A second tooth

Quick news update:

We reported earlier on the sighting of the first tooth in Lexi's lower gum.

Now, just after the first tooth has begun to poke through, a second one has suddenly appeared!

We have each put a finger in her mouth to feel these teeth coming through, and they seem a bit sharp!

Hard at Play

Lexi plays hard. She has SO much energy and is always on the go. If there was a competition on emptying laundry baskets, she would be one of the speediest. And crawling up the stairs would be another contest she could enter. I think her speed has increased...though she still hasn't figured out how to go down, even though I keep showing her.

On our walk to the grocery store today, she didn't want to sit back in her stroller but kept craning her head around to see everything that was going on. Was I ever this curious?

She looked at Stephen a little blankly when he came in the door this morning. He had been away for over a week. She warmed up to him quickly though.

I'm so hungry I could eat the plate!

In the first days of feeding Lexi solid foods, I shot this video after she ate with us. Believe me, we didn't starve her to the point of forcing her to eat the plate!

Learning to clap

By popular demand, the video everyone's talking about, the one where Lexi is trying to clap. After much practice, she can now get her hands together, but this was in the early days of learning how to do it. She's standing on the lap of Lora, Stephen's sister, while we were all riding in a boat on the Victoria Nile River in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, where we went for Easter weekend this year.

Lexi crawling

Soon after Lexi started crawling. In the background, the sound you hear is Jane, our nanny/housekeeper, telling Lexi to come (kuja in Kiswahili)

What a noisy eater!

In her younger days, when she was just a little thing and when she first started eating solid foods in her high chair, we were so amused at how noisy Lexi was.

Lexi's daily exercise routine

Because Lexi quickly got the hang of crawling and from there wanted to move right into walking, she's taken to climbing and pulling herself up on things to move toward the walking stage. Often she'll head straight for the stairs and try to climb up them, so we've taken to just allowing her to climb the stairs a couple times a day while we watch her just so she can be satisfied with doing it and to get her exercise. Fortunately we live in a tall three-story house, so she has plenty of stairs to climb.

Now that I'm in Chicago, where I have access to a decent Internet connection, I can upload some of these videos I've taken of Lexi over the past few months and share them with everybody here. Enjoy!

Fussy eater?

Maybe Lexi is a fussy eater or maybe she is just fussy. Who knows? She really likes things she can pick up and eat for herself. Lately, anything on a spoon is soon batted away. This morning, she ate almost two whole sections of waffle (usually she just has one). But she didn't want any of her yogurt. Bread products in general seem to be good as well as potatoes. But green beans seem to be a non-starter as well as cooked carrots. She seems to eat pretty good at lunch time but the evening meal lately has been largely unsuccessful. Ideas welcome on what would help her different things!

Who are you?

When I came home from my business trip after being away for 4 nights, Lexi just looked at me blankly. It's like she wasn't sure who I was - or was definitely indifferent to me. Then she started crying and wanted Dad - this strange lady wasn't going to comfort her. Eventually she did warm up to me, but I feel a little sad that she wasn't immediately excited to see me - in the past, she has been. It was also sort of funny, though, to see her blank expression.

I think she might have a cold. At the minimum, she has a runny nose. It is quite cold here today so maybe that is causing it.

It is the truth: We have a tooth!

After a few weeks of trying, I finally got a good look inside Lexi's mouth today, and can confirm seeing the top of a tooth that is breaking through her lower gum! We have not noticed any ill effects from this - no fever or discomfort.

As with all of Lexi's developments, of course we're thrilled and so proud of her!

Early June update

As sometimes happens, there hasn’t been any actual event to report on regarding Lexi, nothing big that has made us run to this blog to report on. So this is just a general update.

Lexi will be a whole 10 months old next week. She is growing so fast. In May, her progress was remarkable. Fortunately, my (the Padre) grandparents were here on a visit to see all of it. By May 1, she had finally gotten coordinated and had mastered crawling and started to move around on her own. But almost immediately, with some willing helpers around, she also wanted to start walking. Especially Lolo (grandpa) spent a lot of time holding her up by her arms so she could start walking around.

By the last week or so of May, she was starting to pull herself up onto things – the coffee table, the side of the bathtub, the footboard of the bed, etc. And by early June, she had learned to return from this standing position to sitting on the floor again and even to squat, while still holding on with one hand, to pick something up.

During May she also fearlessly decided to start climbing stairs as well. Nobody ever showed her how to do this, but one day she was crawling along toward the two stairs from the living room to the dining room, and without stopping or even hesitating, she lifted up her arms and legs and climbed them! She must have keenly observed where the stairs are and what happens on them every time we carried her up and down them. So it wasn’t long until she was crawling toward the big staircase, eager to ascend to the upper floors of our house. They don’t sell the typical baby gates (for doors or stairs) here, so we had to go to a furniture-making shop down the road and ask them to cut us a piece of plywood that we now use to block the bottom of the stairs.

In terms of her disposition, she is still a very happy baby. She often chatters away during the course of the day with a lot of different noises and laughing. She is starting to wake up a little earlier than her usual wake-up time at 7:00, but often she will entertain herself with a variety of noises until we’re ready to wake up. And, best of all, she is starting to sleep through the night. Most nights now we can count on her to not wake up, although she sometimes does and makes a few noises but seems to put herself back to sleep.

Thanks mostly to Grandma Bradway, she learned “Patty Cake” and now starts clapping whenever you say those words. For a few weeks now, she has known how to wave, first when someone said “bye-bye,” but now I think she does it when people say “hi” as well. And she can lift her hands above her head when someone says, “so big!”

Of course we are amazed at this rapid progress and very proud of her as well.