Friday, June 26, 2009

29 weeks

Our girl is AMAZING! A full three, nearly four, days before that 3 week mark post-fall at which she should be healed, she started putting full weight on BOTH legs again and showing an eagerness to stand more frequently again! Now, one day shy of three weeks, she shows no signs of favoring the leg at all.

She has also made GREAT strides this week on the crawling front. No, she's not crawling yet, but in this week she officially figured out how to get onto all fours and has done a lot of rocking in that position. She finds ways to propel herself forward, and is practicing moving knees separately, reaching with arms. She is SO close. And her frustration has been high at times as she WANTS this, badly. She gets where she wants to go, but she knows, we can tell, that there would be more efficient ways than that which she has already figured out.

The past few days she seems to be trying to pull herself up from lying on her back to a sitting position. As far as I know she hasn't succeeded yet, but she's getting closer all the time. She continues to sit beautifully on her own for longer and longer stretches, or to roll forward from a seated position to all fours for her crawling efforts!

What do I know, but it sure seems to me (and to Kev) like her bottom two teeth are now just below the surface of the gums. Her gum line feels sharp and looks different. She's had a few very rough nights and we think mouth pain is a major culprit. We're using lots of homeopathic teething gel and homemade apple juice popsicles these days. Sometimes she'll go from screaming to content very quickly after some vigorous sucking on a popsicle.

Frozen apple juice? She loves! Apple sauce, her second solid? Not so much. Well, it has gone better than sweet potatoes, and we've tried more frequently as Silent shared that she read somewhere it takes babies 10 tastes of something new before they adjust. It still seems like her issue is texture more than taste, but she has definitely swallowed some apple sauce. I guess we'll go to rice/breastmilk next- I know, we should have started there. Oh well. Cousin Jenny sent along a WONDERFUL cookbook that has all sorts of homemade baby food recipes. We'll be having fun with that!

Caroline has added a new smile to her repertoire. I'm not sure whether or not we have yet caught it on film. It is a lip up, exposing the gum line smile, and it is usually accompanied by sniffing or snorting. It is HILARIOUS. She does it A LOT these days. And we're not sure where it came from.

She's also babbling far more regularly and extensively. "Ba" seems to have been the preferred syllable of the week. But many other syllables were thrown in for good measure.

Caroline once again has the blessing of having two parents around most of the time. What a lucky girl! For now anyhow... I'm sure there will be times in the future when the blessing will be having NO parents around!

We had hoped to go for walks every morning this week, but those rough nights meant we only made it out to the new (to us) park Monday and Tuesday. But Caroline was GREAT on both walks. She even let me nurse her to sleep in the sling on one of them! What progress in nearly seven months!

She's a sweaty girl; her daddy's baby for sure! But then, who can blame her, it is CRAZY hot here!!

Well, that's all the news I can think of for now! I'll be sorting through pics and videos tonight and hopefully will have some good ones to share- assuming blogger cooperates and lets me share them!

3 comments:

Mama V said...

She IS amazing. And clearly so smart if she knows what she wants to do even if her body can't quite do it just yet!

We liked the Super Baby Food book (by Ruth Yaron). Poorly edited and over written but it really helped us think outside the usual peas-carrots-rice cereal-box and to know when to introduce what. (We completely skipped the overprocessed cereals but I bet Jesse would have liked them because he's totally a texture kid, too.) I bet she'd LOVE avocados as another first food!

Have fun! Can't wait to see the pictures with a food-smeared face!

LittleMary said...

next week we'll be crawling i bet! :) great update. love them.

Desert Mama said...

I would second the recommendation to try avocados - both my girls loved them as babies (and don't like them now...but oh well). Also, bananas are great - portable, easy to just mash up and go - they were another favorite.
Oh, and if you are going to do cereals - don't buy the baby food ones. Get the "grown-up" ones from the cereal aisle - Cream of Rice, etc. You will have to cook it, where with the baby ones you can just add liquid and stir and go (because they pre-cook and then dehydrate the baby ones) but you will save a lot of money....