was sort of frustrating considering we drove 15 miles to watch them. Beaver Dam does not have fireworks on the Fourth of July. Their fireworks are during Lake Days which is next weekend. I'm hoping to be able to catch them then but be a lot farther away from them than we were last night. So, no fireworks, no grilling, no get together with the extended family. It was not much of a Fourth of July period. At least I got some s'mores out of it though. However, I think next year we're going to look into going to La Crosse for the fireworks.

Aww, she's just SO precious!

2007-07-04T00:31:00.001-05:00

The last couple of nights Natalie has been really good about going to bed. We'll have our last nursing session for the day and instead of nursing until she falls asleep, she'll pull off, climb off of the bed, and walk over to the crib. I then pick her up, say "Mommy loves you and Daddy loves you too, and Daddy will see you in the morning," give her a couple of kisses and maybe a hug, let down the side of the crib, put her in with her Baby Big Bird and her bear, put her blanket over her, say "night, night," hear her repeat it, turn off the light, and leave the room. Both nights, she's gone right to sleep without even a whimper. Okay, so a lot of it probably has to do with the late nights this week because we've gotten off to such a bad start Friday getting her to bed late but with the fireworks tomorrow night (hopefully it won't rain), I figure keeping her on a later schedule will leave her in a good mood during the show. Still, it's nice to have such an easy time getting her down to bed and she's just so cute when she looks up at me, especially now that her bangs are shorter and I can actually see her eyes.

I cut her bangs this morning after her bath when John was around to help me with the head holding. There was no way I was going to try and do this without some help. She was good for the most part but struggled at first before I got to the actual cutting. She just does not like to be held still. It's still on the long side and I'll probably be doing this again a month from now, if not sooner. I wish I could just take her in to a salon but it's just WAY too expensive just for a bang job. I've tried hair pieces and she just keeps pulling them out, even the ponytail holders. And barrettes? Forget it. I'm hoping someday she'll be more cooperative.

The nursing sessions are decreasing. I had planned to get her down to six sessions a day but she's only really taking five. She's not very demanding of the afternoon session which is great. I thought I'd have more problems during that time of day because that's when John is at work. But so far, she hasn't been too bad. She did ask a little bit later on but by then, it was close to her bedtime nursing anyway. The other thing I'm doing is only nursing her either in our bedroom or her bedroom. I no longer am nursing in the living room. This allows me to give her my full attention and make nursing more of a bonding experience for both of us instead of being distracted and somewhat resentful because she was after me the minute I sat on the couch or in front of the computer. This really only makes a difference for two of the nursing sessions since the other four that were planned would have been in either room anyway but this way, it emphasizes a boundary for nursing. Some people might find this unnatural but I think it helps her to have rules regarding this as well as a routine. I know that on days we are out and about, she hardly asks to nurse at all knowing that I usually do not nurse in public these days. This isn't really any different. My hope is she'll associate her bedroom with sleep, nursing, and diaper changes and the living room as a play area. It's all touch and go though and I'm sure things will need to be tweaked as time goes on.

New pictures and 18 month updates.

2007-06-30T18:06:00.001-05:00

I finally got the pictures that I had done last month scanned onto the computer. These were taken May 18th at Wal-Mart. I wish I didn't have to scan them but they were out of the CDs this time when I went in. GRR. The pictures are okay but the photographer they had was new and I just wasn't totally impressed, especially when two of the poses were absolutely worthless. One was saved by accident even though it was completely off-center and the other one I actually did order because it was a good print but it came back blurry! In all honesty, most of the pictures are blurry and I'm really looking into another place to go for the next set. I'm thinking Sears. It won't be fun because it will mean a half an hour drive just to have pictures done but the next time I do pictures will be for her two year pictures. Other than the really expensive studios, there are no decent photography studios close by; they're all in Madison which again, is at least half an hour away.

I got these pictures developed yesterday. Why can't she smile like THIS at the studio?

