Andrea’s Weblog

Much-needed Update
I’ve been blogging here for about 3.5 years and this has been my longest break. It’s hard when you fall behind, so here is my attempt at catching everyone else up on our summer.

To quickly bring you up to speed:
Elena, just shy of 7 months, is belly crawling, pulling herself up to a stand and cut her first tooth.
Elizabeth celebrated her 3rd birthday July 29th. She’s definitely a little girl now with her own ideas of how things should be. She spends a lot of time playing with her dolls, dressing up in tutus, dancing, playing with friends and helping with her baby sister.

Elena amazed us all by learning how to belly crawl as soon as we set her down in Maryland at only 5 months old. I was not prepared for her to go from lying in one place (not even rolling around to get to things) to full-on belly crawl. Two months later, she’s still belly crawling at amazing speeds, slithering along like a curious lizard. We’re going to barricade the steps tomorrow because she’s managed to get her whole body up the bottom step. She sat there oblivious to her precarious position, quite pleased with herself. A few weeks ago, Frank caught her stretched out trying to reach something on the 3rd step.

At 5.5 months I took her in for a well-baby visit. She weighed in at 17 lbs 4 oz and 29 in. long. This puts her into the 97th percentile for height and weight. Since she had already outgrown her 6 month outfits, this was not news to me!

I might have blogged about Elena’s first tooth, that poked through when she was 3 or 4 months. That tooth was a tricky bugger. It disappeared completely, only to reappear this week! She finally decided to sit up on her own 3 weeks ago. I was beginning to think she would never sit up because she had no incentive to sit in one place when she could explore the world. Most babies sit up for awhile before figuring out how to crawl. When I attempted to demo her inability to sit up by herself to a friend, she proceeded to sit up for 30 seconds straight! I guess I learned my lesson on underestimating her. All she needed was that demo, and she went from not sitting at all to sitting all the time. I couldn’t get used to seeing her crawling around and sitting up in various places when she discovered something interesting to put in her mouth. It’s a lot easier to get things into your mouth and look at them when you’re sitting up.

Elena’s personality is so different from her sister’s. She is a very happy laid back baby who I think was born smiling. I didn’t realize how high-maintenance Elizabeth can be until I compare her to Elena. I wonder how this will play out as she gets older?

Her first bite of food was a banana, which she spit back out. We didn’t give her food until after 6 months because she didn’t have her own highchair and wasn’t sitting up on her own yet. She mauled a frozen banana, but I don’t think she ate any of it. Next she tried some avocado with the same result. We now have two Svan highchairs at our table and she likes to paint with bananas, but doesn’t like to eat them.

I can’t wait to see what amazing things she learns next week! At this rate, she’ll be doing the Bella Dancerella DVD with her sister by her first birthday–Elizabeth is counting the days till she gets a dancing partner.