Cruisin'

Emily can now cruise the bars of her crib.  She won't do it on her own, I have to offer something she wants at the other end, but hey I am not above bribery.  I'm extremely excited about this because I have been a bit worried about her lack of mobility.  She gets to wherever she wants to go with her butt and tummy scoot, but I was reading that babies that do this have a harder time learning to walk because their cores do not get as strong without hands and knees crawling.

It's also really hard, almost impossible for her to pull up on furniture from a sitting position, vs if she were crawling and could pull up from a kneel.  She loves to stand and she can stand without your help if she's holding on to the furniture, but that was it, she wouldn't cruise.  A couple weeks ago I got her to take several steps holding onto the couch, but it took her forever.  But between today and yesterday she has walked to the other end of the crib three or four times when I entice her to.

I'm really anxious about her not walking by her 15 month appt since her pedi wants to send her for evaluation if that is the case.  I try so hard not to do it, but it's hard not to feel like a failure if your kid is behind on things.  I blame myself for not doing more tummy time when she was younger.  Especially when her 7 month old cousin is about to crawl.  But, I am not THAT worried about it.  Like my husband's uncle said, no kid ever went to college still scooting on his butt.  She'll walk in her own time.....I just hope it is before June :)

She's started feeding herself a lot more.  I used to feed her those baby food packets either from a bowl and a spoon, or those spoons that screw on to the end.  But now she just grabs the pouch from me and sucks the food out.  I still have to help her so she doesn't squeeze the pouch when it isn't in her mouth, but man, feeding just got so much more efficient.  She can suck down a pouch of food in about a minute or two, vs the ten or fifteen it used to take to feed it to her.  She's also graduated from puffs to cheerios and we got her some of those Gerber graduates meals.  She fed herself a whole container of cheese ravioli the other day.

We try to give her some of what we're eating, but if our dinner isn't really good for little ones, too spicy or something, it's nice to have those meals on hand.  She's growing up right before my eyes.  Just in the month since she turned one she seems like such a bigger girl.  She's trying to repeat more words, she says mama and dada in the right context now for the most part, and when she has something she shouldn't, like a crumb off the floor I tell her yuck and she repeats back something kinda close.

We went to my brother's to watch the Game of Thrones premier the other night.  I knew it wasn't the best idea to take her since we left the house at 7:30 which is her bedtime, but I figured one night up late wouldn't kill us and I was hoping I could get her comfy enough with blankets and pillows and maybe she would sleep there.  Nope!  She was awake until we left just after midnight, but it was fun.  I took her over there in her jammies and slippers and told her we were going for a mini sleepover.  I'll be excited for when she can go for real sleep overs there and at the grandparents house.  I am not ready for it yet, and I don't think she is either.  I want her to be old enough that it's fun, not scary to sleep at a different house without mom and dad.

She got into the magazine pile and just tossed them all over the place.  She was surrounded by magazines.  But it serves my brother right, apparently he used to empty off the bookshelves every day when he was little.  My SIL was trying to get her to say their names but that's a mouthful so she tried getting her to say Sassa, which is what her friend's kids call her.  After several times, Emily finally pointed at her and goes Sassa?!?! of course it wasn't as clear as Sassa, but it resembled it and it was so cute.  Like she was so proud of herself that she figured out who Sassa was.

Greenfield Village opens this week, I'm so excited.  We're going to get a annual pass this year.  It pretty much pays for itself after not even two visits.  It will be great to go this summer and walk around the village, they have a really nice playground for the littles and last fall Emily loved riding the train and the carousel.  We can also go to the museum on rainy days and in the winter, and it will be free to see Santa at Christmas.  They have the best Santa, we went with my friend and her family last year, he was the nicest sweetest guy and they only let a couple families down the hall at once so it's pretty intimate, you can enjoy the visit without a whole line of noisy families behind you, and they let you take your own pictures so no expensive picture packages to buy.

Sometimes I forget all of the amazing things where we live, that other people drive a long ways for.  In addition to the museum and village you can go to some sports game anytime you want, the Tigers, Red Wings, Lions, and Pistons are all a 45 minute drive or less.  We live 15 minutes from the airport, and Greek Town and the casinos is a fun night out, not to mention all the theaters and opera house downtown.  I'm pretty bummed that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is coming to a venue in my hometown soon but it's a 10:45 am show.  I'm just not in the mood to go to hear the symphony play in the morning.  Though our night out to the DSO for our first wedding anniversary was a disappointment.  I wore a fancy strapless cocktail dress, hoping to get to spend some of the evening drooling all over the beautiful gowns people had on; I thought it would be like the opera scene from Pretty Woman.  I was by far the only one dressed up so much.  Most of the men had on suits, some had more casual clothes, but most of the women were in just sweaters and dress pants, and I even saw some jeans.

I totally get not dressing up for the grocery store.  Clinton and Stacy from What not to wear can bite me when they judge people for not wearing a complete ensemble including coordinating jewelry and handbag to go to the grocery, but it does bum me out how lazy our society has gotten for dressing up for formal stuff.  That is one thing Emily will learn the art of, which is dressing to impress.  She can wear what she wants to school and stuff, but my kid will never be caught wearing jeans or tennis shoes to a wedding, a funeral, or church.  That irks me so much.