I know its been a long long time since I posted! So much is happening around here!
Three days ago, Emma realized she could walk. She has been able to since her birthday, about a month and a half ago. But she has been really hesitant, and only would do it with lots of encouragement, outstretched arms, and cheering. Now, she has suddenly occurred to her that she doesn't need all that and is one proud girl. She is thrilled with herself, and beams as she toddles around. She still gets down to crawl sometimes, but is walking a lot on her own, as well. Hooray!
She is also talking up a storm! I was planning on keeping track of words but its really hard, because she seems to learn 3-4 each day! With a lot of them she is just repeating us, and doesn't bring up on her own, but its pretty obvious and clear what she is saying, so I figure it counts. Her big one now is Aiko, or "I-kee" as she says it. Pretty cute. She is loving up the dog like crazy even more now that she is walking. Aiko is very very patient, thank goodness! Another recent word is "icky", with regards to things like the bathroom garbage, or sucking on shampoo bottles. Ha!
Her signing is also picking up, and I find myself constantly wishing I knew more when the moment hits. I am in search of a good kid sign language dictionary, that has either photos or real-ish looking drawings of lots of baby/kid related signs. It would be ideal if it is set up dictionary style, alphabetically, so its easy to look up, though words in related groupings would be fine too. I went to Powells while we were down in PDX, and couldn't even find something that looked good there. Odd! Emma's newest and frequently used signs -- "airplane", "fish", "hear", and "all done". The latter, is All The Time, as in "all done (diaper change)!!!", "all done (carseat)!", all done (sitting in the stroller)!", "all done (eating, if you are only going to feed me this disgusting yogurt)!", etc, etc, etc.
She is now eating wheat, soy, and dairy! Woohoo! We have been gradually introducing them over the past two months. Dairy was the most recent addition, just in the past week. She seems to be doing fine with it, though a little diaper weirdness which I think is pretty normal. She isn't eating lots of dairy yet -- she mostly still drinks breastmilk or water, and she refuses (!) the delicious whole fat yogurt I have been trying to give her. She won't even eat something thats mixed with it, if she sees me doing it! She does really enjoy the cheese stick, of which her first is documented here. Mmmm.....cheese.
Oh yeah, one more thing. A few weeks ago we went down to Sunriver for a friend (Kirsten's) wedding. It was a beautiful event! While there, Emma had several firsts, including her first bike ride! Some photos of that trip (plus a few more since then) are here.
