Erica is working hard on one big milestone -- crawling. She isn't quite there, but it is only a matter of days. For a few weeks she has been leaning over, reaching for toys, and almost acting like she is ready to crawl, only to forget to put her arms out front and fall right on her face. Ouch! She sometimes cries, sometimes just lays there. I can only imagine she's thinking, "
Doh, not again." That is if she is thinking in Homer Simpson's language, which I hope not. Or the Simpson Dad, can't remember his name. She's also had a hard time figuring out what to do with one of her legs, which gets stuck up under her bottom when she's trying to lean over into the all-fours position.
I saw a video on Babycenter.com about developmental steps that lead to crawling. When a baby can get from tummy down position into the sitting up position, she is physically ready to crawl. This week Erica figured that out for the first time! AND she clapped for the first time right after doing it. The whole family is very good about cheering for Erica whenever she accomplishes absolutely anything, so she is used to people clapping for her. My guess is that she has been wanting to somehow get up from the "fell on my face" position, and when she did it, she was also ready to cheer for herself. So cute. Just the best.
Another fun thing Erica did this week was to melt her Daddy's heart into hot butter. She has said similar things in the past, but one day this week it was the most clear-sounding full sentence ever heard from an eight-and-a-half month-old. Erica was sitting in her high chair when Russell walked in the door after work. She just as plain as a big kid said, "Hi Dad-dy!" I really thought Russell was going to fall on the floor. His reaction was as cute as her little feat.
One last milestone really is a work in progress. Whenever Erica falls asleep in the car, even if for just a couple of minutes, she wakes up when we bring her inside and take her out of her car seat. She just can't seem to transfer. We have left her in the car seat for short periods of time, but she still wakes up after no more than 10 or 15 minutes. Today after a long outing and no real morning nap, I thought she just might be tired enough to stay asleep if I took her out. She did! Then she slept about 45 minutes which was a nice little nap.
Every day is a new trick and I believe that all this activity is also making Erica grow! Yesterday I dressed her in a new one-piece playsuit and Russell noticed it was too tight around her thighs. Now she doesn't seem to be a real fat baby, but that suit was definitely not going to work. We have lots of beautiful dresses for her to wear that still fit, but dresses have been getting really tangled during her crawling attempts, so we are putting together play outfits of t-shirts and shorts in her NEW size.... drumroll... 18 months! Now most of her 12 month clothes still fit, just not one-piece suits. Yikes.
We are really looking forward to what the next milestones will be like. Crawling, here we come!
