The Alex & The Eleanor + 1

Given how much happens in a day, there is much to cover since last time. Lets get down to it.

We started solids maybe 3 weeks ago, beginning with rice cereal, then avocado and pear and sweet potato and banana and right now we are starting on a barley teething biscuit which she enjoys gumming. She is very excited when she sees the bowl and spoon and is eager for the first few bites, but quickly tires of it. A couple of days ago, I had a chunk of banana in addition to her mashed up bowl, and she grabbed for the chunk, and I let her have it, figuring she would take one suck and toss it away. But no! She keep chewing and licking and sucking, and figured out how to squish it in her hands so she could get more in her mouth. We have a winner! But since it is still a bit of a choking hazard, she now gets it in those little mesh bags. Last night we had the teething biscuit, a big chunk of banana and some pureed pears, and the pears did not get a second glance once she saw the other 2 things. I really need to get another couple of mesh bags so I can refill one without taking it away, since that is a guaranteed tear jerker. And all my carefully pureed cubes in the freezer! Maybe I can give them to her in the bag.

She is a certified sitter, progressing very rapidly from a couple seconds before toppling to several minutes if she has the right toy to play with. She can even lean forward to grab something and sit back up with it. She seems to be close to crawling - gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, sometimes moves a hand forward. She is thinking very hard when is is up like that, either wondering what she needs to do, or perhaps trying to figure out how to tell the correct limb to move. It’s cute. But then she drops on to her belly and does a modified commando crawl - using 1 leg to propel herself in big pushes. Time to childproof!

Her favorite game right now is to pull blankets up over her face and down again, or better yet have Mommy do it with big sheets. Beginnings of object permanence or just fun? And she reaches her arms up when she wants to be picked up, which is both amazingly cute and occasionally frustrating. We also like going to the playground and swinging, that is pretty fun for a while. Seems very unfair that the weather is getting cold now, but that is what hats and boots and warm fuzzy cozy things are for. We go down the slide together too, but that she is still deciding how much fun that is.

She has 2 teeth - the bottom right came in on my birthday and the bottom left about a week later. Then we had maybe a 10 day break from teething symptoms, but they started again pretty quick. I can see the upper two pushing through, I hope for her sake they hurry up! She has also had a little cold, but seems to be getting over it.

She adores all her big friends, cousin Stewart and Dashiell and Toby and Aidan, and she was very eager to play with little Bekah (perhaps too eager). Toby especially can make her giggle just by looking at her.