God is So Amazing to Our Family!

Sometimes you just have to stop and give God the glory for all of the blessings and amazing timing that He always provides!

Last week, I was having a casual conversation with a coworker and she happened to ask about us having another child. I said that mentally I was ready, but financially we were not quite there yet. I went on to say that spending $160 a week for day care for one was enough- that I couldn't imagine paying over double that with two. She looked shocked at the cost and began to tell me about her daughter's preschool. The preschool is literally two blocks from our school. Their hours are 8:10-3:10pm and it costs around $84 a week! I really think that I almost cried at this possibility!

 We took Natalie for a tour yesterday. The preschool is a part of a Catholic K-8 school, but has separate tuition and not as many regulations (with church membership and such). We were very pleased with the warm, friendly environment. We got to meet the teacher, Mrs. Powers, and see her in action with the class. She talked to us for a long time explaining the day and being very positive and welcoming. There were only a few girls there at the time because Tuesdays and Thursdays are lower attendance days because you can do part time as well. Natalie would be with Mrs. Powers for over a year so that she would be in the right group for her future kindergarten grouping. Even that is a positive since Natalie doesn't handle change well.

At that is another piece of God's amazing timing. Natalie is suppose to be changing rooms with her birthday coming up. This means that she will have a completely different teacher at day care, different room, and different kids. This has usually meant that Natalie completely starts over with her ability to calmly and happily go to day care (which honestly. she hasn't been too happy going period lately) The preschool starts on January 5th. Natalie's birthday is Jan 4th, so she can start the first day of school! Also her current day care states that you have to give two weeks notice if you are leaving the program. Today is exactly two weeks from her last day (birthday)!

Another amazing thing is that I am going to be starting an afterschool job at my school and my new boss over the program is willing to let me have Natalie with me at least in the beginning instead of having her stay for their after care program. Amazing!

Also, there are several days that this preschool gets out early, due to Teacher Workshops. Almost all of them fall on Thursdays which is the day of the week that Grandma is off and could come pick her up!

Update

Wow, it has been way too long since I put up a general update! I apologize for really slacking off, since I use to do a weekly update.
I think it is harder for me to do updates now because Natalie is so interactive and fun that I constantly just want to be with her!

We love our new doctor. Dr. Murray completely disagreed with everything that Dr. Lee had said. Dr. Murray said that Natalie is doing great and is completely healthy. I am so thankful that we were able to find a better doctor and fast!

Natalie has been growing and changing so fast. As previously mentioned, Natalie now can turn herself in her exosaucer. She is very methodical in how she plays with all of the toys. She now knows how to interact with all of them. We still get a kick out of hearing the music suddenly start because she has pushed the button again. She always looks very pleased with herself as well.

In the past few weeks, Natalie has deepened her love of sucking her thumb. I know that in the future this could be problematic, but right now it is so adorable. She doesn't do it constantly. She only does it when she is trying to fall asleep. She also seems to like to hold some fabric (one of her security blankets, a bib, her shirt, etc.) in the same hand has she sucks her thumb. Totally makes me think of Linus from the Peanuts. When she is wide awake, she doesn't suck her thumb, but loves chewing on her hands or anything else she can get to her mouth.

Natalie is at a very interesting stage as far as clothing sizes. She can wear some 3-6 month pants, but as far as shirts go- it can be anything from a 3-6 month onesie to a 12 month shirt! Just a few days ago, I cleared out her drawers again of all of the things that don't fit her anymore. It is so crazy how fast it is going!

Natalie still has not rolled over. She gets as close as one could get...but she just can't seem to get her arm out from under her to complete the task. I hope that maybe with me being home more we can do more floor time and work on this more.

She continues to love cereal. I am still only feeding it to her once a day, but she absolutely loves it. She just beams the moment we put her in the highchair. I think feeding her cereal is one of my new favorite things to do as a mommy.

Natalie also loves her pets. Whenever Sophie or Pumba walk by she visibly gets excited by throwing her arms and legs out and smiling really big. Sometimes she will even laugh just at the sight of them. Sophie tends to keep her distance most of the time, but Pumba is so good with her. He loves to sniff her and now he lets her pet/grab his neck fat without even batting an eye. I can't wait to watch them play together as Natalie grows up.

Well now that it is summer, I hope to do a better job of updating. I have one more masters class through June, but then I get to be a stay-at-home mommy for one month- wahoo!

Somewhat weekly update

So there was no update last week because I had strep for the first time in my life. Thankfully it is extremely rare for infants to catch strep, so I didn't have to worry about Natalie getting it too much. Natalie continues to grow up so fast in front of our eyes. She is staying awake now more during the day and taking shorter naps (except for in the evenings after day care, that still wipes her out and she sleeps all evening).

She is babbling a lot more, smiling a lot more, and once she even seemed to laugh. We have not been able to get her to do it since, but it has been fun trying! She still isn't sleeping through the night, but on average, we are only up once in the night...and sadly, I am pretty much use to getting up at that time, so it doesn't seem so bad.

Natalie still loves to suck and chew on her hands- quite noisily at times. She is wearing mostly 3-6 month sized clothes. It seems so weird to get out clothes that I remember thinking that it was going to be such a long time before she could wear them, and now she can! I figured out that it isn't public restrooms that she hates- it is places that are prone to echoes. When she cries, she really doesn't like for it to echo back at her and only upsets her more. We have discovered this in public restrooms and in the back bay at church.

This weekend, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, we have our stroller so we went for our first walk. Natalie seemed to enjoy it until she got fussy at the end because she was sleepy. As soon as we came into the house, she fell asleep for a couple of hours. I can't wait til I go shopping again with my mom and wlll be able to use the stroller instead of lugging the car seat or trying to hold her myself.

This next week is going to be such a joy and blessing because I am off for Spring Break. So Natalie and I are going to have lots of time together and I already know that going back to work will be oh so difficult!