From Babyhood to Toddlerhood

Our baby girl is growing up before our very own eyes. These last few months have brought many changes.

1. Feeding: Adah has dropped both her bottle and her pureed baby food. This, of course, has brought some challenges in finding foods that are both manageable enough for her to eat by herself and appealing to her new finicky tastes. (By the way, it appears that Adah has acclimated to living in the South more quickly than either Chris or me as we discovered that she LOVES biscuits. Last week she gleefully swayed her head back and forth when one appeared on her high chair tray.) Unfortunately, she occasionally refuses meals and is still bottoming out the weight chart. We've read all the books, consulted doctors, agree on a strategy for raising a healthy eater, and yet it's still hard not to worry. In any case, here is a clip of Adah eating peas (one of her current favorites)...

2. Agility: Adah truly is a mobile girl these days. She has learned to crawl up and slide down the stairs in our house (a skill that will be useful to me once the new baby comes). With this skill has also come the ability to climb everywhere ... on to the couch, chairs, footstools, bookcases, Daddy/Mama, etc. (She really did climb me the other day ... I held her arms and she started walking up my belly. Monkey girl!) She will frequently climb into her rocking chair, push me onto the ground, and start throwing her back into the chair to get it to rock ... all the while sporting a huge grin of pride. Here is our stair climbing master (although I can't figure out how to rotate the clip):

3. Music: It appears that Adah loves music. One day, we turned on some music and she started bopping her butt up and down to the beat. Now, wherever we are (i.e., the living room, the car, the coffee shop, etc.), if she hears music she starts head or butt bopping. Even if it's just the 5 second intro music for NPR! I've never seen this, but Chris has even caught her bopping around when there is no music playing aloud (maybe it's in her head!).

4. Separation Anxiety: We had an unfortunate month over the holidays when Adah had a hard time being too far away from me. While it's lovely to be wanted, it's not lovely not to be able to cook dinner, answer the phone, or go to the bathroom without Adah vying for attention. It was also quite hard on Chris and he is especially glad to have his daughter running back into his arms these days.

5. Comprehension: The biggest change of all is Adah's increasing ability to understand what we are saying. Now, when Chris leaves for work in the morning Adah waves her hand bye-bye to him. And when it's time to put toys away we can tell Adah "bring Mama that book" and she will bring it over to bookcase to be put away, or "put this toy away" and she will walk to toy over to the toy drawer and throw it in. I plan on using this to my advantage while it lasts.