41 Weeks

Ella started waving a while back, but it was only every now and then and I don't think she was really doing it on purpose. Now it's a pretty deliberate thing. She's better at waving bye than hi. She waves goodbye to her Daddy every morning. She also points a lot. When we're walking in the park, she likes to point at people as they walk by. She's been dancing a lot more too. Some times to music, sometimes not. She'll get her little head going, it's so funny. She likes for us to do it back when she's doing it. She'll sway and bobb her head for a second and then stop and look at us, then we do it and she smiles and does it some more.

Ella and Brooke playing at dinner club last week. Mahlia gave Ella that little toy, which Ella was only interested in for a few days before the novelty wore off. With Brooke in it, it suddenly became more interesting. We weren't fast enough to get a picture, but at one point, they were both chewing on the bird at the same time. Gross, but cute.

Ella started using the sippy cup by herself this week. She's really good at picking it up and getting it up to her mouth. Sometimes she just chews on the spout or the side or whatever, but she can get a drink if she wants to. About half the time she takes a drink, she spits it right back out, which was funny the first few times...

I was trying to get a picture of Ella waving, but it's easier said than done. She's been eating so much better. She's inconsistent about what she likes. At first she seemed to really like bananas, but now I can't get her to eat them. Still, she usually eats at least a little bit two or three times a day which is a huge improvement. We usually put a few things down to let her practice feeding herself and then we feed her the rest.

One day this week, I pulled all the chairs from the kitchen table into the living room and made a circle with them. Ella loved it. They were close enough that she could get to the next one with out letting go of the last one. I put a favorite toy on each chair to give her some incentive to check it out. She was really moving, going around and around the circle.

Ella still can't make up her mind whether or not she likes to swing at the park. Most days she doesn't, but then some days she seems to enjoy it, for a few minutes anyway. I've been letting her play on the play ground equipment a little. It's really for bigger kids, but we're there so early in the morning, there's usually no other kids there. Unfortunately, she picks up every little thing she finds on the ground and most things go to her mouth sooner or later, so I don't like to let her crawl around much.

I read that most babies can learn to climb stairs between nine and twelve months. She's always trying to climb everything, so I figured she would be able to do it. Wednesday we went to see Ella's Grandma at her house, where there are stairs, and let her give it a try. She made it about half way up pretty easily and then decided that was far enough.

This is World Breastfeeding Week, so I figured I should say something about it. I realized after reading back over my blog that I talked about what a hard time I had with it in the beginning, but never really followed up. It was hard the first few weeks, although in retrospect I think a lot of it was just me stressing and not being sure about what I was doing. Honestly, I think I have had a much easier time with breastfeeding than a lot of women, and by the time Ella was a month old, we had it down. I'm so grateful that it's gone well and that she is still breastfeeding. It's definitely one of the best parts of parenthood so far.