Big Girl

My baby peed on the potty! Last night I told Paul I had to pee and started up the stairs. As soon as I said "pee," Annie started saying "pee, pee" and climbed the stairs with me. When we got up there she got her potty seat out, put it on the toilet, and started pulling at her pants. I helped her with her pants and diaper, sat her on the potty, and she peed! Then she grabbed for the toilet paper, so I ripped her off a piece, and she wiped herself!

I was absolutely amazed. I have not taught her any of this. Thanks day care!

That is all. Just wanted to record this momentous occasion. :)

picture from our baby sitter this past fall,

when Annie started showing an interest in sitting on the potty

like her friend Becca at day care

At the Kitchen Table

I got the booster seat out for the first time today, and Annie was in heaven. She loved sitting at the table with Mommy, doing our work together! She sat and colored, played puzzles, and read books for 2 hours. The perfect way to spend a morning.

New Words

A Few New Words 12.5.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

18 Months

Annie is officially a year and a half and her personality is just spilling out of her now. She's happy, stubborn, curious, bossy, adventurous, and focused. Her latest obsessions (in no particular order): puppies ("poppies"), mini marshmallows, Elmo, books, shoes, and cleaning. She runs, jumps, climbs, and plays peek-a-boo. She loves pointing to eyes, noses, ears, arms, hands, legs, feet, cheeks, hair, and bellies, whether they are hers, yours, or her stuffed animals.

Lately her vocabulary has been picking up speed, and she's starting to string a few words together. Her babbling has changed from one or two "words" at a time to full-on babbled sentences. We have no idea what she's saying, but she's definitely saying something, and she's very emphatic about it. She runs in the room to tap on our legs and furrows her brow, points her finger to the other room, and launches into a full monologue about something of particular interest that we must attend to immediately. It's adorable.

We really tried to limit her TV time as much as possible up until now, but she is obsessed with Elmo lately and is constantly asking for it. She points to the box where we keep her dvds and makes the sign for "more," says more out loud ("moe"), says "Annie," and nods her head vigorously. It is really, really hard to say no. I'm currently employing several methods of distraction to keep it from becoming all TV, all the time. And yes, that includes mini marshmallows.

watching Elmo

My mom also tells me that the obsession at her house is with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She asks for that all the time and when it's on she is way too excited to sit down. She stands with her thumb in her mouth, completely engrossed. The other day they were giving Pluto a bath and Annie ran out to the kitchen yelling about the puppy getting a bath, trying to get Grandma to come with her to see the cute puppy get his bath. "Poppy, poppy, mommy, mommy, mom, mom!!" (She calls everyone Mom when she wants something.)

She is extremely particular about things too. You pick out a movie or book for her because it seems like she's randomly selecting things herself up until then, but oh no, that particular book or movie just will not do, it has to be "this" book or movie. And man, she will tell you in no uncertain terms that is the way it's going to be. Her babysitter reports this is how she is with the other kids at daycare too. I'm loving her independence though. She'll be able to take care of herself, that's for sure!

Yesterday I told her it was nap time and as I was putting her in her crib she looked at me and said, clear as day, "Mommy, no night-night." A sentence! I was amazed and so excited. But it was still nap time. Mommy's no push-over you know.

We are working on our manners, and she's doing pretty well with it. She'll say "please" and "thank you" ("peas" & "dink dee") when we ask her to, and she is now saying "peas, peas, peas" when she wants something. Every once in a while she'll say thank you when we haven't asked her too yet. The cutest example of this: yesterday at Target, the cashier put our bag in our cart for us, and Annie turned to her and said thank you. The cashier was highly impressed: "that's a big word for such a little baby!" She also says "hi" and "bye-bye" frequently too, and it never fails to charm people. :)

The cleaning thing is so funny. She's been doing that for months and months now, but lately she's really taking it seriously. She'll grab the dust cloth from the cupboard and will wipe down all of the floors, all of the tables and shelves she can reach, the TV. It's quite funny and also quite helpful! She will spend an hour just walking around wiping things down. She also loves to put the groceries away. To her this means taking them out of the bags one by one and lining them up in neat rows on the stairs. She takes this work very seriously. When she finishes, she sighs loudly and wipes her hands together. Hilarious.

