So little time

I want to keep blogging regularly, but now that Natalie is crawling and pulling up, I have almost no time to go on the computer during the day. She loves my lap top, and whenever she sees me on it, she comes over to bang on the keys. I do have the time when she is napping to myself, but I often don't think to write then because I like to write about our day in the evening. After Natalie is in bed, I usually have about three hours. There are too many things I want to do, and sometimes have to do. When I do write, it usually takes up a lot of my free time. Some nights, I'm just not in the mood to write or too tired. I'm making a big effort to make sure I write about all the big things in Natalie's life. I feel like so much of my "free" time is dedicated to persevering Natalie's memories, between the blog, photographs, and the baby book. How would I ever have time to do this for two kids?

But, since there isn't anything huge to write about, here is a list:

• Natalie enjoyed her first Independence Day by having a pancake, swimming in Lake Sebago with Daddy and Nana at her Great-Auntie Beth's, and trying strawberries for the first time. Behavior was awesome and we achieved a pleasant nap at just the right time by nursing to sleep.
  
• Natalie's 7th tooth has cut. It is on the bottom right (when you are facing her). I think there will be more coming soon though due to her continued drool and chewing).
• Plan to call the doctor's tomorrow. Natalie still has a bit of a stuffy nose and has been shaking her head in this funny way. I've heard that sometimes when there is fluid on the eat kids try to do this to fix it. We do not want a baby with an ear ache on a four hour flight, so we figure it is best to give a call and go in.
  
• We measured and weighed Natalie a couple of days ago and had a bit of worry over it. We thought she had dropped down from 75% of height to 12%, as well as a dip from 75% in weight to 65%. But, we measured her again in the morning, this time laying down like they do at the doctor's office, and she was an inch taller making her more like 50%. Looking back in the baby book, I saw that the other most of her height measurements have been around 50%, so it must have been a growth spurt last visit. Her weight I'm not as worried about for two reasons. First, I know that the doctor's scale is more accurate than ours, so I feel like I have to take whatever our scale says with a grain of salt. Second, I know that she is more active now with all the crawling and cruising, so it makes sense that she would start to level off some. For a few hours there, we were really thinking I needed to bring back the fourth nursing since it might have been cutting her nutrients and calories, but now we feel fine about it. The only change I've made is to offer a second side when nursing at bed time if she gets restless.
  
• Natalie now seems to have an increased attention span for books! Yea! Not only has she recently loved turning the pages in the family book I made her, but she has enjoyed other books. She likes books with the flaps you lift up. We have one animal book like this in particular what we look at and I open the flap a tiny bit (so that she can see where the edge is), and she lifts it up. Another book she is enjoying is a touch and feel book with a nice variety of textures. I bought her a new book that has both flaps and touch and feel, and she seems to really like this book, too. But, even more so, she has pulled out another book for me to read to her twice now. And, this book is the special "I love you" book that I got for her birth and used to read to her every day when she was tiny. She has sat through me reading this almost all the way through twice after pulling it off the shelf. Very cool. So, I made her a new book of photos of animals for her to look at, but I used a small photo album so it is hard for her to turn the pages. She is getting rather good at turning pages.
  
• For the first time tonight Natalie turned around a corner going to the right. Previously, she would never go to the right. I also noticed that she is rolling over in the other direction, particularly at bed time when I am trying to do her lotion after her bath. She rolls to my right and tries to crawl away and climb up the nursing pillows with her hooded towel still on. Its very cute and I need Mike to be there to get a picture or video or something.
  
• Other discoveries have been picking her nose, pulling her own hair, and sticking out her tongue!
  
• Ripping tissues apart is one of her favorite games, especially when you make surprised faces or gasp. She seems to like any form of surprised face. She loved it today when Nana reacted to getting splashed with cold water in the lake.
  
• As far as talking goes, it is very clear that Natalie says "Who's that?" which is so awesome. Most of the time she says it when looking at photos (because I said it to her so many times with our family book). I noticed the first time when we were at my parents, but I thought it might have been a one day thing. But she keeps doing it. She also is doing a lot more with repeating the sounds she is hearing us make. For instance, yesterday Mike was saying "brown bear" because of a picture in her book, and she said "br" for a little while.
• Natalie has also started to figure out how to get down from a standing position, but isn't all the way there yet. I will be happy when this happens so that her standing up in the crib at nap time doesn't mean that I have to come rescue her. It will also lessen my worry of her reaching for something and falling down. Instead, she will be able to get down, crawl, and stand back up.