The summer continued with a bunch of visits to the Martin Family pool and a seemingly endless list of errands that you have when there's a baby in the house. We've started to give her some of our food at dinner and stuff, but the little thing still has her special food that we always need more of. At least every other weekend, we end up at Costco for formula (and free samples of course) or Baby's R Us for diapers, wipes, baby food, clothes, or any other random crap that Lily ends up needing. I'm getting to know that place pretty well. I should be foursquare mayor soon.
One of the best purchases we've made recently was a set of these standalone gates. It comes as a set on 6 so that you can make a hexagon and then just put the kid in there with their toys. When we first put them together, we did just that. Lily wasn't having it. I guess she felt like a caged animal, which is exactly what she was with that configuration. So then instead we set it up so that the gates went up around the entire living room, encompassing the edges of the couches as the other walls. So now it's like we're all in a cage together. We like to call it "the corral". I like to think that we're raising Lily free-range. Since she started crawling, it's been really good to be able to keep her in an area that we consider safe, while not keeping her in that little hexagon. Having the couches as part of this was also a good move since she started figuring out how to pull herself up to stand.
We have to be careful with the corral though, because if there're any holes, she'll find it. And when she finds one, she books it. It's liks she knows the concept of "freedom!" or "give us us free". And when she's free, she goes right to the stairs. At first, we were like, "oh it's fine, she can't go up stairs". But she figured that one out right away. I was pretty shocked the first time I saw her climb up the first step to the landing. The only problem is that she has no idea how to go down a stair. Well she tries, but it's always head first. Also she doesn't have the strength to go up an entire flight of stairs, so halfway she gets tired and without us there, she'd just tumble back down.
So in one month Lily went from army crawl to crawling to pseudo standing to climbing up stairs. Another thing she started figuring out is clapping. I think it started with taking two objects and banging them together to make sure that they're things. I thinking she likes the sound. So then we tried to get her to put her hands together WITHOUT the toys, hence clapping. It took her awhile, but she got it.
Overall, she's very aware of her surroundings. So aware that she's starting to get into the phase where she doesn't want you to leave the room. Sometimes. Like most girls, she either doesn't want you to leave or doesn't care if you even exist. One extreme or another. Or maybe that's just a baby thing.
She also had some teething days that were not fun for her, but at least it's starting to pay off. She looks very cute with those bottom teeth. And the top fronts are starting to show too. I'm just grateful that Danielle stopped breast feeding. I don't know how people have the courage to stick and body part into a hungry toothy mammal voluntarily.
PS. Oh and I finally mounted the mirror over our fireplace after 8 months or so. A few days before the earthquake. It didn't fall of course, but that was all I could think of while it was happening. Great timing.
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