Long Lost!

Finally a picture of Natalie's first time in the pool (as our camera was delivered to us this week by Mr. Hertz - THANK YOU, Mr. Hertz!) - note the utter displeasure on her face. She hated her first time in the water. Since then, Natalie and I went to Sacramento [last weekend, June 13-14] and spent more time in the pool with Jack Damrell - and that time was a bigger hit.
This picture was from June 2 in Michigan.
With Kai, back in SF... note that he is single-minded in his quest to grab Reese's tail!

Here is a little video of Natalie's latest crawling style. She likes to keep one foot out for balance - quite a speedy method! She has also graduated to pulling up on furniture and cruising a fair bit.

Her latest trick is a little unbelievable to me, but probably not very exciting to others. Some background: she has always been captivated by the world, and peoples' movements in it - she likes to be held facing outward to the world around her (as opposed to facing inward looking at whoever is holding her). Starting at about 2-3 weeks old, she was so focused on the world that she pretty much stopped napping for a while there! Whenever we hug or kiss her, she pushes away because *what is making that noise*! Or *who is moving there, out of the corner of my eye?* She is constantly looking for the next new thing to investigate.

So now you can see why it's amazing to me that her latest trick is simply crawling into my lap!

She has a whole house in which to crawl, and plenty of toys to look at... but this week instead of investigating the whole wide world she has been choosing to find mommy, and to climb over my legs and into my lap so she can snuggle against me while we play.

It's one of the most beautiful moments of parenting so far. A whole world out there for her, but at this moment in time she kind of just wants to lean back against mommy (or daddy for that matter, but it's mommy who's writing) so we can look out at the world together.

More highlights:

• She loves reading books (generally upside-down)...
• She laughs really hard at videos of herself when we play them on the computer!
• Natalie has graduated into her big-girl car seat and hated it for a few weeks but is fine with it now (yes, we got the cow print).
• She loves Winnie the Pooh (?) - we have a Pooh book which we read before bed, and she laughs every time she sees him!
• Last night she stayed with her first (non-family) babysitter ever. My friend Kathy was kind enough to come over to watch her while Tyler and I went to a wedding.

Things are pretty wonderful here!