Eating big-girl style

Morgan's getting older and older and we love every minute of it. Almost every other day now we say something about how we love this age even more and how much fun Morgan is. That said, I'm just going to highlight all of her greatness and I just have to say how thankful I am and thank God every day that I was good at (most days) and chose a profession that in the end allowed me to stay home (most of the time) over the summers with my baby (children in the future). Morgan's grown and developed so many new skills this summer and I'm so blessed to have been able to be here so much of the time to witness it. Amen.

Big girl food. That's right. We are officially on track to eat up all of Morgan's pureed food in the freezer and then that's it. She's officially eating big girl meals which typically include a plate (woo hoo! not a bowl of mush!!) of whatever we're eating. She LOVES meat and really seems to take pride in eating or at least trying whatever we're eating. The other night she ate kielbasa, noodles, and broccoli florets. And loved it. Yesterday she had veggie/meat pasta. And loved it again, along with her own garlic bread w/ cheese. Can you say big girl? And tonight, she fed herSELF a cheerio!! She does well with big crackers but tonight she finally got something tiny in there! (cheers and then worries about what she'll find/eat off the floor with two dogs in the house...) So anyway, that was a biggie for me. I was sick of making baby purees. Trust. Real quick, wanna know what the little piggy ate today? (yikes) 3-6oz bottles, 2-4oz bottles, peaches/plum mix & cereal (breakfast), leftover pasta from last night (a ton) at daycare, a whole banana, taco hamburger helper, yogurt, zucchini for supper, and a taste of my brownie. Oh, and 6 cheerios. Her belly was b.i.g. I hear a growth spurt I think...

Morgan is now moving from A to B fast. Today she really started exploring the house and we've made it a new habit to close the door to the basement. Around bath time, Morgan ventured down the hallway (new for her) and I told her to go take a bath. She investigated the dogs' bedroom/office instead before coming back to play with Adam. Such a big girl!

Morgan now enjoys reading books. She turns the pages. She feels the different textures in her touchy/feely books. One night while in the Dells, she crawled to her book, turned it over and over and when I finally finished what I was doing and went to her, she was REALLY excited for me to read it to her. I can't tell you how this makes my heart swoon. My baby finally likes books.

Morgan's receptive language (understanding) is improving tons! She now knows come here, (give) kisses, no/no mouth (working on this one), shake-a, bang bang, where's Daddy/Mommy?, let's go see Bunny (bed), and will look to where we are looking/pointing to when we say Look, Morgan! I'm sure there are a few I'm missing but this skill has really taken off lately and it's fun. :)

Expressively, Morgan is now saying mama, dada, and nah nah nah (likely no no no since she now hears that a bit more often) and will yell nah nah nah to anything she's mad at which at times includes the dogs running around like crazy outside when she's looking out the window. Hilarious. Perhaps we need to stop yelling at the dogs in front of her...she also signs 'more' inconsistently independently and with some verbal prompts when appropriate. We don't push the issue too much, but model it for her when we can. She also uses "all done" quick well on her own when she is done with something. We got lots of "all done" signs when she was sick of jumping in the pool from the side while on vacation. :)

Speaking of signing "all done," the 3 of us were at the pool the last full day of vacation and we were just about to leave and I had Morgan on the side jumping in. She had been resisting a last go of it and had signed all done so I didn't push it. I was in front of her anyway but talking to Adam and looking at him and all of a sudden, SPLOOSH, Morgan decided that she was NOT in fact all done and wanted one more go of it. I scooped her up and she didn't choke or get scared even though she went face first into the water. Woops. No mother-of-the-year award here I guess. :)

Last one - Morgan has been pulling up to a kneel for the longest time now and even a few half-kneels (one knee down, one foot down). Today, Mary informed me that she pulled up to a stand to play with her friend Chase who was in the exersaucer! Several times! I guess she just needed a little more fun motivation. Hilarious and true story - I picked up the monkey today from Mary's and Chase was in the exersaucer, I had Morgan in the middle of the room, and Mary was holding her other little friend, Jackson. All of a sudden, Chase started laughing...then Morgan immediately did her little cackle laugh, and then Jackson piped right in and it was a chorus of little 6-10 month old laughs/cackles. Funniest thing I've heard in a while. They're all good friends. :)

I think I'm missing a few other things I wanted to highlight but it's late and I have to work tomorrow. I'm working 4 days this week and it feels kind of good to be back into the swing of things. Ask me again about this on Friday when it's day 4. ;-)