Irene's Blog: Independent

Natalie & Izzie are becoming more and more independent. Which is good and bad. As far as Natalie goes it is good since she is starting to play better by herself and she has also started "playing" with Izzie. She wants Izzie to play along but poor Izzie has no idea what is going on and what Natalie is telling her to do. Still Izzie likes when Natalie pays attention to her so she is very happy to be included.

Natalie has also started playing with other kids. Before whenever we got together with other kids she just did the parallel play but she is starting to do more pretend playing. She plays with Lillian & Caroline. Lillian will be 2 in October and Caroline turned 2 in July. It is very cute to see them playing together.

As always Natalie's first friends were Parker & Abi. She just loves playing with them outside. They like it when she is outside with them. She tries to catch them but she can't. She can get to Parker since he gets lazy and stops running but Abi she can never catch her. Natalie definitely thinks she is part of their pack. Not sure who is the leader but I don't think they know either or care.... Last week we had fall like weather. Well early fall like weather. It was great. We played outside a lot. I started throwing the ball to Abi and Natalie comes over with a tennis ball saying "me turn". I thought she wanted to throw the ball to Abi so I waited for her to throw the ball. Nothing was happening until I realized Natalie wanted me to throw the ball to her. So I threw the ball and off she went chasing it in the backyard. She then bent down and tried to pick it up with her mouth, which she could not do (thank goodness). But then she came running back to me holding the ball up to her mouth pretending like it was in her mouth. We did this for about 10 minutes. Her running after the ball. Abi was just looking wondering what was going on.
Later on Parker & Abi were scratching their backs on the grass and Natalie gets off the swing and proceeds to get on the grass and scratch her back too. I have no idea what she is thinking she is but I guess she just wants to be part of their pack.

Natalie is now starting to enjoy the game of chase and hide and seek. There are a couple of things she still does not get, like actually hiding but she will get there. Also since Aaron always ask her "Do you want me to chase you" she thinks the name of the game is "chase you". So if she wants people to chase her she says "chase you chase you".

Izzie is also becoming more independent. Now independence on Izzie means trouble. She is very curious (nice way of putting it) and quite often gets into trouble. Her favorite past time now is to see what she can dunk in the dog's water dish. Her favorite items to put in are shoes, dog toys and Aaron's dress socks. She loves playing with their water and makes a mess. She also is enjoying climbing up the stairs. She had a little mishap last week. I believe she tripped trying to climb up the steps in the back porch. She got a little scratch on her face and a bump in her forehead. She is all healed now but I am sure this was the first of many injuries. She is always going somewhere and she is very quiet about it.

We are doing well, waiting for the weather to get cool. It still feels like summer. I will miss the North Carolina fall with all the trees changing. I don't think there are that many trees here that will change leaves. Also getting ready for Izzie's first birthday. I can't believe she will be a year in 1 month! Time is going by so fast.

Here are some pictures :-)

Here is Natalie in the backyard. She figured out she can use the potty as a step stool to get into the infant swing. She can now get in and out of the swing by herself. She also uses the potty to push herself.