Sitting Pretty

The latest innovation is that she can sit up on her own. We still watch her because she sometimes topples backward and then cries. For the most part, she can stay upright. I also read that an important milestone is for her to be able to reach out and grab things from the sitting position. She does that all of the time. In fact, the other day she reached so far that she did her first face plant. I didn't react quickly enough to catch her. After the initial shock wore off, she couldn't decide if she should cry or not. We've wisened up to this trick so if we just keep smiling and laughing, she won't cry. She'll look at us immediately to interpret our reaction. If we hesitate or look worried, then on go the waterworks.

Today, we started feeding her solid food at lunch. She's just hungry constantly and despite nursing about 3 times between noon and 5pm, she was still cranky and visibly hungry. Today her afternoon nap was peaceful and long which is a good sign. Dan fed her for the first time today, unsupervised by me. I go to the gym or run errands at lunch. He said he never realized how she got so messy until he did the feeding himself. Ha.

Her friends are a bunch of budding overachievers so to keep her on par, I bought a baby sign language book. We had lunch the other day with one of my friends and her 5-month-old who is in a playgroup already learning songs in french, ballet and swimming. I figure we're slacking. I keep forgetting to make the signs for this and that but the one she really likes is "all done." That's one thing I would like to know, as it's for when she's full. Around 9 months, supposedly, babies can start to sign back to let you know if they want milk, more food, diaper change, and more. Dan and I are skeptical about that. She clearly understands when we say her name, "drink" and "up" (when we warn her we're going to pick her up, she'll now lift up her arms). She likes "hello" but I don't know if she knows what it means. She understands "cado" (as in avocado!) which cracks us up. She doesn't at all understand "no" because we never say it to her. She doesn't do anything bad yet except for chew on her Metamucil Wagon. Which, by the way, is not operational at the moment because she took a ginormous poo in it that blasted through her diaper and ruined the bottom tarp which kept it from being a walker. Walkers are no-no's these days.

We'll do Mandarin playgroup and some other right brain learning playgroup when we get back in January. Both are at our club and virtually free. It gets us out of the house too.