This week Baby will be forty-six weeks, and there have been many developments which I have neglected to report:

• In addition to twinkling, she now claps. Yay! I let Husband believe he had taught her this skill, but in reality, I had already seen her do this several days before at Grandma's house. Grandma had been teaching her to clap.
  
• Not only is she a pro at crawling, she is now pulling herself up using anything in reach. She mostly pulls up on the coffee table, Husband's chair, and her high chair. Once she gets up, she is happy for a while, then whines when it gets tiring.
• There is no hiding from Baby anymore. While she was distracted by her toys, I slipped away to the bathroom, even closing the door. As soon as I sat down, I heard the muffled plopping of her hands as she crawled as quickly as she could to find me. She pushed open the door, peeked in, and smiled. This morning, she was playing with Husband while I was showering. According to Husband, as soon as she heard the water turn off, she zipped away and came crawling to the bedroom.
• There has been a noticeable increase in babbling. She has been trying out different consonants and making new syllables.
• After much practice (with Grandma and me), today Baby has been practicing her 'Please and Thank you' gestures. She holds out her hands together, palms up, and waits for whatever it is she wants, then she will try to give it back. We did this back and forth several times today. Too cute.
• Baby has become attached to a little monkey with magnets in its hands and feet. She crawls around while gripping its head in her hand. She will not hold the monkey any other way. Given the body in her hand, she will grab it by the head with the other hand and crawl away.
• Baby loves yogurt.
• Baby loves rice. (Go figure.)
• Baby likes dogs. But from a distance.

From Anneli 6

'This is my monkey!'

From Anneli 6

Merry Christmas! Today Baby is forty-five weeks old, a fantastic way to mark the occasion. We went to a cousin's house for dinner with the family. Upon entering the house, we were 'ambushed' by her two little boys, who were excited to have a baby visit them. Baby was terribly frightened at first because they were loud and rambunctious, neither of which she is used to. I took her to play away from the boys, and she eventually calmed down, so when the rest of the family arrived, she was less nervous. We had a delicious dinner, which Baby also enjoyed [she apparently likes turkey and ham, as well as mashed potatoes and creamed broccoli].

We didn't officially get Baby anything for Christmas--we buy her many gifts and shower her with love every day of the year--but she did receive a couple presents from family. She got a set of bath toys from Victoria's family, and a musical vibrating elephant thing from the evening's host family. [This musical vibrating elephant could also be 'misused' inappropriately, if you know what I mean.] We will look for things to buy during our eventual shopping trips later.

We are now forty-four weeks old, which also means we are ten months! We took some 'holiday' pictures this week. (I should have taken care of these pictures sooner so we could get the cards mailed on time. They still have not arrived...)

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

Here's Baby crawling.



And other fun things...

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

Riding up to New York - politely ignore that Baby is not strapped in.

From Anneli 6

Riding home - politely ignore the ugly red marks on Baby's nose. (I wasn't watching and she fell off a bed and hit her nose on the leg of a table.)

From Anneli 6

This is how Baby sleeps.

From Anneli 6

"Please follow my invisible diagram here."

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

From Anneli 6

On Thanksgiving, Baby became forty-one weeks old. To celebrate, she... tumbled off a bed and scraped her little nose. Now she has a red scab.

But we have had some fun developments. Her teeth continue to grow, and new ones come in. She has learned to 'twinkle' (roll her hands back and forth) along to 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' And in the last two days, she has learned to crawl. (Still deliberately and carefully, but I'll enjoy while I can.) I have attempted to catch the twinkling on video, but she freezes when she sees the camera. We'll work on capturing the crawling this weekend.

No pictures yet. I've been lazy about taking them recently. Will do better this week and weekend.