New tonight, she can actually walk quite a bit better than this video shows. She’s walked all the way across a bedroom a couple times.
This video demonstrates her standing, unassisted, from her hands and feet, then trying to walk. That’s also new tonight, but doesn’t demonstrate her best walking.
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Tough to keep posting about progress made towards walking when it is all so incremental and minor, but she really is moving right along.
She is increasingly willing to let go and walk 5-10 steps without holding onto someones hand. And when holding your hand it really is mostly for comfort, rarely for actual support. But, for now, she definitely prefers that you come along with her, wherever she might be going.
She is also walking in more situations. Like from the car to daycare (again, holding on to someones hand) and such.
Which brings up another point…we’ve stopped commuting with her on metro. After the move to the Toddler One’s room and one nap a day the evening commutes were just nightmarish. She was tired and hungry and just not at all happy. So we’re driving for now.
In other news, she had her first Skype experience this weekend, talking to Grandparents Wetzel online. Safe to say she doesn’t ‘get’ it yet, but the Grandparents got a kick out of it and it is a good way to stay connected.
This weekend we started giving Morgan larger pieces of food, which requires her to tear off smaller bite size pieces with her front teeth. This went fairly well. She ate quite a bit of a grilled cheese this way, as well as quite a bit of cheese quesadilla.
Also, when at the playground on Sunday she was having a blast interacting with a few of the older kids. One was playing on the slide immediately next to her and she was highly amused. The other was swinging on a swing right next to her, looking at her, laughing, and making faces whenever their swings crossed. She thought that was pretty amusing as well.
We’re marking down her official “first steps” as July 11 (one week ago), but this is the first video we’ve been able to capture. She does quite a bit better than this at times, but this is what we got on film.
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Morgan was home with me all day today. Small Savers was closed to the kids; I think the teachers were renewing CPR certification and that type of thing. She loves walking. That is pretty much what we did all day in the house, walking around while holding on to one of my fingers. She has absolutely no interest in holding both hands. In fact she wants her other hand free to carry things around. She particularly likes to try to carry her Skip-Hop (her mini-diaper changing pad thing), which is a little big for her. She was also carrying around snacks for a good part of the day, in her Snack Trap. At one point she was carrying her Snack Trap with one hand and walking while holding onto my finger with the other hand. She came to a stop (standing), let go of my hand, dug some Goldfish out of her Snack Trap, put them in her mouth, looked back for my hand, took it and started walking again. Her control is just getting better and better.
Her daycare transition has been going really really well. This was the first week we were dropping her off and picking her up in the Toddler One’s room. Monday she fussed as we were leaving, but her teacher said it was only for 3 seconds. Wednesday she didn’t fuss at all, just kind of watched us walk out the door and then went to eating. Thursday she fussed a bit more. She seems to fuss more if Jim is holding her and puts her down than if I am. Or maybe I’m imagining it. We do only have 4 observations.
In other good news, she really enjoyed Water Day on Thursday. I was pleased to hear this, as she hasn’t really showed much love for it in the past and they do it every week during the summer. It seems like a fun change of pace, splashing around in the buckets and such.
Yesterday Morgan took some steps on her own and came to a stop while standing. Prior to that, any steps she took were more of a rush to keep putting one foot in front of the other to keep herself from falling. This was much more controlled.
And this morning Jim said she walked several steps from him towards Grandma Wetzel.
And this afternoon I was sitting on the floor with her and she stood up next to me and walked 5 or 6 steps to her trike.
She rarely insists on holding on to two hands anymore, she is quite happy to walk only holding on to one. And everything is just so much more controlled than even a week ago.
Today we dropped off Morgan in the Infant room. But, she was to go to the Toddler One room at 9:30 and stay there all day (we pick her up there tonight). Her new primary caregiver called to give me an update during naptime. Apparently it was going super-well, “fantastic” she said. Morgan didn’t cry at all, got right in with the other kids, didn’t come to sit on Ms Parwin’s lap to just watch, ate all her snack, ate all her lunch. In fact, Ms Parwin was telling me that they had meatball subs for lunch (meatballs are one of Morgan’s favorite foods) and that Ms Parwin could not believe how much Morgan was eating. So, she could not stress enough how well it was going. But…Morgan only napped for an hour (she is supposed to nap for about 2 hours). And then she wanted to get up. So they tried giving her a bottle, but she wasn’t interested, wanted to get up. So they were going to ‘work on that.’ I have no idea how they think they are going to coax her to stay in her cot longer, but that appears to be their plan. We’ll see.
Tuesday after Morgan’s birthday we had a small party for her at daycare.
Wednesday was the daycare’s 4th of July parade.
Thursday, Morgan had water day at daycare and Uncle John came to visit for the weekend.
Friday, Grandparents Wetzel and Great Aunt Mary came to visit for lunch.
Saturday, Morgan attended her first repeat event — the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall.
Yesterday was Morgan’s first day spending time in the Toddler One’s room. According to one of the floaters that knows her from the infant room and happened to be in the Toddler Ones room yesterday, it was “so-so.” She was a little intimidated by all the new faces, but loved the singing and dancing and loved going outside in the big wagon. Apparently she was kicking her feet and pointing and talking up a storm while outside.
Today, her caregiver said, was ‘great.’ Morgan jumped right in, wasn’t intimidated at all, was playing and interacting with the other kids, exploring the room, joining in some of the activities, etc. She had a fantastic morning. Needless to say, I’m thrilled.
From last weekend…
First, the orange soda:
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A longish montage:
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