On A Roll

This video demonstrates a few of the features of Leah's life right now.

1 - Her fish toy. This was the very first toy she ever played with, and it remains one of her favorites. I bought it for her before she was born, and her daddy thought it was weird and freaky and that she wouldn't like it. Not so.

2 - Her walker. She loves the thing. She has only recently - i.e. this week - learned to go forward in it, and now loves to chase me around the kitchen. She will often ram my ankles and/or run over my toes. She's pretty quick in it, and Scott said this morning it's a good thing she can't go in stealth mode. That would be trouble for us all.

3 - The Noise (tm). You'll know which noise I mean when she does it toward the end of the video. We don't know why she does it or how, but she only does it when she's content. It's kind of a laugh, kind of a cough....and kind of strange. We can't figure out how she doesn't hurt her throat doing it all the time. And she does do it all. the. time. So much so, in fact, that the other day at around 5:00 when she started fussing, I said, "You're either sleepy or your throat is killing you from doing that noise all day." I can't explain it, but she's happy, so......cough on, little one.

Other new things.....

4 - She's babbling more. "Dadadadadadada" and "bababababa" and "zsazsazsazsazsa" (that one's just like she's saying "Zsa Zsa Gabor") are frequent ones, and today - very exciting to me - her m's made their debut with "mamamamamama." It often sounds like she's saying something intentional, but we know better. When it sounds like "I love you," though, it still melts my heart.

5 - She'll wave and clap her hands. She's just figured out that clapping her hands together can make a noise, so it's cute to see her do it and look so proud of herself. Her wave sometimes looks more like baby sign language......but it's cute and relevant to the moment nonetheless.

6 - Last night she did a push up, which I can only figure means she's going to really work on crawling sometime soon. She draws her knee up sometimes when she's on the floor on her belly, too - an obvious indicator.

7 - She loves her doorway jumper. It's one of the only toys we have that gets her excited when she just sees it.

8 - She's started this new face scrunching thing within the past week or so. She scrunches her face all up like she's eating something sour, makes a noise like she's going to cry, and then her face lights up with an adorable smile. I don't know where she gets these things from! It's like she randomly figured out that she had control over her facial muscles.

9 - If we hold her by her hands, she will walk on her own. She looks so proud of herself when she does it, too!

10 - She's learning the meaning of the word "no." This is a good and a bad thing. It's good because she's stopping what she's doing when she hears me say "no," but it's a bad thing because, well, she's doing things now that require me to tell her "no." Bittersweet. Topping her list of misbehaviors? Going after the trash can while in her walker, opening the kitchen cabinets while in her walker (I'm noticing a trend here), yanking on my earrings, and trying to get to the cords from my laptop.

11 - She has some crazy talented feet. She can dribble a Mountain Dew bottle like a soccer ball, and will play a simpler version of kickball with Scott. She's always picking up toys with her feet, too, when she's laying on her back. Yesterday she was playing with one toy with her hands and another toy with her feet.

12 - She recognizes her reflection in the mirror and her voice on recordings.

I'm sure there are others......but I can't think of them right now, so that will have to do.