We are getting out a bunch now that the weather is nice. Playtime at the park has been a great chance to get some sunshine, discover the joys of swinging and strolling, and meet with friends (mommy likes the meeting with friends part, too! ;-) ). I thought we might be stuck with only a modestly interesting local park in Millersville, but there are two other ones that are awesome only 10 minutes away. One is all rubber on the ground, which will be great once she's wanting to run around. The other has beautiful trails, creeks, and plenty of bucket swings as well as pavillions for picnic lunches. We are going to start a weekly strollercise at that one this week with some friends nearby. I am a little nervous about "exercising" again, even if it is just power walking. I know I need to, though!
The biggest new thing from this month, which I promptly already shared, is that Emily started crawling on April 26th! She went from not moving an inch to all 4's traditional crawling in a split second. It was amazing and even more amazing that I got her first little crawl on video!! By the end of the day she was able to move a few feet and was sooo proud of herself. That has totally opened up her world and has made her much more interested in her toys now. Before I had to keep handing her things, but now she can initiate if she sees something she wants to go get. We are having fun playing hide and seek with musical toys. I'll hide one under the carpet or slightly under the couch and she'll scramble over to uncover it. She is fascinated with pulling up the living room rug and her bathtub mat. It is funny to see her bypass a bunch of toys in the living room only to settle down at the edge of the rug and pull it back to feel the bumpy underside. Love it!
It didn't take long for crawling to turn into pulling up and trying to stand. We spent 3 1/2 months just sitting and in two weeks we are crawling to things and pulling up to standing. Wow!
Emily's top two teeth have broken through now. The bottom two came right on her 8 month birthday and were at the same pace coming through. Her top two have been staggered. One is halfway down and the other one broke through for the first time today. I think she's been handling it amazingly well considering the top two middle ones are usually pretty bothersome for most babies. No screaming- just a super runny nose and a run of nights where she was just "up" in the middle of the night.
Finger feeding has come along this month as well! She is doing GREAT handling finger foods now and prefers them over the purees. But mealtime goes much faster and she eats more if I can keep a puree or two in the mix at each meal. I know they say that you can't tell handedness at this age, but I swear she is a lefty just like me! She will only eat her food with her left hand. If she picks it up with her right, she will grab it out of her right hand with her left before bringing it to her mouth.
On that note, we had to do blood tests this month to screen for food allergies since she had reacted to carrots, oats, and barley. All the results came back negative. They even said they found 0 allergic response to these foods and the major ones like milk, wheat, soy, etc. So they encouraged me to re-introduce the suspect foods. I did do the carrots and oats and she reacted to each within 30 minutes of introducing them again. Big rash on her belly- poor girl! The good thing is that the rash wasn't itchy and it was gone within a few hours. So it's not a life threatening or even an uncomfortable response. It certainly has left me confused! I did the tests through the pediatrician and we finally will have our allergy appointment with an actual allergist this Wednesday. I know any allergy testing before the age of 2 can be wildly inaccurate, so I wonder what she will recommend for us. Carrots and oats are in lots of commercial baby food products!! But I am sooo thankful she can tolerate milk and I am pretty sure she didn't react to plain wheat.
Emily is still a fairly quiet child, especially when there is a crowd. But now that she's mobile, she has started to babble and squeal more frequently. Her first word was spoken this month- "mama!" Out of the blue- no random "ma-ma-ma" before that day. And from the get-go it was deliberately directed at me. What a joy to my heart!! She is also showing me now that she understands some of the words/signs that we say so much throughout the day. If I say and sign milk around the time for her to nurse or get a bottle, she will get super excited. When she is eating and I sign "all done" and she really is all done, she will smile really big and sigh (as if to say, "Oh good, you understand!!") I still don't get an excited response for "more" but I figure if she keeps opening her mouth then she's still hungry.
Favorite things this month are a shape sorter cookie jar, a piano/drum/cymbals toy that plays 50's music, her Mr. Bear that lives in her crib now, her banana toothbrush, her vibrating star teether, her boat in the bathtub, and her toy bar for the carseat (thanks, Aunt Kim!).
Here are a few pics of our little angel~
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| Playing at the park on Mother's Day |
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| My best proof of my first 3 teeth! |
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| Standing with my buddy, Connor! |
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| Fixated on the best toy in the house- Buddy! |
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| Girly girl! |
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| Happy!! |
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| Ooooh I like your hat, Daddy! |
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| My little cowgirl :-) :-) |
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