And now for the updates:

Her well-baby check up went pretty well, considering. She is now 30 and 3/4 inches and weighs 24 lbs and 5 oz. Her height is now at the 27th percentile (up from 12th percentile) and her weight is down to the 53rd percentile (it had been at the 6st percentile). In other words, she's growing well. She's still really shy and took quite awhile to warm up to the nurse practitioner but once she did, she started babbling and talking. She says (along with all her other words) bye-bye, all aboard, alright, daddy, and head. She does NOT say mommy. grr. When I tell her to say "nice Mommy", she says "nice Daddy". I'm only a pair of boobs to her as evidenced by the fact that she constantly says "BOOBY!" when she wants to eat. So much for "eat please" which I taught her to sign a month or so back. Now, it's booby. She does sign "more" too though not often and usually it comes out of nowhere. She's really picking up songs. She's trying to learn the ABC song but hasn't quite gotten that yet. I did hear her sing something like "Now I know my ABCs" but it wasn't very clear. We're also doing Patty Cake (which she is following really well; she can "roll it" now), The Itsy Bitsty Spider (she has the spider climb up, the rain fall down, and the sun come out), Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (she points to her head and says "head", she points to her toes, she also points to her eyes, nose, and mouth). Those end of the day nursing sessions are also very educational. lol She's definitely doing more and getting into more every day.

And we're back!

2007-06-28T17:26:00.000-05:00

I made a little switcheroo with my blogs. I really like this layout but I cannot use it on my other blog. I wanted to be able to use it for the blog about Natalie so I switched the blogs around by changing the URL. Blogger lets you do that. So, from now on, this blog will be ONLY about Natalie and my other blog will be about me.

Stay tuned, I plan to get a roll of film developed tomorrow. I still plan to scan the other pictures in as well so there will be plenty of pictures of Natalie to update with along with a BIG update on all the things she's doing now at 18 months old.

Time sure does fly!

Natalie is now 17 months old.

2007-05-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

I figured I'd update with some photos and stuff. She is growing a little which is a good thing; she's now above 30 inches so maybe she won't be a total shrimp. I'm hoping she'll grow at least another two inches before the year is done. One positive side to this is that she at least doesn't grow out of clothes so quickly now. However, it does make it harder to shop for her ahead of time as I don't know what size she will wear in later months. She's pretty much in 12 months pants now and 18 month shirts. She wears size 3W-size 4 in shoes. She's not very big but she has a very big personality. She just acts like a little person and not a baby. She's very active; she won't sit and she won't stop talking either even if we can't understand 90% of what she says. She does have somewhat of an English vocabulary though with her newest word being cheese. That was what she said today when her dad had the cheese out to give her. She loves her toys and loves playing with them and she can be quite the little stinker as her dad found out Saturday when she threw his Bible in the toilet. Oops. John was not too happy with her about that. Go figure it's the first thing that she does throw into the toilet too and not too long after they returned home from church. Maybe she's trying to tell him something? She's still climbing and falling and getting hurt and she currently has a big scrape on her forehead from a fall she took on Friday playing on some rocks. Hopefully she won't end up with a scar from it.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

This is Natalie with her cousin Gabby during our last trip to La Crosse. Gabby is four months and ten days older than Natalie. She's quite a few inches taller but has nowhere near as much hair as Natalie does.Natalie sitting in a laundry basket. She likes laundry baskets for some strange reason. She either likes to be in them or pushes them around and puts things in them.This is one of the first times that Natalie was on her potty. She likes to read when she's on the potty; it keeps her from getting distracted, I guess. She hasn't been too good about going in the potty lately. Oh well, I guess it was wishful thinking to hope that she would be potty trained by the age of two. I'm still hoping she won't be as old as I was though. I was almost four.Here's Natalie eating a banana. She likes to eat them not cut up now. Her hair is also pretty long in this picture; we have not cut her bangs so they are now actually over her eyes which means I pretty much have to have her hair up every day. The hair on the side I actually did cut. She had two long pieces on either side that was two inches longer than the rest of her hair. I'm assuming this is because the rest of her hair in back was rubbed against her crib mattress when she was put on her back for bed each night. Now that the rest of her hair is a little longer, I felt a little more comfortable cutting off those extra long pieces. I still felt kind of bad about doing it though even if it did make her hair look more evened out. I'm still trying to grow out her bangs so that I can just part her hair in the middle but with her hair being so fine, I'm not sure how long that's going to work. We'll see how it goes.

Natalie did get a set of pictures done the Friday before last at Wal-Mart (thank goodness we did that BEFORE she got her forehead scraped) but since they ran out of CDs, I'll have to wait until I get the pictures to share them on here. She was not the most cooperative little toddler which made for a long photo shoot but it did make it easy for me to choose pictures. At least the first picture for the main package turned out really well. We'll have three other poses along with that which allowed us to spend much less than we have the last couple of times we've done this. I still might get the 3 1/2x5s of the poses I didn't get but they weren't that great. She's frowning in one, had her hand on top of her head in another one, and one wasn't even centered but it was accidentally saved. We might look into other options for the next set of pictures in November but that's going to be hard seeing as we would probably have to go to Madison and that would make things more complicated. I'm almost thinking better the devil we do know considering we would also need to go to Madison to pick the pictures up. And in all honesty, I'm not looking to spend a fortune on pictures right now; I just want to be able to get them done.

