Tuesday, March 13
After not standing unsupported at all for the last few weeks, she has started again recently. Today she stood for the longest time so far – at least ten seconds. (I know it doesn’t sound long, but it seemed quite long while she was doing it!)
Saturday, March 17
You can see that Julia’s memory is improving and that she can recognize familiar activities. We have a little rhyme we do that ends with tickling her under her arms. This week, when she heard the rhyme begin, she would start laughing in anticipation of being tickled!
Saturday, March 24
Julia may have made her first sign, although who’s to know? She was nursing, and turned her head away to look at Josh. She reached out her hand and opened it and closed it three times while looking right at him. We praised her and said “Julia, are you saying nurse? Are you telling Daddy that you’re nursing?” while making the sign, to reinforce what she’d done in case she really was trying to sign. Of course, she could just have been doing something cool with her hand. We’ll see if she does it again.
Sunday, March 25
Julia can stand! It’s funny how some milestones, like crawling, require lots of work on her part. You could see her trying to pull up, crawl, pick up small objects, etc., and becoming very frustrated when she couldn’t do what she wanted. But she has never seemed conscious of standing. Recently, she has been letting go of whatever she’s been holding on to while standing more and more frequently, and she doesn’t seem to notice that she’s done it. Just now, she reached up onto the TV tray in front of me to grab a coaster. When she got the coaster down, she wanted to examine it with both hands, so she did. She stood perfectly balanced for a long time (20? 30 seconds?) and then, instead of falling over, she purposefully sat down. It appears that she can now balance well enough to do this any time she wants, at least until she gets tired. (At this precise moment, she is proceeding to prove that by doing it again!)
Friday, March 30
Wow, a big day! Julia’s been standing more and more the last few days, so finally today she really started cruising. Although she’s had the ability to walk while holding onto furniture for some time, she hadn’t really been doing it. If she needed to get from one place to another that was more than arm’s reach away, she would just sit down, crawl over, and pull back up. But today she’s started shuffling sideways along pieces of furniture. Walking can’t be far away!
Even better, today she made her first clear wave! She’s held out or sometimes flapped her arm at people before, but it’s never been clear whether she was waving or just wiggling. I was holding her and Josh was getting back to work, so I said “say goodbye to Daddy!” and I waved and Josh waved and Julia put out her arm and waved it up and down. It was really exciting, because it’s her first learned “adult” communication. I’d been working on waving a lot recently, waving at people in grocery stores when they wave at her to show her how it’s done, and now she’s waving back. Very exciting.
Saturday, March 31
Julia has been doing many new things recently. She continues to work on her pincer grasp, picking up small pieces of food between her thumb and forefinger. She has eaten bananas, mangos, avocados, kiwis, potatoes, and pears this way, and we’re adding new foods all the time.
