Ready for takeoff

Daphne has been looking like she is ready to crawl for weeks now. I keep saying it'll happen anytime, and I'm sure it will, but it hasn't yet. And it's probably a good thing because we still need to figure out how to install our baby gate at the top of the stairs.

Her latest trick is that she'll stick her little bottom in the air and rock back and forth on her hands and knees. Photo proof, apologies for the blurriness.

Also, it turns out that snapping a side shot of this girl in action was no easy feat. She's very attentive to me and to cameras, so when she sees us both in the same place, she just turns toward us. She's really good at pivoting on her belly... she'd just go round in circles if I moved around her, with her hips in the same spot all the way around. And she rolls a lot, too. So here's some outtakes of what happened as I was trying to get the photo above...

Reeeeeaching for the camera

The camera is way more interesting than the puppy toy

Trying hard to get the puppy!

Delighting in the details

Daphne has been changing the way she plays in the past week or so. Before, she would grab just about any toy she could get her hands on and proceed to stuff it into her mouth (or really, stuff part of it into her mouth because that's the way baby toys are designed). While she still does enjoy seeing how toys feel in her mouth, that's become a smaller part of how she plays.

In the past week, I've noticed Daphne examining her toys in more depth. She has developed a fascination with tags, and she especially likes toys and blankets with several layers of tags that she'll fan out. I just caught her with a very small elephant rattle, turning it over and over, studying it from all angles. She loves buttons, especially when they are on my clothes.

And of course, all of this play is facilitated by increased dexterity in her hands. She's beginning to use her fingers individually, often gripping things with just her thumb and index finger. It may not sound like a big deal, but it is for her. And it also means she can start feeding herself bits of soft foods soon!

A blog post!

Enough of you have been bugging me about this that I figured it's high time to write another post. So here it is. Before I get to the new stuff, I figured I should give a quick summary of the last couple of months. If you're lucky, I'll go back and add some posts with photos, but don't count on it.

November: This was the month full of family visits. Ben's folks were here at the beginning of the month, then my family came in two back-to-back waves (literally 15 minutes between the visits). It was so much fun to see everyone, and Daphne thoroughly enjoyed meeting and getting re-acquainted with her extended family. Good stuff.

December: The month of Christmas! Hooray! Daphne loved looking at (and attempting to get close enough to eat) the tree with all its bright lights. Although most parents will tell you the first Christmas is all about the boxes and wrapping paper, Daphne is actually a connoisseur of gift bags and tissue paper. Especially tissue paper, which is tricky because what she really wants to do is put it in her mouth, and it dissolves in about 20 seconds. We enjoyed having Ben's family come down for Christmas, and Daphne has been slowly discovering and appreciating her new toys. My new toy is a digital camera, which might actually facilitate blogging because all the previous photos came from Ben's iPod, which is with him at work about 98% of the times when I think, "Oh, I should write a blog post."

So without further explanations and apologies, here's the latest in our lives:

Daphne is thoroughly into the sitting phase of life, and one of her favorite ways to play these days is to sit next to her basket of toys and take them out, one by one, playing with each one for as long as it happens to interest her.

This is a bear puppet with a book on its tummy. She loves it!

Taking a break from playing to say hello.

She also loves sitting in her high chair in the kitchen while I cook and banging various toys on the tray. Speaking of her high chair, she is starting to try some baby food. So far she definitely enjoys rice cereal, and her favorite other food we've tried is butternut squash. We've had some fails as well, including peas, carrots, and applesauce.

Look at that focus!

I've been saying for weeks that Daphne is super close to being able to scoot around, and the same is still true. She gets around by rolling, but it's not a very directed movement. She has managed to inch forward to get a toy in front of her, but she does it by reaching with one arm as she rolls onto that side, then going back onto her tummy and trying the other arm. Eventually she manages to reach far enough. I know life is going to change when she finally figures out the forward motion thing and can get wherever she wants to go. More to come on that soon, I'm sure!