Another month gone by...

2007-05-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

I'm finding it hard to keep up with this blog, mainly because no one stops by to comment. It makes it kind of pointless for me to keep up with this when it seems like no one is even reading it. I know that there are those who are busy and I can understand that because I'm a busy mother myself but I do try to take the time to go and comment on those blog entries that I agree with or emphasize with or question or offer suggestions for. But few get back to me. To those who do, THANK YOU for letting me know you at least get my comments. I don't feel like I'm being ignored quite as much then but too many, far too many do not bother to even let me know that they heard from me and whether they agree/disagree with what I said.

I'm doing much better.

2007-04-26T10:09:00.000-05:00

I'm working on the blog again. I've put in links for my Discovery Toys website, my MySpace page and my SparkPage on SparkPeople. You are certainly free to check these sites out as well. SparkPeople, I'm finding to be very helpful in keeping me motivated to change my habits for the better so that I'm losing weight. I'm happy to say that I've lost about 20 lbs and have gone from a size 26 to a snug 22 since February 11. I'm looking better; I'm feeling better; and I'm eating better so it's been a good thing. Plus, I'm finally getting the support I need to lose this weight once and for all. That's always been the challenge for me, getting that support I SO desperately need.

Well, that's it for the moment. Since Natalie is climbing all over the furniture, I have to chase her around more often to keep her out of trouble. She has definitely inherited my daredevil tendencies. In fact, I just had to move her Dino-Roar because I just caught her stepping on it to climb onto my weight bench. *sigh* She was stepping on one of the parts that will not take her weight for very long. Hopefully the new location will be better. I do have my fears though that her climbing will lead to an accident. The way our apartment is set up, the one wall in the living room (the one the stairs go along) is not a complete wall; it's only half of a wall. There's a ledge and behind that wall is the stairs. The couch is in front of that wall (there aren't very many walls in this room long enough for the couch) and my fear is that Natalie will learn to climb to the top of the couch back and onto this ledge and down. *shudders* Not something I like thinking about. I'm not thrilled that we are in a second story apartment but that's what was available when we moved in and now, I don't know what to do other than to never let her out of my sight. Fortunately, my computer is in the living room so that I can keep an eye on her. It makes for a long day though, always wondering what she is doing when I don't hear her (since you KNOW that means she's getting into something). When she's not climbing on the furniture in the living room, she's climbing on something in one of the other rooms. I've had to put her diapers in the closer since she was climbing up to get into those. I had to move one of her clothing totes into the closet too since she was using that to get to the diapers.

With all of this going on, I'm DEFINITELY not ready for child number two. Chasing after Natalie AND dealing with an infant? NO WAY! John and I are still kind of on the fence about even having another one. Neither one of us is getting that urge and right now, our family feels complete. I just don't have that desire for another baby and whenever I see a baby, all I can think about is how much work it's going to be taking care of the baby AND Natalie. lol

Updates and other stuff.

2007-04-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

Natalie finally got in for her well baby check-up on March 30th. Currently, she’s 29 inches tall and somewhere between 22 and 24 lbs depending on the scale. I think she’s actually around 23 lbs, at least that’s what the scale says here so I’m going to go with that. That makes her around the 12th percentile for height and over the 60th percentile for weight. So, at this point, it looks like she’s going to be short and fat like me. lol She’s already got my chunky legs so it wouldn’t surprise me. At the very least, she’s not starving. Other than that, the doctor didn’t really do much. Natalie was hardly even examined which really didn’t impress me as the doctor had never seen her before. Her doctor in La Crosse was much more thorough. She did look at the couple of little things we mentioned like the mole on her bottom. I was a little concerned with that when it first showed up which was after we moved here but then I figured out she got it from her dad. He has one in the same place so my guess is it’s probably a birthmark. Otherwise, Natalie is a very healthy, active little girl.