I mentioned her obsession with puppies. She has several stuffed dogs and talks about them constantly. She grabs them and gives them kisses and hugs and then shoves them in your face so you can do the same. If a puppy comes on TV she screams and then laughs and laughs. We watched the dog show on Thanksgiving Day and she was in heaven. She was kissing the TV every time a new puppy came on (good thing she dusts it several times a day), and when it went to a commercial she would wail "POPPY, POPPY!!" Thank goodness there were several dog food and pet store commercials to tide her over until it came back on.

Today we had to run by the vet to pick up Gussy's prescription, and there was an adorable 7-week-old German Shepard puppy sitting on a woman's lap, all wrapped up in a blanket. Silly me thought it would be fun to walk over and show Annie the puppy, since she didn't notice him all wrapped up. Well, when she saw that puppy she started giggling hysterically, pointing and kicking to get down to see the puppy. The lady had to go in to see the vet though, so we left, and woo boy. There were tears. Tears and wailing for "poppy, poppyyyyy..." It was funny and sad at the same time!

Feeling the most puppy lately are Gus and George. With George, she alternates between love and annoyance. She loves to sit on him and also snuggle up to him when he's lying on the floor and she's feeling sleepy. But she also gets annoyed when he's in her way, or when he's trying to get some of her food. She'll stiff-arm him and calls him naughty ("nah-hee geor-hee"). But with Gus she has nothing but love and kisses. She'll be about 10 feet away from him and will bend down and penguin-walk her way over to him with her lips puckered up, ready to plant one on his muzzle. And of course Gus is the skittish, bratty one, so he really doesn't want any of it. To his credit though, he is much more tolerant of it than he was at first. She's charming herself right into his inner circle, I think.

So that's the news! Having a toddler is seriously so much fun.

First Words

So Annie's having a bit of a language explosion lately. Over the past few weeks she's picked up several words, and has been babbling like crazy. She listens to us talking to her and then every once in a while she'll hear a word she'd like to try and goes for it. It's super fun to see and her little voice just melts me.

Here is a list of her words, somewhat in order of appearance:

Dog
Da, Daddy
Mama, Mommy
all done (this is her most frequently used expression)
Hi Da (she says this to both of us when we enter a room)
Hi (this is usually whispered for some reason)
on
kitty (started off sounding like "tia", but now sounds like "ti ti")
shoes
what's that?
baby
uh-oh
drink
jeans
keys
stinky
owl
bubbles (just said this one today!)

She also says "vroom vroom" when she plays with toy cars, which I attribute directly to all of the little boys at her day care. My favorite though is the way she always says "OHHH!!!!" when someone drops something or trips. Then she laughs hysterically. People at the grocery store always like that one. ;)

She understands way more than she can say, of course. She follows directions (like picking up her toys, bringing us a book, sitting down, etc.) and she can answer a bunch of yes or no questions by nodding and shaking her head. Makes getting ready for the day and mealtimes much easier, let me tell you! She's been learning her body parts and animal noises, and has been "singing" a bit now and then. Lately she's also been carefully placing her puzzle pieces in the right spot. It's really amazing watching her learn all of this stuff. Sometimes you can really see the light bulb going off.

Enough babbling. Here are some illustrations by Miss Annie herself:

Talking 9.24.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

She's Got Skills 10.2.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

A Genius I'm Telling You! 10.2.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

Summer

This summer has been slow to start. The weather has been beautiful by my standards (not too hot, lots of rainy days), but most people have been complaining about too much rain and not enough sunny heat. Yesterday we finally got one of those sunny, really hot days. Annie and I took a long walk around town, first to the bank to take care of our banking business, then to the pet store to take care of our looking-at-cute-puppies business, then back through town towards the playground. Then I remembered one of our time-honored town traditions: the spraypool. We stopped to cool off, and after I showed her how to splash in the puddles, Annie really enjoyed herself. I'm finding myself hoping for more hot days so we can make more spraypool trips this summer!

Annie at 12 Months

Annie just hit 13 months this past week. Here are the notes I took during her 12th month:

She walks way more than crawls.

She loves stepping up steps (with help, of course).

She loves her bathtime.

Finally learned how to nod rather than shake her head, but she has to concentrate really hard to remember to nod rather than shake her head when she means yes. You can see the wheels turning, it's pretty funny.

She has to be holding a stick when she walks outside.

She loves wiping things with cloths, baby wipes, wash cloths, and paper towels. Future clean freak maybe? I hope so, it would mean less cleaning for me!

