Some bullets while we watch Heros and Mad Men

Feeling like I should write, but not feeling like actually doing it at the moment. So, some bullets.

• I like to get out of the house with Natalie, but one thing I hate it about it is that I don't actually interact with her as much when we are out, especially when its shopping. I'm lucky that Natalie is happy to look around at everything, chew on her toys, eat her snack. I feel bad that I can't pay as much attention to her when we are shopping, but how can I look at her while I do everything else.
  
• Another things about paying attention to Natalie is that when we are home alone together, I don't get to actually get to look at her as much as I'd like. I'm often busy doing things for her, but also a lot of it is that I am holding her. She can be either too close for me to see her well or have her back to me.
  
• New skills Natalie is working on: pointing, waving, walking, standing alone, moving sliders in books, drinking from a normal cup.
• I continue to worry that I don't spend enough quality time with Natalie even though we are together all day. I sometimes think that we need more "absence makes the heart grow founder." When it is just the two of us, I tend to take her presence a bit for granted. I feel like I should spend every moment with her down on the floor playing, but it just doesn't work out that way. But at the same time, my mom says that we spent all our time in play pens, so how bad could it really be? Plus, she is doing so well. I feel like I am wasting our time together and at the same time allowing her to be bored. I mean, she doesn't laugh with me like she does for other people. Is that a regular occurrence with moms since I'm so old hat? Every couple of weeks I vow to be better, but it doesn't last. Its hard to play with her for so many consecutive hours when she still isn't playing games. Her attention span can be so short and she mostly wants to move around. We can play with some of her toys together, like her blocks and books and some of her cause and effect toys, and there is always peekaboo and chase. I've read about lots of other games before, too. But a lot of the time, she just wants to bang things, chew things, touch things, crawl away, etc. She likes to crawl up me and over me. But, as I was saying, it is easier to do this continuously when there is a break.
  
• I gave Natalie her first two dinners that weren't baby food. First at my parents, she had all finger sized pieces of what we had for dinner (roast beef, globs of baked potato, summer squash, green beans, and cucumber). Then tonight, I fed her a Beechnut dinner that is really more for 12 months, but as Mike said today, that is only 7 weeks away. The one we tried was basically Spaghetti-ohs. She was very impatient while I was preparing it, but quite happy when she started eating it. Lots of smiles and MMMs. She also got very fussy when she thought I was finishing, but was really just cleaning some sauce of my hand from testing the temperature. This is one thing I dislike: the inability to taste a lot of what I will be giving her, but also still having to touch it. We got a lot of these Beechnut meals today because we had coupons for them. I couldn't find them before at Walmart, so we got them at Shaws. I'm hoping to move away from the jar foods now and use these and a what we eat instead, but we will have to figure out the timing because Natalie needs to eat before us almost every night. Maybe we could do a snack to make it until dinner time with us. The way it has been recently, she has been having almost two dinners.
  
• So, my breast infection cleared up well, but... it appears that I am allergic to the antibiotic I was given. Thursday morning, Natalie and I went out for a walk with my neighbor and her daughter. When I got home, I took a quick shower before heading out, and I noticed I had some spots. I figured that it must be from being sweaty out on the walk. But, as the day went on and into the next, we've realized that was not the case. So, I stopped taking my prescription. Since then, some of my rash has gone away, but other places have gotten worse. We've gone back and forth from thinking it should just go away and I won't need to call the doctor, to thinking it could be measles since I'm not fully immunized due to my egg allergy. But, we looked up the reaction to the drub and it sound very much like what I have whereas the measles sounds only a little like what I have. So, now I've got a horrible rash under my arms, which I hope will go away in the next couple of days or I'll have to go back to the doctor.
  
• I went out yard-saling with my parents on Saturday morning. I was the only one who got anything. I got her a toy that has clock hands, animal sounds and such; a small plastic mug; and a pair or new looking Osh Kosh overalls. Guess the price? A whopping 88 cents! We actually paid $1.10, but they only asked for 88 cents. The overalls go for $14 (twice as much ticket price) on line just by themselves!
• We got to see friends from Maryland this past weekend who we haven't seen in about three years. Their daughter is almost 5 now and when we last saw her she wasn't yet walking. It was nice to talk to another mom for a little while and I'm sure that Mike enjoyed chatting with his friend about movies and zombies and such. And of course it was not only nice for Natalie to have someone to interact with, but to see their daughter grown and to get a little preview of what Natalie will be like in a few years.