After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

In the last two weeks, there have been some noticeable changes in Laney. She is showing signs of being mobile. It seems that crawling forward just doesn't interest her yet, so she uses a combination of the roll and scoot method along with her newly discovered ability to crawl backwards.

First she grew 4 teeth and now she doesn't stay in the same spot I put her. My littlest little one is showing signs that she's growing up. It is fun to watch and also a little depressing. It seems that just when I get comfortable referring to her age, it changes. I finally came around to referring to her as an 8-month old and now I have to practice saying that she's a 9-month old. Before too long she won't be an infant any longer...Her birthday is now just a short 3 months away...so hard to believe.

It is truly impressive to see her find a way to get her hands on a toy that is out of reach..all without crawling. On top of that, I'm pretty certain that yesterday she made a sound that could easily have been mistaken for "dadda" except for the fact that it was preceded and followed by other sounds that were not really comprehensible.

 UPDATE: My editor just reminded me that I forgot to mention that Laney can now wave at you. If you wave at her, most times she'll smile back at you and follow up with an enthusiastic wave.

The following two videos are really music to my ears.

In the first video, you may notice that Laney enjoys having you pat your hand against her mouth and she'll react pretty much every time you do it. You may also notice that as soon as you stop, she stops singing.  

In the second video, Macy demonstrates what her mommy taught her.

We have entered the middle of January and in the coming days Laney will lose her title as "Baby of the Family." Not only will she no longer be the littlest one, a position she's currently holding onto by a mere 3 pounds, but she's on the verge of finding herself in 3rd place. Aunt Sara is now within 3 weeks of her new little man and Aunt Tori is so close to her due date, that she could actually be on the way to hospital as I type this. (Just so we are clear...I'm NOT saying that she is on her way to the hospital, only that her due date is so close that it is not out of the question.)

It seems that Laney is aware of her inevitable title loss and has decided to just go ahead and continue maturing. She's getting closer and closer to crawling every day, though I'm betting that she just skips it and goes right to walking. I can't get over how strong she seems. If you hold her hands for balance, she can easily keep herself upright with her strong, strong thighs.

I think back to those days when I was hoping to see a trace of eye tracking and now she's locked in on everything going on around her. If she's sitting in your lap and you make a noise, she swings her head back and tries to look at you upside down. If you just leave her either in the middle of the room or in her high chair while things are going on, you can watch her eyes scanning the room taking it all in. I told you that we refer to her as Chumbawamba and if we were living in Medieval times, we would probably call her Chumba The Observer.

She really is aware of everything going on around her including everything her sister is doing. She seesms to really really like Macy and whenever we let her sit down next to (or on top of) Laney, they always seem to be laughing, at least until Laney pulls out a clump of Macy's hair. It is probably a good thing that Laney is still bald, because I'm sure that as soon as she has some long locks, Macy is going to exact some revenge for all this hair pulling.

While her hair still hasn't really arrived, her bottom two teeth are almost fully in and her top two are on the verge, so she has that going for her, which is nice. I wonder who will get a haircut first..Laney or her to soon-to-be born cousins?