And we have lift off ⇒
Elise turned 9 months old yesterday. It has been an eventful month for the little scalawag. She got a couple more teeth, a bit more hair and (at last at last!) she is crawling around like a little speed demon. When she needs to go somewhere in a hurry she kind of pushes with one foot and the other leg basically gets dragged to catch up but when she is just going about her business, she uses both knees. The funniest part is she still likes to do the downward facing dog pose (any yogi's out there?) and sometimes she gets her legs right underneath her with her knees straight and falls off to one side into a sitting position. I call this her dismount. She is a changed girl since learning how to crawl - crying less when I leave the room because she can come and find me.
Other fun things she is enjoying these days are clapping her hands and waving. These two new skills have prompted me to start teaching her a bit of sign language because she is talking up a storm and I unfortunately don't speak Eli so I am hoping she will catch on and in a few months be able to sign a few words. I am teaching her eat (of course!!), drink, more, milk, sleep, come play, let's go, up, and help but we are focusing on more, eat, and milk to begin with and I am hoping the other signs will come along at around the same time just by default (plus, I am enjoying learning sign language too so she's seeing lots of signs as I learn to use them but I am just trying to be low key about most of them for now so she doesn't get confused)
Her favourite toy right now is her Fisher Price dog that "sings and plays games" I think she is a great toy (it has a female sounding voice) because she has many different sayings, songs and rhymes so you don't just hear the same one over and over. However, at the moment, she seems to only push the purple hand so for now I am hearing one or two songs over and over but that will change as she figures out she can push other body parts! It teaches colours, body parts (blue ear!) and ABCs too. Erin finds the dog annoying.
As for favourite foods, well, as I'm sure you've gathered, Elise loves eating so I wouldn't say she has a favourite per se. If I had to choose one, though, it would be the little Dole mandarin orange slices. She can pick them up with her fingers. Her grandpa noticed that she always goes for the biggest piece on her tray first, the little piglet!
And, saving the best for last, she also said her first "word" - mama!
My cup runeth over!