29 Weeks

Ella has been entertained by looking in the mirror for a few months now. Usually, though, when we look in the mirror, she looks at me and smiles and laughs. She'll glance at herself for a second and then back to me. I wonder if she's thinking "Oh, look! Two Mommies!"... Anyway, she seemed to really find herself in the mirror in one of her books this week. She just kept starring at it and smiling. Then she would halfway close her eyes and lean in and rest her head on the mirror. I have no idea what she's doing, but it's so cute.

Swim lessons went great this week. Unfortunately, Ella still didn't get a good nap before we went, but she was in a great mood and did really well anyway. One of the things we missed last week was teaching the babies to hang on to our backs while we swim. Obviously this is a safety thing, but it's also pretty fun. Ella didn't really hold on, Alex had to hold her there, but she seemed amused, and if nothing else, it was a great position for pulling my hair. I kept getting in trouble for not keeping my back high enough to keep Ella out of the water, not really sure what to do about that...

We did the crawling/walking across the mat for a toy game again. This time Ella did her army crawl from one side to the other. That mat is pretty hard to get traction on, so it was a lot of effort for just a little movement, but she made it.

She really did seem to enjoy herself a lot this week, unlike the little guy next to her there. Poor thing cried the whole time.

We did two submersions this week. The first one she did her normal breath holding, sputtering thing, but she got over it quickly and didn't fuss or cry. The second one (above), she did great! She didn't hold her breath when she came up or turn red or anything. In fact, it was like she didn't even go under at all. We were very impressed.

Last Saturday I went to Carrie's house for a few hours in the evening, so Jeff and Uncle Steve were on Ella duty. They fed her sweet potatoes and said she ate a ton! They also got her to drink water out of a sippy cup. I couldn't believe it when I got home and they told me. I still really can't get her to eat much, although she's not gagging nearly as much and hasn't thrown up in a while. Monday night Jeff was making some greens we had from our CSA and I decided to let her try a little bite. Jeff makes them with garlic, onion, vinegar and chicken stock, so I was a little worried the flavor would be too strong for her, but she seemed to really like them.

Ella started pointing this last week. She's not really pointing at anything, just holding out her pointer finger and waving it around. She's starting to try to pull up too. I set her in her crib the other day after I changed her diaper and when I walked back in she had grabbed a hold of the side of the crib and was trying to pull up. As I got to her, she pulled herself up to her feet for just a second and then fell back to her knees. If I have her sitting in my lap and there's something in front of her she can grab onto, she can pull herself up very well. Also, if you help her to get a hold of something like the couch or coffee table, she can hold on and stand up for a few minutes. You never know when she might let go, or her legs give out, so we've had a few bonked heads. I guess that comes with the territory at this point.