Wings

Oh my goodness Audrey is so much fun right now. She can crawl like a pro, and she pulls herself up to standing on absolutely anything she can grab on to. She can balance with one hand, and has even tried a couple of times to balance with no hands! She's whizzing forward and a part of me wants to beg her to slow down, to stay little just for a moment longer, while another part of me is so proud and so excited of how she's moving ahead fiercely and brightly into the next stages of her development.

Right now I'm loving her big cuddles, her funny faces, her pointing at noses and mouths and her wonky waving. I'm loving how she reaches out for me and pulls herself into my arms, how she's delighted by mirrors and how her love of books is really taking off. I'm loving how she bounces along to music and bangs rattles on biscuit tins to make fun noises, how she lights up when I sing Christmas carols to her.

She's really enjoying social activities lately, so my new year's resolution will be to take her along to more play groups of various kinds. We currently enjoy visiting the library where we play with fun toys and books and watch the "big children" (toddlers) with very wide eyes, and going to our breastfeeding group and to Patchwork.

Sleep has been all over the place lately, but who cares about sleep when there's crawling and playing to be done?

She's pure sunshine just now, and it's wonderful. I love the way she throws herself into everything, and digs the joy out of it. I think I can learn a lot from her.

Today she tried chicken for the first time, and was SIGNIFICANTLY impressed! She wolfed it down so fast she gave herself hiccups. She's already had beef in shepherd's pie and wasn't all that impressed, I think the simpler flavour of the chicken was easier for her to process. We don't cook a lot of meat here, being somewhat vegetarian (I am occasionally eating meat while still breastfeeding in an attempt to keep my iron levels up naturally, after getting anaemic and finding that iron supplements soooo don't agree with me), so a lot of the protein in our diets comes from beans and pulses and tofu/quorn etc. So cooking meat for Audrey is a bit of a departure from the norm for us, but it's been quite successful so far! (Next stop, fish!)

On the subject of food, she tried pineapple for the first time yesterday and how I wish I'd had my camera to hand! She did not expect it to be so strong tasting, I can safely say. She pulled such a funny face! She quite liked it though, and sucked on a juicy chunk of it for nearly half an hour, gnawing away on the tough rind which I think felt good against her gums. Still no teeth, but they're coming!

Oh, and remember Audrey's friend Oliver? Look how they've grown!

They grow so very fast. It's breathtaking.