Life:
Whoops, I haven't had very much time lately, so I'm actually writing this on Tuesday instead of the usual Friday...and here are the reasons we've been so busy...!
First piece of exciting news- Harmony is crawling!!! She was getting better and better as last week progressed and then she started taking more and more little wiggles forward on her hand and knees and now she can really move! I was lying down on the floor about a meter in front of her, and I was talking to her and encouraging her to crawl, and I was holding a little toy in front of me and all of a sudden she just went for it! She crawled about 6 or 7 little hand-steps, grabbed the toy and then proceeded to crawl a little further to grab mommy's hair (right at eye level!) and drool on my head. Yuck! But totally worth it, cause it was just the cutest! :) Now she's just all over the place. I finally had the baby gate given to me, so that's been good, cause for the first few days I was always guarding the kitchen. I've had to pick her up a few times and just place her on her hands and knees on the other side of the room! :)
The other piece of exciting news is that I found a car! I bought it Thursday, but didn't get a chance to pick it up until today (argh! long, frustrating story on that one that I'll just skip cause it makes me so mad...) so that's what I've been busy arranging! The ride home tonight was soooo nice. We left 45 mins later than usual, and even with evening rush hour traffic, got home only 5 minutes after we usually do! It was so nice! It sounds so silly, but I feel like so much more of a *person*. Cause no, if I want a bag of milk cause I've run out, I wont have to wait until the end of the week until my home helper comes (and since I have my car, she wont need to help me anymore, so I feel more independant!), or walk home with a big bag of milk in the stroller bottom, I'll just be able to pop over and get some milk. :)
Harmony's Growth:
See above for the crawling info! :)
Now that she can crawl over to a lot of different "new" areas (new to her, that is), she is starting to try to pull up on everything. She hasn't been able to pull up to standing yet, but she can get most of the way up there, and can remain comfortably half-standing on her knees while holding on to something for a little while. I've had a laundry basket in the living room of clean laundry to be put away (and of course it's been sitting there for a couple days since I haven't been home without baby and can't very well put all her clothes away when she's sleeping!) and she pulls up on that a lot and digs through her little clothes.
Clothing has become a challenge lately, not because of growth (I'm pretty sure she's around 20 pounds), but because of crawling! A lot of the outfits that fit just fine turn out to be not the greatest wardrobe choices because of elastics riding up, or dressed getting caught under her knees! Luckily the fall season is approaching and I have a whole new box of stuff to go through- I think (and hope!) there are a lot of loose, comfy clothes in there.
Harmony seems to be going through a phase right now where she doesn't want to be spoon fed anything. She loves to feed herself- Farley biscuits, bottles, Cheerios, table food like cooked carrots, etc. but lately has been clamping her mouth shut and/or grabbing for the spoon everytime I try to get near her mouth! The only time she'll give a little on her new rule of feeding herself is with fruit. She'll eagerly open her mouth to fruit, even if it's being spoon fed to her. So either she doesn't like the new jarred meats (I keep trying different ones but she doesn't seem to like any of them yet), or she's just asserting her independance, but will make an exception for the sweeter stuff. I'll play around with her supper time foods and see if I can find more table foods for her to eat (and/or a jarred meat she will enjoy).