Last night Audrey got up on her hands and knees for the first time. She did it a few times, then got tired. Hosanna and the girls were having a "three girl bath" and Audrey almost fell asleep in it. I had gotten her out, and fully expected her to throw a hissy fit because of the interrupted nap. Instead, she flipped over and got up, looking like she wanted to start motoring around the bathroom.
Lots of developments in the past couple months, so I'll just jump into them.
Audrey:
We made the first attempt at giving her solid food on January 19th. It was rice cereal made with breast milk. She was patently uninterested in it - she couldn't have cared less. We were surprised, because she had seemed really interested in the food that we were eating up to that point. We haven't tried again since.
Further proof that Audrey has inherited my body type: she got some kind of weird rash on the back of her leg toward the beginning of February. It covered an area about two or three inches long. It was definitely itchy - she would start scratching at it immediately anytime we took her pants off. It was a bummer not only because she was itchy, but she didn't sleep as well while she had it, either. It's finally gone now, thankfully.
One day last week, just for the heck of it, Hosanna was checking the weight & length limits on Audrey's infant seat, and discovered that she was already two inches too long for it. (!) Yes, she outgrew her infant seat at 5 freaking months. So Hosanna thought she'd just move Audrey into Aria's car seat, then move Aria into the bigger one that we inherited from Lisa. Oh, except that one has printed in huge letters on the back: "Do not use this car seat after December 2008." Car seats expire?!?!? Oh. So there we were, back at Goore's to buy Aria a new car seat. On the plus side, we were able to give the infant seat to Tracy & Mike. Hopefully they'll get more than 5 months of use out of it. ;-)
Audrey's language is developing. She's got several regular consonant sounds now: mama, dada, baba, and nana all come every now and then. On at least one occasion, I swear I have heard her say "num nums," and although I thought "she can't possibly have said that," I gave her to Hosanna and said "humor me and nurse her," and sure enough, she nursed. So the jury is out on that one. At least once, though, she has cried "Mama!" when she was upset, and there was no mistaking what she wanted.
So then, on to Aria:
A couple weeks ago, Aria started involving an imaginary friend named Linda in many activities. Linda seems to live in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Linda likes to jump onto the woobies on the bed, Linda likes to draw with us, and Linda sometimes comes to eat lunch too. There are other things Linda does, but only Hosanna has seen them, so I don't know them all. I find the concept of Linda absolutely fascinating and I really love it when she comes up.
Aria's bedtime has changed a bit for the better in two ways. First, she started becoming a bit more aware of needing to go to the potty before she goes to bed. This is by no means a regular thing, but every now and then, she'll say she needs to use the potty before we get her night time pullup on. Around about the same time as she started doing this, she also started asking us to leave her alone in her room after we finish the bedtime routine, instead of having one of us stay with her as she goes to sleep. She'll say "OK, you leave the room now, and don't come back until daytime." And we are happy to oblige. This is pretty consistent now, knock wood. She's only had us stay with her a couple times in the past three weeks.
Aria recently started a new bedtime habit of reading "books" to us instead of the other way around. Aria has invented four books. They are called Cows Cows Cows, Bears Bears, Waters Waters, and Books Books Books Books. Cows Cows Cows starts like this: "In the beginning, there was a cow. Then, it became a lot of cows." Then she just kinda babbles a bunch of stuff which is alternately made up words and real words. Sometimes she'll add something like "then the cow ran into your head!" or something. On the plus side, Cows Cows Cows is incredibly entertaining, and it's a joy to see her expressing her creativity in this way. On the down side, Cows Cows Cows can drag on for a pretty long time, and if she wants to read all four of these books to you, you are in for a long night of oratory.
More pics:
Here's Audrey laughing her head off at Aria running around outside her swing. Sometimes, when she really wants to, Aria can really entertain the little one.
For a sadly very short time, Audrey was playing a very fun game with me: she would sit in my lap facing out, then look up backwards at my face and laugh. Repeat over and over again. I loved this game. A lot.
Here was a really special night where Aria not only got to have a bath in the sink (which she LOVES), but she got to eat some fries there too. :)
And here's Aria getting her first art lesson from Miss Linda from the art center. (Note: Linda the imaginary friend showed up before Miss Linda was ever talked about around our house. Total coincidence.)
Hosanna got these amazing, still somewhat rare shots of the kids having fun together.
In non-kid news, our amazing brother in law put in a shower for us in our guest bathroom, which previously just had a bath in it. Thank you, Jason!
Finally, here's a video of the two kids getting a train ride. Gratuitous silliness.
"Mama." Last night she said it plain as day to Hosie, twice. It wasn't one of those accidental coincidences either: Hosie said "Mama" to her, and she said it right back.
She also made a pretty good attempt at "Dada" after I came into the room. :)
