I’ve added a widget of some of Miss Leyba’s favorite books and toys for those of you in the market for baby gifts. See the right hand column for some of Miss Leyba and my loves.
We highly recommend Haba’s German-made Fantasy Blocks
An extra perk: evidently they are absolutely delicious.
Someone just loves keeping me company in the kitchen.
I open the fridge and she heads straight for it.
And she now knows where the metal bowls and colanders are kept.
She also likes to unpack groceries. Now isn’t that so helpful?!
It actually works out great because Miss Leyba has entered the long awaited mama-must-be-right-next-to-me stage, so if she’s busy playing at my feet, at least I know she isn’t getting into too much trouble while I fix dinner.
In August we visited our families on the East Coast. Two months later I am finally posting pictures. Here are some of the highlights.
At my parents house:
Miss Leyba LOVED the dogs we met:
We finished up the trip with a visit to David’s aunt and uncle’s beach house at the Jersey shore:
It was a great trip.
Dear sweetie,
This month you have been on the go, go, go!
You crawl fast everywhere! I may occasionally want you to crawl over by me or follow me around while I do chores around the house; but no, you have your own agenda. You have places to explore and things to do. You are an independent woman and your dad and I love it.
Last month was about learning how to crawl; this month you have been working on climbing and cruising the furniture, and practicing sitting down from standing (which you have nailed, by the way). You love climbing up, over, and down things (yoga bolsters, our futon, people!).
This month you’ve also enjoyed picking up, and eating, teeny tiny things. I am constantly pulling stuff out of your mouth. Sorry, sweetie! I think we’re all looking forward to the end of the “into-the-mouth” phase.
For your father and I the highlight of the month was your saying “dada” and “daddy” and “mama” and “mommy!” For the most part you only say my name when you really need me (right now!), but you’re slowly starting to say it more frequently (you say dada all the time now!). My heart melts every time.
You give us kisses. They are open mouthed and very wet and absolutely adorable. (You’ve been doing this for a while now but I think I’ve forgotten to mention it earlier.)
We’ve been practicing sign language and you now make signs for “milk” and occasionally “daddy” (especially before you learned how to say it!). I’ve also caught you signing “more.”
You bring your hands together to clap, though you haven’t yet figured out how to make the clapping noise. I bet you’ll figure that out soon. You adore it when we clap for you and make music together.
You love knocking down towers of blocks.
You get such a kick out of this remix of Feist’s 1 2 3 4 on Sesame Street. Dad and I now sing it to you all the time. At home. In the car. Out on walks. Anytime you need a little bit of a pick me up. It makes you smile and giggle. You also kick your feet wildly when we watch the video.
This month we started taking outings every day. Our activity schedule is as follows: mama baby yoga, baby story time at the library, and walks down to the park (sand, swings, and slides, oh my!) where we play with your 11 month old friend whom you idolize.
We also go for walks down to the neighborhood bookstore. You are very social, smiling at everyone, and folks who meet you always remark on how adorable and precocious you are.
You are such a beautiful baby — inside and out!
We love you!
Love,
Mama
Dear sweetie,
I know this letter is a couple days weeks late, but I was faced with the choice of spending time with you or writing to you… and frankly there was no comparison — I’ll pick hanging with you every time. So let’s just pretend I posted it on time, okay?
Today you are seven months old! Last month was huge for you developmentally and socially. Here’s the lowdown:
You started eating solid foods. We’re not sure if you dig bananas, butternut squash, banana or avocado yet, but you certainly like eating with us and feeding yourself with your spoon.
You love to suck on strings, ribbons and washcloths.
Everything goes into your mouth. I am constantly repeating, “books are for reading not for eating.”
You have gotten very, very, very good at turning book pages. Sometimes I think you only like story time for the physical activity of page turning.
You sit for hours on your own and rarely fall over or backwards. We’ve banished the boppy.
At six months old you learned to crawl though it took you over two weeks to realize what you were doing exactly. We think you now understand that you can crawl to get places (like towards the kitchen from the living room when I was making Daddy and I breakfast this morning).
You drop from standing to sitting and move from lying down to sitting easily. You are constantly trying to roll over and/or sit up during diaper changes. Now that is what we call fun.
You stand beautifully now with support (i.e. holding on to one of our fingers). You can also pull/push yourself up to standing with one hand… we’ve caught you standing up on her own without any support a few times now too.
You are just starting to cruise the furniture though you’ve taken just a few steps so far.
You are constantly doing the downward facing dog yoga pose. You look extra cute with your tushy pointing up.
You like to feeds yourself solid foods; you’re so not interested in us feeding you. Plus you get to chew and suck on the spoon when you feed yourself. SO much fun.
You are dropped the baby fat and quickly becoming a lean, muscular, constantly moving machine.
You are making all sorts of new sound combinations. This week you are very into ah-ba, ba-ba-ba, wah-wah-wah, ah-ah-ah.
You are fascinated with children and dogs. Adults are pretty cool too, but you LOVE kids and puppies.
Our pediatrician was very impressed with you and told us that you’re about six months of ahead of schedule developmentally. Taking after your Daddy! No pressure to continue on this advanced pace though. We love you no matter what.
And the big news — you now nurse to sleep! THANK YOU, sweetie! We so appreciate it. It’s so much easier cuddling with you while you eat yourself to sleep than rocking you to sleep. Even if you like to crawl onto your tummy to eat (when we’re lying down). Evidently this is the new comfy position. We need to get a picture of it. You have to see it to believe it.
You also quite frequently fall asleep in the car.
You are SO cute!
We love you!
Love, Mama