She is getting VERY vocal. For someone who has hardly talked in the last 15 months, she’s making up for it now. I can barely keep track of all the words she can say. Here are some of them: hi, hello, hey, around and around (this one is her favorite and she says it almost all the time; it refers to either a ceiling fan or anything that hangs from the ceiling), yum, yucky, diaper, cow, nice, nice dad (said as a phrase), night-night, book, ball, bye-bye (said once, still waiting to hear it again), bless you (same as bye-bye), quack, quack (what she says when she sees a duck), boob (I think that’s what she’s saying, she’s patting my chest when she says it, lol), gone or all gone, frog (it sounds like frog anyway and she says it when she sees a picture of a frog), bear, and that’s all I can think of right now. Whew! Most of these words have come out since March 23rd so she is very quickly catching up to her older cousin. It’s like a little flip got switched on inside her brain or something.

We did have another milestone the other day. Natalie had her first big fever. She had a temp of 102.2 rectally so that was a little nerve-wracking since I didn’t really know what to do. She was really tired that morning and was falling asleep during breakfast so John put her back to be at 9 and when she slept until 12:30, I figured something was up. She was pretty warm so we checked her temp. She was the next day; her fever was gone as far as I could tell and she was definitely more active. She does seem to be cutting a few teeth so I’m sure that had something to do with it. She did not want to go to sleep that night though. She wanted to sleep with momma and I wanted to sleep! I let her sleep in bed with me for a little while and then finally tried to put her back into her crib about 3am. Well, around that time, John came home and he spent the next hour trying to get her to sleep. I think we were all pretty pooped the next morning and the weather wasn't helping either with it blowing snow outside.

I finally have the picture of Natalie in pigtails in my computer so here it is:

I also think she looks a lot like me in that picture. I have a more recent roll of film I need to develop but that probably won’t happen until the next time we go to Madison which probably won’t be for another week. There’s one picture on there that’s really cute; she’s sitting on her little potty chair reading a book that we just got her. She’s really taken an interest in board books besides taking them apart so we’ll have to get her more of those. As for the potty thing, no, I’m not trying to potty train her. What we are doing is getting her used to the idea of the potty. I’ve read that kids get so used to the idea of going in a diaper that they have to be totally retrained and not only trained to use the potty, but untrained off the diaper so what I figure is that if Natalie gets the idea early that the potty is also an acceptable place to go, then when it’s time to train her she’ll get used to the idea more quickly. All we’re really doing is having her sit on her little potty after we take her diaper off during diaper changes. So far, she’s used it a few times and has even pooped in there which I think is good since I’ve heard that it takes longer to get a child used to not pooping in the diaper. I’m sure the novelty at some point will wear off but if I can get her out of diapers a little sooner, it would make me happy since I’m so sick of diapers.

That's pretty much it. I've been dealing with a cold myself for the past few days and it's got me pretty wiped out. I'm hoping though that it only stays a head cold and doesn't go into my chest. I really hate chest colds. I know a lot of it is because I'm not getting enough sleep but since John lost his second job, my sleep has been very much messed up with his new schedule. Hopefully that will change when he finds a second. Although, if gas prices go up much more, I might have to have him leave his job in Madison and find something closer. I don't think we can afford much more for gas for him to go to work than we're already paying and the wear and tear on the car is also starting to cost us some money. It seems every month there's something that needs to be fixed on the car that costs us a pretty penny some something is going to have to change soon.

I have been doing Discovery Toys and I'm trying to get that off the ground. I started that a little over a month ago. I had my first party at the end of last month and it didn't go too badly considering only two people showed. I have another party in just under two weeks and I'm going to try to set up another debut party here next Sunday to see if I can get more people interested. I have a website set up as well but I don't think anyone has used it yet.

I'm going to La Crosse in less than three weeks though so I'm going to see if anyone I know there shows some interest as well. Part of my plan is that I'm going to take the toys with me to the wedding reception and see if any of the kids get interested in playing. It's worth a shot and maybe some of the moms will get interested in getting something if they see that their kids like a certain toy. I know, I'm pretty devious but it's not like Natalie isn't going to be playing with them as well; she's going to need something to do all evening that isn't climbing on tables and chairs and jumping off of things. Yes, that's her newest hobby; she climbs on the coffee table and jumps off. Fortunately, she only jumps when someone is there to catch her. She has definitely inherited my dare devil side. That worries me; I had a lot of near death experiences when I was little and I'm not looking forward to my daughter doing the same.

