Our Little Walker

Natalie Walking from Rachel Velthuisen on Vimeo.

Natalie started taking her first steps on Mother's Day and now is walking around a lot more. She still crawls more than walks but the last few days she's starting to get much more daring in her attempts. She now stands up in the middle of the floor and starts walking to her toys, etc. She walked from her chair to her toy organizer in her playroom. And I finally caught her on video taking quite a few steps! She's going to be taking off soon!

Full of Giggles

This is absolutely my favorite video of Natalie. Her laugh is so adorable! She knows how to turn on the DVD player (not thrilled about this). I had just opened a new Einstein video for her (Numnbers Nursery). She had gone over to turn it on. The opening scene is a tiger puppet pulling colored scarfs off of the numbers 1-5, one at a time. Kinda like peek-a-boo. She finds this to be hilarious!

Natalie laughing from Rachel Velthuisen on Vimeo.

Working on her walk

I finally got a video of Natalie behind her push-walker toy. Now, she really takes off with it though -- much faster and more stable than a month or so ago.

Natalie's also started crawling using her feet instead of her knees. She did this a number of times a few weeks ago but now uses this as her main form of getting around. I think it's because of our hardwood floors downstairs and wearing dresses or maybe carpet burn. She does it briefly in the video below. Maybe this will encourage her to try walking more. She did take 6 or so steps today to her chair in the playroom. She also stood up from a squatting position without holding onto anything.

It was pretty hot and humid today. One activity Natalie really enjoys is to play with buckets/cups in a tub of water that I've put on the deck. Good times when it's hot outside. She looks so cute in her cloth diaper.

Climbing Up Stairs

I mentioned previously in an older post a few weeks ago that Natalie has figured out how to climb up the stairs. She loves to try it out whenever given the chance (i.e. someone is standing there with her). I finally caught it on video with Kinsey walking up with her.

Natalie has also been taking more steps over the last few days, although still infrequent as expected. It's been hard to catch on film but I'm hoping in the next week or so she'll be taking more steps that we'll be able to catch on video.

My First Mother's Day -- Natalie's First Steps

My first Mother's Day! I had a great day hanging out with Natalie and Emile. Emile cooked eggs Benedict for brunch, and got me a gift certificate for a massage and a framed photo of Natalie (gift from Natalie). Later we all went to Duke Gardens. It was a beautiful day! And to top it off, Natalie took her first steps today. She walked in a semi-circle before toppling over. I can't wait to see her try again. Here are some photos from Duke Gardens.

Roseola Virus

Natalie ended up getting the Roseola virus this week. Our poor sweetie was miserable! Starting on Monday night, she started getting pretty high temperatures (102.6). By the morning it would drop again to a low grade fever but then by mid afternoon, it was elevated again. Wednesday night she had a fever of 104.2. The after-hours nurse recommended we take her into the ER to get checked even though we'd already got the fever down to 103 by giving her a cool bath and using wet wash clothes. The ER was horrible! Poor Natalie -- we got there at 7 p.m. and didn't leave until 10:00 p.m. (which I suppose isn't too bad when you think about time in the ER) but they had to get a urine and blood sample from her. They had to try twice to get the catheter in and three times to find her tiny little veins for blood. We were about to go ballistic on the nurses if they tried to stick her one more time. She was so miserable! It was so hard seeing her cry like that. The ER doctor couldn't pin down anything majorly wrong with her (which was good) and thought it might just be a virus. We took her into the pediatrician the next day as a follow-up to the ER visit. Dr. Bernstein thought that because her only symptom was a high fever that came and went over 3-4 days she probably had the Roseola virus. We would know for sure if she broke out in a rash after her fever broke. Well, her fever finally broke on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, she had a rash all over her belly and face. It's subsided now. Thankfully, the virus isn't anything to be to worried about in the long term. After the fever breaks, the rash is the only remaining symptom which doesn't cause her any discomfort or anything. Nonetheless, it was heartbreaking watching her in such misery for 4 days! Thankfully she's back to herself, teething and all!

Here are some videos of Natalie playing after recovering from her virus. She now loves crawling up onto her chair -- no matter how many times I try to explain that standing on it is not a good idea!

Natalie has been doing great lately walking while holding only one hand. She stands on her own for long periods of time and even bends down to pick something up and stands back up without holding on to anything but she still hasn't taken that first big step. She's starts to (moves one foot) but then topples or puts it back down. She's getting close though!

Natalie is 11 months old!

Natalie is 11 months old today! In one month she'll be a toddler -- that is amazing to me! It's almost impossible to get a photo of her in this chair anymore. This is the best I could get without her trying to crawl out of chair.

Here are some cute photos from today with her playing with her books -- her favorite thing to do right now.

We got her a swing for the backyard which Emile put up today. She loves it!

She is becoming such an independent little girl! She only wants to be held for a few seconds and then she pushes away to get back on the floor to crawl around to explore. She wants to hold her books and turn the pages while you read to her which usually means the story is not read in order. She loves to open and close doors and cabinets (those that don't need to be child-proofed) and if you try to help her, she insists on doing it herself. I have a feeling she's going to be a pistol when she's older! :)

A few weeks ago Natalie and I played out in the backyard on a blanket. I got some cute photos of her. I used this one for Natalie's birthday party invitations. I love this photo of her!