Elise Update

Elise is growing so fast! She is doing new things all the time, and her personality is showing more and more every day. Here are a few things that she has been doing lately that I don't want to forget about her as an almost-8-month-old:

• She has recently started saying ba, ma, and ra. Elise has been really vocal since she was tiny, but she has never been into using many consonant sounds. I was starting to get worried, and then the other day she busted out with several consonants all at once. Her favorite is ba. I've got to get a good video of her new sounds. She whispers it in this one, but it's the best I have right now. Usually she says it nice and loudly.

• That video reminded me that she really likes it when you whisper to her. She thinks it's funny.
• She loves the bathtub. I tell her it's bathtime, and she gets so smily and excited and starts kicking her legs, no matter what mood she has been in previously. We got her some squirting bath toys for Easter, and she loves them. Mostly, she likes to suck the water out of them (disgusting, I know). The turtle is her favorite, I think because it's the easiest for her to suck the water out of.

• She still won't really eat anything that isn't pureed, but she's doing a little better. For a while, she refused solids altogether. I'm not so sure what to do about that, especially because her way of refusing solids is getting a giant mouthful then blowing raspberries. Since I'm not a huge fan of peas in my hair, we didn't press the issue too much. We have just kept offering her solids regularly, and lately she has stared to take them again. This kid must love to nurse. As much as I love breastfeeding and am so glad I chose to do it, I keep telling myself that she can't nurse forever, that she will eventually eat real food, and that keeps me going.
• She so wants to pull herself up to a standing position. In the bath she wants to use the ledge to climb (with my help) up to this tiny bar that is meant for hanging a washcloth on or something, and she holds on with both hands and stands on her tiptoes like she wants to get higher. She even tries putting her knees on the wall like she's going to climb up Spiderman-style. She tries to pull up on everything, even if it's ridiculously too short, like a wipes box. Maybe she'll succeed soon. In this picture we stood her up.

• She doesn't like grass poking her in the neck. Sometimes when it's warm we go outside and sit in the grass, but she simply won't lay on her back. Her neck is super ticklish.
• If she is sucking her thumb, she's either hungry or tired. Or both, like in this picture.

• She understands so much of what we say to her. If she is trying to sit up while we change her diaper, which she is constantly doing (literally), we can tell her "Lay down!" and she will do it (for a second, anyway). She is also beginning to understand (and ignore) the word no. I have also noticed that if we tell her a few times before naptime or bedtime that she is about to go to sleep after one more book (or whatever), she goes to sleep much more easily than if we just put her in her crib without warning her first.
• She's so dang cute!

I wanted to write this post mostly as a reminder to myself of what Elise is like right now. She is growing up too fast! I don't want to forget a single thing. Of course, I'm forgetting a thousand cute things she does even as I write this. At least there are sure to be many more moments in the future for me to dote on her.