Waving?!

Sweet girl, mom is clueless. I have been watching you open and close your little hands all day and it never dawned on me you were performing a milestone. Haha. You are totally waving. I just asked Josie's OT this morning about your clapping bc you haven't done any in a while (despite me freaking out and singing tons of songs to get you to try). You were just working on something new! Oooh.

Tons of waving practice is coming in handy apparently. I barely need to suggest things to you though and you nail em. Smart cookie!

The tea olives smell goregous out and we've been getting in so much fresh air and trips to the park.

Keep up the fun.

love you!
--mom


P.S. You just saw me looking at you and you waved. But ya know it could be a variant on asking to be picked up, as Josie does that all the time. Hmmmm... not sure -- regardless you are so genius.

Surreal

Let me tell you, healthy babies are a piece of cake. Heck, they're easier than that -- they're a nice, surreal cake smoothie or something. No effort required. They eat, they poo, they burp, they say dadada and mamama with no effort. They get over colds appropriately. They are stimulated by the appropriate stimulants and they initiate oral exploration and generally want to find out about people and things. They sit straight when you sit them, they do things the first time they try it sometimes, and know how to fall and how to catch their balance. The crawl on time, or even ahead of schedule. They want to walk. They don't need therapy 4 times a week. They look chunky, healthy and the right size and people don't offend you when they guess their ages. They nurse and enjoy food, right off the bat! They don't need multiple operations or come missing pieces or parts. Totally, completely, healthy babies are surreal and crazy and amazing and I am loving it. And this is just off the top of my head lol.

Mary is blowing my freaking mind.

Clapping and advanced things

Happy Valentine's 2011! Right now every body's napping while dad's at work. We had an interesting loss of electricity this morning but glad the power is back on in time for lunch.

So Miss Mary, we just had an unofficial eval earlier this morning, and at worst your development is about a month ahead around 8.5-9 months. At best you score in at 14 months developmentally. Just so you know, you are not old enough to score this well. You are still 7 months (well technically only for today though, you'll be 8 months old tomorrow).

We are definitely very proud! Your gross motor is your best but fine motor is awesome too. You do amazing things like stand unassisted (your record is 3 seconds, then you realized you weren't holding on), walk when we hold both your hands (I tried getting you to walk while holding only 1 hand but you wouldn't try it). You clap and have a nice primitive pincer grasp (you can pick up anything as long as you can rest your hand or wrist on a surface).
And last Friday you clapped for the first time :) :) :) soooooooo cute!
When you lose your balance standing unassisted you sit down quickly so as not to fall instead of falling. And sometimes you think you can walk, and you just turn to go and fall on your face. You will probably... most definitely... pretty sure be an 8 month walker if not then definitely by 9 months for sure. Which really blows my mind. We JUST did this with Josie! And she didn't clap til she was just over a year! I don't know what to think. But this is definitely easier. You don't need me as much, but it's ok. Mommy gets to watch :)

We didn't eval speech. I will probably ask Janet (or maybe Auntie Robyn) for some guidelines just because I am very unversed in normal speech progression . But sometimes I cannot tell you and Josie apart when you both babble. Your voice is deeper and while you have more consonants than she does, you stick to single string babbling. Da da da da da ba ba ba ba baaa. And little screeches. And lots of maaa maa mo mo mo mo mos. :) Loving it.

You can do Ls and Ms and Ps and Fs (Whoa!?!!!!) and Ws and Bs and Ds and Gs and Ns and Vs and Yas.

For vowels you have all manner of A sounds, O sounds, Es ... you aren't much limited actually. Your range is now better than your sister so hopefully you can push her along.

Other than this, you are delightful and sweet. Of course.

You still prefer baby oatmeal to purees but you like solids like gerber puffs and pizza crusts (you did AWESOME actually) and cookies. You still nurse as often as ever so you are just incredibly fat now. So it's probably good you get in some more mobility ... exercise :)

You love swinging in the blanket and copying you sister the best of course. You adore her. Over all, so excited how you are blossoming. Autopilot!