She is constantly pointing at things she either wants or thinks are interesting, and says, "eh?" We call it her Griffin phase, since our godson went through the same thing.

She loves apple juice and animal crackers.

She is trying to say "dog." She hears a dog barking, sometimes really far away, we don't even notice it until she starts saying "duh" over and over again, pointing outside. She doesn't have the ending "g" sound yet.

She says mama a lot and we think she might actually mean it. She says "da" when I ask her where her daddy is, or tell her he's coming.

She gets all excited when she sees pictures of Elmo now. She hasn't actually seen him on tv yet, just on her diapers and in books. Seeing him on tv might blow her mind, we'll have to try that!

She went to Strong Museum for her birthday. She loved the pictures of all of the Sesame Street characters, "driving" a taxi with Elmo & Cookie Monster, riding the train with mama, and playing in the stone pit with the other kids. She was enthralled by the giant in story book land. The whole experience pooped her out, she was exhausted afterwards! It was a really fun day though.

We had a big birthday party in the backyard with our family and our closest friends. It was a beautiful day and everything went great. Annie skipped her nap, which was extremely unusual for her. She takes her naps like clockwork, and I planned the party around naptime and everything. She must have gathered that something was going on because she flat out refused to sleep. I was worried, but she was a trooper and made it through the party and then some. She looked exhausted when she was eating her cake, but she was still in a good mood! I can't believe she's one. That really flew.

Annie At 11 Months

Yikes, a full month since my last post. Too busy living life, I guess! And trying to figure out where time has gone. I am busy making plans for Annie's first birthday, which has me both excited and incredulous that my tiny baby is quickly making her way into toddlerdom.

This is Annie at 11 months:

She can get up the stairs in 20 seconds flat.

She can give kisses and hugs.

She points to things constantly, and calls them "Guh."

She is very chatty and likes to tell long stories filled with "buh buh buh"s and "duh duh duh"s.

She is walking more and more every day, but still crawls some of the time.

She loves veggie burgers with cheese, hot pretzels, animal crackers, puffs, hamburger, green beans, peas, eggplant, and hot dogs. But especially hot dogs.

She still loves her books!

She is getting ticklish. She laughs when you tickle her neck and hands, but doesn't laugh when you tickle her feet. That just kind of annoys her so she pulls them away.

She loves feeding Gus & George from her high chair. Needless to say, they love it too!

She tried some real milk at Grandma & Grandpa's and she loves it!

She has a mouthful of chompers and knows how to use them. She will hug you and sink her teeth into your shoulder if you're not careful. I'm actually afraid to reach in there to count how many she has! I think I'll leave that for the dentist next month...

Speaking of teeth, she's got the "Maroney gap," a gap between her two front teeth, named for my mother's side of the family. All of us Peppers kids had the same one! They all pretty much closed up when we got our adult teeth though, so no worries. It's pretty cute anyway.

She loves hugging her stuffed animals, and giving them kisses. She especially loves a puppy in a Yankees shirt that her Grandma got her at Yankee Stadium.

Oh yeah, she went on her first trip to New York City! She was awesome in the car and loved the hotel room. She especially loved that she could stand up in her pack n' play and check out what Mommy & Daddy were doing when she was supposed to be sleeping. She had a lot of fun chatting away while we tried to ignore her so she would settle down. Oh, and she didn't mind at all when our baseball game was rained out, after waiting around for FIVE hours at the stadium. In the rain. This kid has some patience, I'm telling you!

She can ride a bike! She loved it too, she cried when we picked her up from it (in FAO Schwarz). First time she's thrown a semi-fit in a store, yay for us!

She loves bath time, especially touching the water coming out of the faucet.

She loves playing at Grandma & Grandpa's house. She really loves pushing around the doll stroller Grandma bought for her!

She experienced the joy of trampolines for the first time a couple of weeks ago at the babysitter's. Wendy put her on and she went to town, crawled over to the side to hang on to the net and bounced away on her knees. We bounced it for her with our hands and she laughed hysterically. I've always pined for a trampoline, so this might be a good excuse to get one!

She made her mama a birdhouse for our first Mother's Day, with the help of Wendy, Doug, Wendy's daughter, Danielle, and Paul. It might be the cutest Mother's Day gift ever.

