Firsts

Emily has been struggling with her first cold over the past week. Fortunately, it has been really mild.  Really it just amounts to a stuffy nose.  Occasionally we spray some saline up it to help clear it out, but most of the time it is just a minor annoyance for her.  Not unlike her hair, which more often than not becomes an annoyance by hanging in her eyes.  We often try to clip it back for her, but it isn't always successful.

We have been presenting Emily with more big-person foods lately.  She usually half chokes on them, but also seems to really enjoy them.  Below she is going to town on a slice of mango; another first for her this week and probably her favorite food to date.  She just couldn't get enough of it this past weekend.  She is also enjoying apple slices and has actually started eating them, rather than just sucking on them.  Tonight we gave her a slice of avocado, but she really just had fun smooshing it into a slimy mess and didn't seem too interested in actually eating it.

Other than these new experiences, life is pretty standard.  Emily has certain things that she really loves and gets all excited about, which is always fun to see.  She still loves the Bjorn, of course.  She also has started to really enjoy going to the park.  The grass is exciting for her and she seems to enjoy watching the big kids play.  She also really loves tub time.  As with every kid, the water is a big hit, but she also loves it after the tub when I rub lotion all over her.  I guess I can't blame her.  Not many people tend to pass up full body massages.

Fun Girl

Emily often appears so serious in photos, but she really does have lots of times when she is laughing and playing with us, so I tried to capture a few different expressions.  She knows that Chad will laugh and play with her and she often tries to get him going.  Her goal is to get him to make silly faces or noises.  This just makes her scream and laugh like crazy.

She is really coming along with her sitting, but still only does it on her schedule.  If she wants to stand, no amount of coaxing can get her to bend those legs!  This new toy (below) that we picked up at Target last weekend has really held her interest and she is willing to sit and play with it for long periods of time.

She definitely wants to lunge forward and chase after stuff, but there is just no upper body strength at all.  I often put her into a crawling position, just to see what will happen, but it just results in an immediate belly flop.

She is up to three times a day now with her cereal, but really could care less about eating any other foods, despite the fact that we present them at every meal.  Even things that seem bland and pleasant to me will sometimes make her shudder when you put them in her mouth.  Such drama. 

I decided that maybe she would be more interested if she were able to feed herself, so I put a Cheerio on her tray this morning to see what would happen.  The result?  Nada.  She still can't do a pincer grasp with her thumb and finger, so she wasn't even able to pick the thing up.  It's just as well because she probably would have choked on it anyway.  I also gave her some water in a sippy cup that didn't have any plug in place, so the water was coming out pretty easily.  I think that she thought it was a giant chew toy.  She just gnawed on the spout.  Every now and then she would get some water in her mouth and she would get this really surprised and entertained look on her face, but it never translated into her actually trying to drink the water.  Funny baby.