Milestones

The past few weeks have been very exciting for Judith. She has a "Jumperoo" to bounce around in that she just loves. And last week she found and started playing with her toes. On Sunday, she felt her first raindrops, and we explained that water falls down from heaven and makes grass and flowers and trees grow, and fills streams and rivers and oceans, and keeps the whole world going - which is one of the many reasons that she was baptized with water.

Then on Monday evening (last night), as we put her down for her tummy time in the family room, she rolled herself over onto her back with no assistance from us!

And finally, between last night and this morning (or mostly this morning since she went to sleep at about 11:58 p.m.!), Judith slept through the night in her crib in her own room for the first time! We had put her in her crib to sleep on Sunday night as well, but that didn't work as well, with her waking up at 3:00, 5:00, 6:00 and 7:00. But last night she slept through the night in her crib. And when I went to say good morning to her, she was again playing with her toes (as you can see in the picture). It's just been very exciting all around!

We're also eagerly anticipating the first tooth. It could take weeks, but she is definitely teething at this point. The teethers though are a bit large for her mouth so she mostly chews on her fingers and my fingers to get relief from the soreness. It could take a while, but she is getting ready!

She also sat in her high chair at the dinner table for the first time last night. She is still 2 1/2 months from solid foods, but she has been quite dissatisfied with sitting in her bouncy seat while we eat over the past week. She wants to be up on a knee and able to see what is happening. Now she can sit in her high chair and see everything. She was very intrigued by it all. We are not giving her any toys to play with during dinner, because we want the high chair to be a place for eating, not playing. But so long as she can see what is going on, she's willing to let her mom and dad have a nice dinner.

One advancement that we're a little less thrilled with is her new sound. Yesterday she started making this absolutely ear piercing screechy sound. She did it ALL DAY LONG. Happy, sad, everything in between, this was her sound all day long. We like the Ahhs and Ohhs a whole lot more! We're hoping she moves past this noise rather quickly!

This afternoon we'll be off to our second Mommy & Me group. The group gathers once a week. It's led by a nurse practitioner (who's also the lactation consultant who was so very helpful to us) and a social worker. The group opens with people going around the room asking any questions they have. So last week questions were about when to feed a child peanut butter, when to take a baby to the dentist, how to clean a baby's teeth, how to help a breastfeeding baby take a bottle because mom's going back to work, how to help a child eat more fruits and vegetables, etc. Then it's just free play time for the kids and social time for the moms (and one dad).

There were 26 or so kids there, all between 0 and 2. The youngest was 7 weeks, and the oldest 23 months. Judith was absolutely fascinated with all the other children. She just kept smiling and staring all around. I don't think she can wait to be one of the multitude crawling and walking around and playing with every toy in sight! So we're going to go again today and see if it's also a wonderful experience. This would be a good way for Judith to be socialized with other children later on, and a good way for her to begin to catch some of their bugs and germs and deal with them as we hit the beginning of fall and cooler weather.

Yes, cool is relative, but the high the last four days has been in the upper 60s, lower 70s around here. It is unseasonably cool as this time of year they are used to highs in the mid 80s. We're hoping in the next few weeks to take a trip out to Yosemite to enjoy the changing leaves. Hopefully it stays warm enough to do that comfortably.

Well, Judith is really squirming in my lap and out of patience for computer time. So we wish you all a wonderful week!