Our most recent and most exciting development: Lily is finally CRAWLING! I've been waiting for this moment for two months, and now that it has happened, I am terrified!! She has been sooo close to crawling for so long, and yesterday she finally figured it out while trying to reach Duke's dog toy (of course). She can't go far or fast yet, but I'm sure she will be all over the place in no time and we are very proud of her.
She loooves clapping her hands, whether she is happy, sad, hungry, in the car, whatever. Her favorite song right now is 'If You're Happy and You Know It' and she claps right along.
She is also getting really good at waving hello and bye-bye, and she shows off her skills to people at the grocery store, the bank, the DMV, and anywhere else that they are willing to wave back. She pumps her whole arm up and down with her palm facing up, or sometimes she opens and closes her hand. She makes friends everywhere we go!
Lily has also become quite proficient at doing 'Soooo big!', thanks to lots of practice with Nana Great in Valpo.
And what is she eating? Hmm, well, what isn't she eating? There might not be the same wide variety of food available in Winder as we had in Chicago, but we are all loving the fresh seasonal produce from local stands and gardens. Lily is chowing down on beautiful peaches, melons, plums and berries, as well as squash, peas, and potatoes. Her special treats include wedges of fresh cantaloupe, crunchy dill pickles and toast dipped in hummus. And purees are becoming a thing of the past; she wants to feed herself so we are doing mostly finger foods. No meat yet, but she is satisfied with tofu and veggie burgers for now. Her dinner tonight was steamed spinach with tomatoes, and she wolfed it down happily. We are still nursing about 4 times a day and she doesn't show any signs of losing interest at this point. Her weight has been holding steady at around 23 pounds, and I foresee that she will soon lose much of her adorable chub with the way she is moving around.
In the absence of our Stroller Strides friends, Lily's best buddy has been her Duke. They play together and he is wonderful with her, letting her climb all over him and giving her waaay too many kisses. I have to watch very carefully while she is eating her meals, because she always tries to feed him from her high chair. I am happy that they are keeping each other company, although I look forward to finding Lily some new baby friends. We are going to try a new playgroup on Thursday.
She has been doing a lot of 'singing' lately, mostly ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba or abble-babble with the back of her hand on her mouth. She has definitely found her voice and she's not shy about using it! She will also call out for someone if they walk out of the room, a sharp little BA?! that clearly says 'Hey, where did you go? Come back!'
She is absolutely fearless in the water, we play in her little plastic baby pool and she leans over and sticks her face right in the water, mouth and eyes open, and pops up smiling. We swam in a big pool in Vidalia last weekend and she had the time of her life. I think she would have swam across the pool if I had let go of her. :)
And of course, Lily loves her Mommy and Daddy and we love her!! I can't believe how quickly the past 9 months have flown by and I am so very proud of our beautiful, happy, vivacious little girl. We are SO blessed to have her.