So, that's pretty much the story here. I'm still working on my weight and while the number on the scale aren't changing too much, the way my clothes fit is changing. I even bought a new pair of jeans tonight; the first pair I've bought since before I got pregnant over two years ago. I actually found out I was pregnant on the 16th of April in 2005. That was pretty intense; I didn't know what to think! I wasn't even sure I could get pregnant because of my weight and was hoping that maybe by October I would be pregnant. Instead, I was about 11 weeks to Natalie's birth by then. Time sure goes fast around here. It makes me wonder what the next two years will bring.

Natalie is talking!

2007-03-27T00:02:00.000-05:00

And just in time too! She turns 15 months in just a couple of hours. It just all of a sudden happened too. She had been saying a word here, a word there only to never say it before but now she's just jabbering away. Her new words include hi (she's said this one before but says it even more now), hey, around and around (said while looking up at ceiling fan and making a movement with her finger to demonstrate the ceiling fan turning), and eye (said while pointing at either her eye or my eye). Eye is her newest word, said today. This sudden burst of vocabulary started Friday morning when I walked into Natalie's room and she said "Hi" to me from the bed while John was changing her diaper. She has a way of surprising me like that. She did it before when she said "Hi" out of the blue when talking to my mom (I had told her to say "hi" to her grandma but she had never said "hi" before so when she did say "hi", it just shocked me speechless!). So now, she's talking a little more which makes me feel very relieved as I had been concerned about her lack of clear speech. In the back of my mind though, I figured that she might be a little delayed due to the German that John has been teaching her. I don't think it will be long before we have a bone fide chatterbox on our hands. lol

Well, that was annoying.

2007-03-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

A week after I mailed in the paperwork to the clinic, they call to schedule the appointment. It was made for today. We get to the appointment pretty much on time. The DOCTOR cancels! She's stuck at the hospital with an emergency. So the appointment had to be rescheduled for NEXT Friday. I'm telling you, this is not a good sign. If she ends up being one of those pain in the butt doctors because Natalie's not vaccinated, the next appointment will be in Madison.

At least I got Natalie's height and weight. She's currently 22 lbs and 29 inches tall. She's close to being a pound per inch.

New Pictures

2007-03-18T12:10:00.000-05:00

I got the most recent roll of film developed last night. I'm going to wait until Friday to develop the rest of them as I'm going to take them to Madison. It costs $2.50 here just to get the doubles. GRR. WAY too much money. Just developing this roll of film cost over $12.00. Ripoff. At least the pictures are cute; she's smiling a lot more these days.

This is Natalie carrying around that big bear I mentioned in one of my earlier updates.

Surfin' USA (see the pony tail sticking out in the back?

Getting ready for summer.

Taking a bath.

No pigtail pictures with this roll though. I'll have to see if it's in one of the earlier rolls. I wanted to get this roll developed so that I had some recent pictures to send to my mom. Pictures are the only thing she has of Natalie right now as she hasn't seen her in person yet. But we're hoping that maybe by Mother's Day we'll get to go see her. It's just a matter of getting the paperwork approved.

Just some updates.

2007-03-15T18:48:00.000-05:00

Natalie is getting to be more of stinker these days. Currently, I'm missing my middle school year book, the remote control to the VCR, and my gel wrist pad. I'm hoping they're in the apartment somewhere but we're still trying to go through the boxes and either put things away or set them aside to get rid of. No matter how much room there is here, there just isn't enough room for all the stuff we have, not when the storage space is so small and I have to put things where Natalie can't reach them. We really could use a place with a third room so that I have a place to put my workout stuff as well as stuff I don't want Natalie getting into. *sigh* I know it will only get worse as she gets older but I try so hard to know where my things are that this drives me just about batty.

Been working on losing weight these days and that's been going pretty well. I hope to lose close to 25 lbs by summer and so far, I'm about 10% into reaching that goal. I've made a lot of changes in my eating and exercising too which seems to help out a lot. I do find myself slipping these days but I'm trying to keep at it anyway and not give up. The support I'm getting at SparkPeople has really helped out a lot.

