What's Up With Ava?

Well, a lot!

She's started eating a full set of foods. Mashed carrots. Bananas. Oatmeal. Mashed rice. She's getting more and more of her food from non-mommy sources. Heather still tops her off with milk, but she's moving to the end of that phase. We're targeting 8 months or so.

She'll sit in her playpen on her own. Beep and Ball timed her for five minutes this weekend. Her core is strong. I play a game with her where she sits up and I lightly push her over. She used to fall and faceplant. Now she counteracts the force and stays up.

She's got a lot of intention now. She'll look at something and go after it. Grasping, reaching, pulling.

She can't crawl but she can push her entire upper torso up off the ground like a wide arm pushup. She's cute when she turrets up to look around. She can get her knees under her and her butt in the air, but hasn't begun putting it all together into a crawl. Thankfully :)

Crawling can't be far off.

She can stand holding one of my fingers. She looks around and balances herself.

She now sleeps between us in the bed. On her side, facing Heather. When I wake up in the middle of the night she looks like a bald sailor so I call her The Little Bald Sailor.

Her superpoops aren't as severe as they used to be. She used to not poop for a week and then drop an elephant load. We used to have to help elLoad along with a glycerine tablet. Generally she works a smaller set of poops through her system and only rarely gets fully stopped up.

Lots of intention coming through verbally, but no words. You can tell when she's frustrated or excited or tired or inquisitive. It's fascinating.

It seems that every day she learns something new about the world and acts on it. I have to watch closely or I risk missing something.

Heather is still the primary caretaker. I get caught up in work. She's truly a trooper and I appreciate her greatly.