On that note, I had a lovely first Mother's Day. I slept in until NINE A.M. and woke up to presents (the birdhouse, a really nice lunchbag, a new coffee mug, and a new water bottle. Hubby knows what I like. :) ) We went to breakfast with Paul's mom and Harvey, went shopping at the garden center and the mall for a few hours, went to the Lilac Festival for dinner and a nice walk, then went to my parents for dessert. A perfect day! Oh, and did I mention I slept in until NINE A.M.?? So good.

Saturday in the Park

We have been having some nicer weather lately, which is a relief. Definitely getting tired of bundling up every time we leave the house! We took advantage of a sunny Saturday afternoon by picnicking in the park. We decided to try out the baby slide and swing while we were there. Annie loved it all! She especially enjoyed watching all of the other kids and waving to them. She is a friendly girl. :)(The only thing that put a damper on our visit? The cops throwing out a creepy man who was hanging around barefoot with no kids, wandering around striking up conversations with the kids without parents there. A tad upsetting, but we still managed to have a good time. Just a reminder that we will never be able to let her out of our sight while she is growing up. So different from when I was a kid!)

Anyways, back to happy thoughts:

Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.


Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.


Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.


Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.

Teeth

It turns out Annie has not 1 tooth, but 2 teeth poking out on the bottom. A nice wide ledge of teeth that she tested out by scraping up both ends of her crib. Doh! We decided it was time to start experimenting with some finger foods to use those teeth for good for a change. We started out with american cheese, and oh man, did she enjoy it. She wasn't sure about the chewing and the sharp-ish taste at first, but after a little while she was munching away happily, smiling and laughing and holding it up in the air with joy. I told her that's how I feel when I eat cheese too, it's just not socially acceptable to do that when you're an adult, so she should enjoy it now.

Cheese! from porkchop on Vimeo.

Tonight we tried out some of those Gerber puffs, sweet potato flavored, and she could not get enough of them. So yay for finger foods! Today she also made a grab for Paul's sandwich, so I think she's pretty into this whole eating like a grown person thing!

Bonus video: I love it because it totally looks like she's checking to make sure I'm recording before she starts walking. She's catching on!

Walker from porkchop on Vimeo.

The Feet Thing

Annie went to the caridiologist this week to get the whole "cold feet thing" checked out. In a nutshell, it's very common for babies to have cold feet and hands because their circulation systems are still maturing. It's even common for them to turn all sorts of colors, like hers were doing. Before he told me this I told him how her feet were bright purple while we were in our pediatrician's office, and he smiled at me expectedly and said, "and what did she say?" I said, "she was concerned, and that's why we're here." He looked baffled and said, "well, she should have told you that it's absolutely normal." Sooo, basically we paid for an ultrasound and all sorts of cardio testing to be informed that it was something that is very common and will go away.

I don't know, I still think it's good that she's so thorough and makes sure we look into things, just in case. It could have been a much different story, and I'm so glad it wasn't! And it is nice to have a doctor who hears things and does her best to prove that it's nothing, rather than blow it off. Because I've heard horror stories. So I'm still glad we went.

It also was kind of fun, to be honest with you! It was a pediatric cardiologist, so there were toys everywhere and the nurses and doctor were so good with kids. They loved Annie, she charmed everyone. She has this thing where when we introduce her to someone, she smiles really big and holds her arms out to people to be held by them, and my lord, people LOVE. IT. I mean, who wouldn't love a baby who is so friendly? The nurse who prepped her and ran the tests was awesome. She sang to her and played with her through the whole thing, Annie didn't even mind having 20 stickers with clamps hanging off them pasted all over her chest or blood pressure cuffs on her arms and thighs (little baby cuffs, so cute! Oh, and the nurse theorized that she might not even feel the leg squeezing since her thighs are so chunky. He.) Then we went to see the doctor, who was equally awesome. Very reassuring, knows his stuff, great with kids, genuinely seems to love what he does. Can't do better than that.

He said it was still good to have her in so she could get a full heart workup. The only issue he found was a murmur. He said it has a very "musical tone to it," which Paul found hilarious. He said he's not concerned about it and we shouldn't be either, that it shouldn't cause her any problems, and that he just wants to see us next year to check it to make sure it's still nice and musical. (He didn't actually say that last part, I just imagine it's something he would say.) So we go back next year almost to the day. I've got to be honest, I'm looking forward to seeing these people again, that's how great they were!