Today, John said something that really surprised me. I have complained in the past about one of his religious things that usually occurs right around Easter time. It involves taking all things with leavening out of the house: yeast, baking soda, baking powder, etc. We had ordered some girl scout cookies some time ago (before I started with SparkPeople) and they came in today. I had expressed concern about trying to eat all of these cookies in less than a month without going crazy and he told me that if I let him clean the house (do all the vacuuming and stuff) for the week that's coming (which starts April 1st), he will let me keep what I need in the house for that week even if it has leavening in it because he understands that while he's been called to do this, I have not. WOW. I'm shocked. Other than the Christmas deal, this has been one of our big things to fight over. I really do not like this week because it's such an inconvenience to ME since I don't follow his religion. Usually, I try to deal with it but not without a lot of complaining and grumbling and generally being unhappy about it. The year I was pregnant, I put my food down because I was in the midst of my morning sickness at the time and needed to have access to crackers. And the fact that he brought this up himself really shows that he has changed at least a little in how he deals with his religious convictions. He's at least willing to compromise somewhat. That's a HUGE step forward and shows that maybe the influence of his former friend is starting to wear off finally. I sure hope so!

Just recently, I became involved with Discovery Toys. I had kind of tossed around the idea in the past due to someone contacting me about selling but at the time, we had NO income at all coming so it just was not going to work signing up to do it when I couldn't even pay for the kit. But, having a little bit of money, I thought I'd try it out. At the very least, it's a way for me to get out of the house. I signed up through a very nice lady who lives in the area and went to the first meeting today and all the women there were just nice and totally down to earth. What's really great is I could wear my jeans and NO make-up. I did not have to dress up in nylons and a skirt like I did in Mary Kay (at over 30 weeks pregnant too!). Even better, this lady and her family do some of the things that my husband is very strongly for such as raw milk, no vaccinating, homeschooling, organic foods, no processed foods, etc. If we can have access to this information without the um...shall I say harsh influence, I am ALL for it. And even better, a couple of these moms still had their little ones in slings and at the breast. Natalie is still nursing but I really try not to nurse in public since she's so indiscreet about nursing. lol I try to feed her instead and I'm sure it makes John much happier if I'm feeding her at a place that follows his beliefs on food. And hey, since I'm trying to eat healthier, it's good for me too!

So that's my update in a nutshell; hopefully some of you will come out of lurking and say "hi."

Natalie's World

Natalie is five!

Getting used to a new sibling isn't easy.

The Chronicles of Natalie

The Extremely Particular Girl With The Golden Touch

We got Natalie's pictures done last month.

NATALIE: School Days, School Days or Every Well-Intentioned Endeavor Must End

Since You've Been Gone

We Have Separation.

Feels like my heart is being torn in two...

Feeling like a crummy parent these days...

This last month has been a little calmer at least.

Four is proving to be as difficult as three so far.

Natalie is four!

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a tempor...

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.

Another busy month approaching an end...

Some news and updates, maybe a few pictures...

We're halfway through the tyranical threes...

Natalie's three year pictures are FINALLY DONE!

A Day at the Fountain...and other updates.

I'm teaching Natalie to write...

It's hard to get a decent picture of a three year old.

As usual, I'm behind on updates...

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Another month gone by and quite a few updates...

Just some updates while I have a few minutes here...

Another growth spurt on the way?

Grr! Stupid eczema!

Poor thing...

Hopefully, Natalie is down for the night...

Natalie and the spider...

I really should update more often...

Not much going on at the moment...

And here we are, 30 months later!

Just a couple of quick updates while Blogger is working...

Well, now that John's diploma is here...

I didn't think potty training would be THIS easy!

Did I say four weeks? Try six DAYS!

Passports are ordered and should be back in about four weeks...

I suppose I should also mention some of Natalie's recent naughtiness...

Hasn't there been enough pain already?

We've made a monumental decision.

Just a couple of pictures I took of Natalie on Earth Day.

ACK! Slow down the growing PLEASE!

Potty training and other stuff...

Natalie is 27 months on the 27th!

Poor Natalie.

Just got the most recent roll of film developed...

Not sure if I shared any of these...

Huh, that's kind of interesting.

Natalie's first total eclipse of the moon...

Having a two year old definitely makes life interesting...

Happy New Year!

Two year pictures!

I think that's enough for now.

Thought I would play around with my template a little bit...

That little growth spurt of Natalie's...

Pictures of Natalie and a short update.

Little stinker.

Since my daughter is now in training as a parrot...

Sorry I'm so bad with updates.

Oh boy! Has someone got a TEMPER!

Aww! *sniff, sniff*

Wow, she's SO smart!

Pictures from yesterday.

Natalie is 19 months!

I've added a disclaimer.

New pictures of Natalie.

Well, the Fourth of July was a bust.

Aww, she's just SO precious!

New pictures and 18 month updates.

And we're back!

Natalie is now 17 months old.

Another month gone by...

I'm doing much better.

Updates and other stuff.

Aww! sniff, sniff