More Walking

I just have to jot this down... This morning I was folding laundry in Alli's room. Usually she helps (by pulling everything out of the laundry basket...) But today she decided she would rather play other things while I did laundry. At one point, she pulled herself up and then walked right by me, out the door, down the hallway, into the laundry room, all the way to the doggie door and then sat down to play with it. Oh my!!! I wasn't used to having to ditch the laundry so fast to follow. Exciting times!

Walking....On Carpet

Today Alli decided to be a bit braver. She will let go of objects and walk, as long as her destination is within a few steps. Today she decided to walk across our bedroom. I noticed that she would only make these brave attempts in carpeted rooms. That's okay, it's a confidence builder. It was really cool to watch her just out in the middle of the room, walking around. What a big girl!!!

Her bravery is evident in the pool as well. She's starting to go under water herself. She'll stand on the seat of the hot tub and bend her legs til her mouth and nose go under water. Then she springs up. Of course we're right there in case something goes awry. She's also walking completely off the step and under, only to get swooped up by mommy or daddy because the middle is way over her head. We usually grab her from under the water and she comes up laughing. Yikes! Scary in a way that she's so brave to just walk off the edge into a deep pool of water, very cool that she's not afraid as it should be easier to teach her to swim. We continue to work on swimming lessons in the pool every weekend, and as many days as possible over them.

More Crackers!

Well, I think the days of my non-fussy eater are over. Alli has learned that if she doesn't want something, she can just use her tongue to push it out of her mouth. Now that seems to be happening more and more often. I refuse to cook her separate meals, so she either has to eat baby food or what we are eating. The only couple of times that I've resorted to cooking something special is when we ordered carry-out Mexican and Kim forgot and ordered "hot" enchiladas. We didn't really have anything that she would eat, so I cooked some pasta. Of course then she spit all that out and only wanted crackers. Ugh. So, she had to choke down some baby food veggies first, and then get full on crackers. Yikes! It's going to be interesting.

Not only has she figured out "no" for food, but also temper tantrums for anything else. I don't know how many times she's hit her head on the tile floor because she decides to protest by laying down and throwing her head back. I figure one of these days she's going to learn not to do that. I'm so glad little kids are made of rubber!

Good Bye 4am!

Alli is weaning to the cow's milk quite well. She likes the taste, and we are finally in control of the diaper rash due to dairy output. So this morning was my last 4am "extra bottle pump". I'm looking forward to the new freedom of sleeping past 4am!! (It really just means that during the work week I get to sleep in til 4:30am, but that's so I can log in and get some extra work done in order to keep my Fridays at home with Alli.) :D

Little Piggie

Alli's appetite has really increased. She eats everything we eat, and lots of it! Last night I filled a plate for her - meatloaf, peas, corn, carrots. She finished everything and then "signed" for "more". (Her signing for "more" pretty much looks like clapping.) I thought for sure she was just playing, so I just put a couple of crackers in front of her. She ate them. Then she signed for more again. I put a couple more crackers. Gone. And then she wanted even more. So I grabbed a banana, knowing I would be eating most of it. Nope - she ate over half of it! I was pretty impressed.

Tonight's menu? Chicken tortellini with marina sauce and zucchini. She did very well with her plate full of food.

And yet the doctor said she doesn't weigh enough. Clearly not from lack of appetite!!!

Officially Walking

Everyone practices walking with Alli these days - mommy, daddy, Marcie, the twins... I'm sure Gage and Reegan even try to help her walk. Last night Kim and I watched her practice by herself. It was the first time we had seen this. She had gotten to a standing position by using the office door, then she let go and walked around it and out of the office in order to get to her exersaucer table. We were quite impressed. She did this a couple of times - leaving the object that she used to help her stand and just walking away. So I think at this point, we can officially say she's walking. We tried to video tape walking between us, but not sure how well that came out. She was taking a good 12 steps or so to get from one of us to the other.

Then Bagheera got jealous so we incorporated him into our play. No more practicing walking, now we were going to practice throwing. We gave Alli Bagheera's football and let her throw it. Then we would let Bagheera go get it. Kim or I would take it from Bagheera and give it back to Alli and let the fun happen all over again. I was pretty impressed that she tried to throw the ball and it actually went forward! Ah, the family fun!

MORE!

Just some quick notes about Alli. Right now, it seems like she'll eat (or at least try) anything that we put in front of her to eat. However, we found she doesn't like baked beans. Isn't that strange? She'll eat salmon, brussel sprouts, ground turkey.... but no baked beans!

I also found that she *really* likes breakfast sausage. (I shared my eggs and sausage with her for breakfast today.)

Tonight, I made her ask for more food by signing it. She picked that up really quickly, which was WAY cool. We spent an hour at the dinner table, and I think it was more because she thought it was cool to keep putting food into her mouth. ;)