Funny story, I told my mom that the doctor said it was so common it has a name, but he didn't write down the name, so I couldn't remember what it was. So Paul acts like he's thinking about it for a minute, and says, "Hmmm...I'm pretty sure he called it 'Pediatrician Paranosis.'" He. Poor Dr. M. Seriously, we're glad she's thorough!

This week Annie is saying "Ba ba ba ba" over and over again, and if you say it to her, she'll repeat it back. Yesterday she threw in a couple of "Pa pa"s and "Ma ma"s. Thursday Wendy said that she was crawling towards a big book on the floor and when Wendy said "Annie no!" and she stopped crawling and headed back to Wendy. Wendy was amazed. I was surprised too. I've been working on it since she started crawling, and usually when I say "Annie....no...." in a firm tone, she stops what she's doing and looks at me, but she'll go back to it. I'm very excited that she's starting to get what it means! Especially since she's so active--she crawls from the living room to the kitchen now, and there are a lot of no no's out there. And I'm afraid walking is going to be here before we know it: when she's standing she takes steps. Paul said she went from one end of her crawl and cruise to the other the other day. Lord help us. I'm still hoping for a couple more months.

So this whole "understanding words" thing means that I really, really need to focus on cleaning up my, ahem, language. I will be on the lookout for some good, catchy alternatives to the usual swear words I throw around. Which have not been good lately. Oh no, they have not been good. Hopefully something will stick soon!

Goodbye, Hello

Goodbye 2008! You were a great year, our best ever.Hello 2009!

Hello crawling, standing baby! Where did you come from so fast??

Crawling from porkchop on Vimeo.

Standing from porkchop on Vimeo.

How we knew it was time to lower the crib...

Yikes.

Time to Lower the Crib!! from porkchop on Vimeo.

Photo Shoot Break

It's been way too long since I last posted! Update on the rolling: this week she made vast improvement rolling onto her back, so we're doing much better. In fact, she's really been getting around lately, between the rolling and the almost creeping. I think she'll be crawling before we know it! She is still waking up in the night, but only once, and that's because we're having trouble figuring out her eating schedule now that we've introduced cereal. I'm sure that will work itself out soon though. I'm not sweating it too much because she's been nursing for much shorter periods lately, so when we get up in the night she eats for about 10 minutes and goes right back to sleep. She's such a happy, easy going baby. I can't say it enough, I really lucked out.

Here is a video of Annie playing after her Christmas card photo shoot. The sound is really wonky, but I kept it because the faces she makes in this video are so entertaining. At about 1:55 you can see the "drop everything I'm doing to watch George walk by" face. We've been seeing that one a lot lately.

I suppose it goes without saying that it is extremely difficult to get a good picture of a 5-month-old and 2 dogs. Near impossible really. In the final one you can only see the back of George's head next to Annie & Gus in the chair, because George decided he was done sitting in front of them and needed to look out the window. It was the only one where Annie wasn't a blur of motion trying to grab at poor Gussy. Needless to say, we all needed a break after we were done. :)


Post Christmas Card Photo Shoot from porkchop on Vimeo.

5 Months

Annie turned 5 months old on election day. I have no words for how nerve-wracking and exciting that day was. We stayed up way too late to watch Obama's acceptance speech, which of course was totally worth it. So inspiring. We are feeling better about where this country is headed already. That night Annie woke up at 4 in the morning. She's been waking herself up in the night lately by rolling over onto her belly. She's having trouble figuring out how to roll back to her back, so she gets frustrated and lets out these little screams until you come in and roll her over. We don't know what to do about this. We bought her one of those things that keep them from rolling over in the crib, but she gets out of it. Sometimes she's okay with that, I come in in the morning and it's at the other end of the crib, and she's lying on her belly, snoozing. But most of the time she doesn't want to be on her belly so she lies there and screams until we come in to roll her over. So needless to say, we're putting her on the floor to practice her rolling as much as we can! It's almost funny how mad she gets when she can't get back over. She doesn't even try, she gets onto her belly and then gets really angry. And they say rolling from their front to their back is easier for babies. Hmph! In other news, she's started her cereal! We tried right after her 4-month checkup, but she didn't seem very interested and wasn't getting the hang of the spoon, so I decided to wait a few more weeks. We started last weekend and she's doing much better. She seems to really enjoy it, she grabs at my arms and sticks out her tongue for more. She's getting much better with the spoon too. Next month we can move onto fruits and veggies. Man though, is that going to be messy. The cereal is messy and sticky enough! Totally worth watching her face when she reaches for more though. She's definitely into this eating thing!

