All over the place

Elise loves to explore the house. She can identify so many things if I say the word... like "crib", "table", "stocking", etc. She tries to repeat a lot of the words, but it comes out pretty garbled. Today she tried to say "stocking" and "Elise"... it was pretty funny. I can ask her where something is and she'll point to it or crawl to it or pick it up. She has been saying "hi" or "iiiiii" more (while waving to me or Boss) and "buh" for "book" quite often. She has taken 3 steps a few times, but she can't stand alone well so she just drops to her knees. She has started to push her walker with just one hand. If I ask her to "dance" she will bounce up and down, and if I ask her to "rock" she will sway back and forth (or push the glider, depending on which room she is in).

Her 5th tooth FINALLY popped through today. She was a little cranky last night and this explains it. It has looked very close for at least a month. She's about 95% back to normal from all of the sickness and is finally back to sleeping 12 hours straight without waking up. I had to do a little "sleep training" to make that happen. Previously when we would hit a growth spurt, teething, etc, she would revert right back to normal when it was all over. So much has happened in the last month and a half with developmental milestones, teething, two rounds of being sick AND two growth spurts that I had to do a little "intervention" of my own. She is still napping well with no sign of decreasing her amount of sleep. She usually wakes between 8 and 8:30, takes her first nap at 10, her second nap at 2, and goes to sleep around 8. We went back to nursing 5 times a day since she was adding a 5th one at night when I tried to drop it to 4. I decided to just continue this until she is a year old and then offer her milk to replace one or two of the nursing sessions.

I am working on editing a video that shows some funny stuff. In the meantime, here are some pictures from today.

These chairs were pushed under the table before she got to them... she actually holds the back of a chair and walks backwards. It makes me really nervous, so I stand right behind her.



She loves to play with the laundry when I am folding piles or putting it in the washer.


She also loves the bathroom. I try to remember to keep the door closed. I regret my decision to add knobs to these cabinets a few years ago. I think she has learned "open" and "close" from them though!


She still loves to play with Boss and giggles hysterically when she tries to chase him. He is such a tease. He will stop and wait for her to get close and then take off again.


He jumped off the couch and she had to follow...