Reaching new milestones

We are pleased to report that Natalie is walking - well, maybe 80 percent of the time. She is still a little wobbly, and her walking is often interrupted by tumbling forward or just deciding to bend down and crawl.

This is a shift in body for her and a shift in mindset for me. For a long time, I've been used to sitting at the computer at the desk in our dining room or being in the kitchen working on something and Natalie being in the other room and knowing that she wasn't going to be moving anywhere quickly (so we didn't have to watch her like a hawk). But now she suddenly appears - and then is suddenly gone again. Now she goes from me knowing she is somewhere else to me being surprised that she is suddenly next to me. She is quick on her feet.

Walking has also come with a new eagerness to climb stairs. She can go up them (crawling) fairly well, but we she doesn't want to be taught how to descend stairs, so we're still watching her carefully around them.

We are also pleased to see that Natalie has gotten her first molar in. She has all of her front teeth on the top and bottom, and so this is the first tooth for the back of her mouth. She still occasionally bites Sarah (for reasons we still can't figure out), so this new tooth is "the better to bite you with, my dear."

We are on the second and final day - hopefully - of "snow days" - all of us being home from work, school and day care, shut up in the house because of Hurricane Sandy. The city and federal government have basically shut down the city, and because of that, Sarah's and my workplace have been shut down. A shutdown of the D.C. public schools means that Lexi's school closes and Natalie's daycare closes.

We all woke up shortly after our usual wake-up time of 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning. By about 9:15, the kids already had a mild case of cabin fever. We're sure Natalie's new mobility has a lot to do with it. We ventured out to lunch to the Subway over near the Metro stop near our house. It's a walk of only a couple of blocks. We had a coupon to use, and it was just an excuse to get out of the house for a short time. As we were finishing up our lunch, they announced that they were closing for the day. On the way back, the wind caught Lexi's umbrella and knocked her over. We got a little wet, but it was a good change of scenery, if only briefly.

This morning Lexi has friend Lily over to play. Natalie is still going a bit stir-crazy, so we're all hopeful that we can go back to the routine tomorrow. We're sure Natalie enjoys daycare more than staying home with the rest of the family all day.

Developments in walking (and eating)

It was only at the beginning of this month that Lexi took her first steps and started walking on her own. In just a few short weeks, she has practiced a lot and is becoming more confident on her feet.

She is still pulling herself up on things like the couch or another stationary object to get started, although we’ve seen her stand up a few times on her own from a crawling or sitting position.

She is also having fun carrying things around in her hands while she walks, so we are finding things scattered and moved around the house more. Plus she has access to a lot more things from her feet, so we are having to watch her more carefully and what she gets into.

We are also letting her walk around more when we go out, and it’s fun to hold her hand and walk with her and to not have to carry her so much anymore. But of course she’s a much slower walker than us, and the disadvantage is that she’s into things when we’re out, such as touching everything or pulling things off the shelf at the grocery store. I think we as the parents are learning as much about a baby walking and what we need to watch and be careful of as she is about this new skill. Last night it was fun to take her on an escalator as a walking person for the first time and see her try to figure it out. Of course they are stairs – just moving ones – and she didn’t quite understand that she needed to stand still and not to try to climb the stairs.

On a different topic, the one of food, a few times in the past several months when we’ve eaten out, at a couple of buffet places, we’ve fed Lexi a few bites of fish. Sarah and I detest all forms of seafood, but Lexi has not objected to the tastes she’s had of it. We would be delighted if we could get her to like seafood early on. So at the grocery store, we bought her some popcorn fish (breaded fish balls) that we can easily cook for her in the toaster oven and that she can eat with her fingers. She eats them like any other food she likes. So far, so good!

Practicing those walking skills

We went away for a long weekend, to Lake Nakuru, north of Nairobi in Kenya. The various places we were - in our hotel, at restaurants - gave Lexi many opportunities to practice her new walking skills. Here she is in our hotel room having a ball walking around:

Making great strides

Mark this day, one that will go down in history in the life of Alexandria. She took her first steps on her own today! She has started to walk!

Jane, our house help/nanny, reported the news to us at lunch. Earlier in the morning Jane had taken Lexi down to house #7 in our compound to play with the children in the regular play group that Lexi has been part of. Apparently Lexi took several steps by herself then, and the whole group was full of acclaim for this accomplishment.

So at lunch Sarah and I tried to get Lexi to show us what she has learned, and, sure enough, she is getting more confident on her feet and can take a few steps on her own now.

Of course we are so proud of her and so excited that she has reached this milestone at nearly the 13-month-old mark.



After this type of news, nothing else is quite as exciting, but I've been meaning to report some other updates, so I'll proceed with those anyway:

• Lexi is getting the hang of giving kisses. We can put our cheeks to her mouth, and she will sort of suck our cheek with an open mouth (so it's often kind of slobbery, which is how I remember my maternal grandmother giving me kisses). She usually accompanies the action with a "mmmwaah" sound. It's sweet, of course, but not quite there with the delicateness and grace one usually gives a kiss with.
• She is also still talking quite a bit - with nonsense words, but she is forming this babble into nice phrases and sentences. She has no problem speaking up and chiming in when she sees someone or when she's with Mom and Dad. She's got plenty to say, but we still can't understand what it all means!