4 Month Outtakes

So we attempted to get Annie's 4-month picture for her monthly series last Sunday. It was too dark so we weren't successful (as evidenced by the following crappy pictures), but there were lots of fun developments during this photo shoot.


It was the first time she's noticed Puppy sitting next to her.

It was the first time she decided to lean over to try to grab Puppy.
It was the first time she didn't fall forward onto her face when she tried to sit without leaning back on the chair. She sat like that for a while too, just looking around!
It seems way too early for her to be sitting on her own, but I think she's definitely moving in that direction!


In other news, she's in the 75th percentile for weight, 95th for length. She is wearing sizes 6 months and 9 months because her legs are so long. She wears 12 month socks! I think Paul just might get his volleyball player!

Sunday Date

Annie is still surprising us every day with what she's learning to do! She rolled over a bunch of times at Wendy's house this week, both front to back and back to front. She's still playing with her feet a lot, and is now putting them in her mouth, which is pretty hilarious. She started blowing raspberries last Sunday night, and will mimic me when I do it for her. Too funny! This video is so dark, you'll probably just have to take my word for it that she's doing it. I promise I'm shopping for a video camera!


Raspberries from porkchop on Vimeo.

Last Sunday was an exciting day. It was my Mom's birthday, so we went over to their house for a birthday breakfast (pancakes with strawberries & whipped cream, eggs, bacon, and cinnamon crumb cake, yum). After that Paul and I went to Buffalo for our first NFL game! They raffle off tickets at work and I have been trying to win them for years now. I finally won and was super excited. Until I remembered it was my mom's birthday. Darn it! She was great about it, of course, telling us we should go and that she'd watch Annie for us. She's the best. :) This is what Annie was doing when we left. She was all partied out:

The game was awesome. There were sooo many people there and it was so loud and exciting. Our seats were great, section 104, 22 rows up from the field. It drizzled off and on all day, but we didn't really get wet. The game itself was really exciting--they were losing for pretty much the whole game, but rallied in the 4th quarter to win the game with a field goal in the final 3 seconds. Awesome. Also, a relief, because I was getting a little nervous about how that crazy crowd would be if they lost! Traffic was horrendous on the way home, so we decided to go eat to wait it out a little. It didn't really help (traffic was still bad getting on the thruway), but dinner was delicious! We found an Olive Garden and pigged out. Yum. Overall, a great day. We missed Annie a lot, but it was nice to get out just the two of us again!

Playtime

Lots of fun developments in Annie's world this past week or so. She has really started playing on her own: holding onto her feet and rolling from side to side, screaming at her mobile every time one of the animals goes by, picking up toys and putting them in her mouth. It's so much fun watching her play and seeing all of the huge smiles! The other day when I was changing her diaper she looked up at me and started making little clucking noises with her tongue. I did it back to her a few times and she gave me a huge smile and kept clucking away. Last night I asked Mom if Annie ever clucks at her. She said, "No, but I cluck for her all the time." Apparently, she likes it when Grandma does that, because she's been trying to get me to do it for her every time I change her diaper now!Here are a couple of videos of Annie screaming at her mobile and playing with her toys. They're really dark because our camera is not so great inside, but you get the idea anyway!

Screaming from porkchop on Vimeo.

Playtime from porkchop on Vimeo.

Roll Over, Roll Over

She rolled over last night! Lately she's been rolling onto her side from her back but doesn't make it all the way over. She couldn't figure out how to get her arm out of the way. But we were both playing with her last night in the living room and Paul got up to go out to the kitchen for something (food, most likely). I put her on her tummy for some tummy time and she straightened out her arm and used her other arm to push herself all the way over! Poor Paul missed it, and she didn't do it again. We are very excited, but also feeling like this is going way too fast! Also, we need to start baby proofing, NOW.

One of her attempts:

New Things

New things Annie has done in the past 48 hours:

• Talking a lot more than usual, and with several different people
• Put her pacifier in her mouth
• Consciously held onto toys
• Mouthing toys
• Held her feet
• Scooching (that's my word for folding up her legs to scoot herself around. Yesterday she scooched off the playmat, today I found her sideways in her crib. She's been doing it for a few weeks in her crib, but she does it every time we put her down now.)

It sure is fun watching her discover how to do all of these things!