Week of October 1 - A Walking We Will Go...A Walking We Will Go

Yep yep, Emily is now a free-lance walking little baby girl. Over the last week or so she has been doing more and more self-initiated walking. Her record to date is 9 steps before swishing down to sitting position on the carpet and starting over again. (great photo below of her free-lancing upstairs in the hallway, taken just yesterday, and you have no idea how long I stalked my little munchkin with my camera to get this shot :-P )



Emily has also developed a fondness for sqwating while playing with her toys and then standing up when mom or dad is watching and clapping her hands. Show-off I say :)

Since we knew Emily would be up and walking within weeks, we have been doing specific safety instructions with her on a number of things in the house.

For instance, after watching in shock as Emily thought the way off a couch was to crawl straight off at speed, I have worked with her to learn how to safely get down from our couch in the family room and I am happy to say that is a big success and she will now turn her little bottom around and scoot down from the couch feet first. She has gotten good enough at it now that she does so without supervision or encouragement. (Heh, I really need to get a good photo of this feat!)Good thing too as she has figured out that she can step up on her little pink hippo chair and that gives her an edge up to climb up on the couch (which is a favorite look-out point to see what Mom and dad are doing in the Kitchen (nosey kid .. hehe).

Nancy has been working with Emily to begin the longer term process of safely going up and down our staircase. Emily, being a quick study, got the concept of going up the stairs within just a few days and now likes to climb them. As you see below, a couple of photos of the stair climbing in action (looks perilous from these camera angles but Mom is just out of photo shot below and ready to lunge if Emily starts to turn around. Very protective mom, by the way! but that's a good thing :) Nancy has actually taught her nephew the same thing a number of years back and it made for a lot less anxiety about stairs in the family. Progress is also being made by Emily in safely moving down the stairs in reverse fashion. Even though the gate will stay up on the stairwell for a long time yet to come, I am pleased to see her making progress early on here.




Emily is taking more and more of an interest in all the butterflies in her room (see below) these days and insists that dad hold her up close so she can touch them and look at them in detail. These are actually butterlies made from colorful feathers, and attached to the walls. Emily loves them.





One of our morning routines, after Emily has had her morning bottle and watched an episode of Teletubbies in bed with mom and dad, is for Emily to have a bit of alone time in her crib while we shower. During this time, the "menagerie" (photo below) joins Emily in her crib. While Emily was not at all fond of soft cuddly toys when we picked her up in China, these days they are pretty much her number one preference for morning time play.... well... that and some soft rubber blocks with letters and colors on them. Some days when I come back in to get her, they are of course all on the floor outside the crib and Emily is giggling. One stuffed cuddly toy however is special, the little beagle puppy that Emily snuggles when she sleeps at night. The puppy never ever gets the toss from the crib. Talk about loyalty! :)


I thought I would close this weeks blog update with a very cute photo of mom and Emily relaxing under a blanket in the family room, catching an episode of Noddy or Pingu on the Sprout Channel. Aren't they just adorable together!!?? Needless to say, I Love and adore them both very very much!!