Milestones!

We seem to be constantly amazed lately at the speed in which Rebecca reaches milestones.  It seems like it took forever to see anything other than a big lump of a baby laying in one spot.  However, in the past several days, we've seen so much progress we can hardly believe it!

First of all, we have a sitter!!!!!  The past couple of months, she's been able to tripod.  Basically, sitting but with her hands strategically placed in front of her to keep her from toppling forward.  On Friday afternoon, I was doing our normal exercise, and let go of her and she sat up with her hands out to her side for about 10 seconds.  I was clapping and cheering!  By Saturday afternoon, she was sitting like that for about a minute.  Yay!!  Here's a pic of our little sitter!!

 

We are also on our way to having a crawler!  A few days ago at work, Mike texted me and said she was doing something new.  He called it "London Bridge".  Basically she's up on her toes and her hands - like doing push ups...see:

 

She's been doing that for several days, and sometimes on her way down she sort of lunges forward a little - becoming very mobile - we are starting to really have to keep our eyes on her!

On Saturday afternoon, we were sitting and watching her and she got into crawling position and took a few "steps".  Nothing major, but definitely on her way!!  Here's a video:



I've decided not to tell the details of the story of the horrible mother I am where she fell out of her highchair on my watch (because of mommy not latching the tray very good) and the bruise she now has on her arm.  Let's just say I've learned a lesson.  And have also learned that babies are resilient. 

We also began our official sleep training on Friday night.  For those of you familiar with some of those techniques, we are doing a version of Feberizing.  Basically, they wake up in the night and start to cry and you let them cry for a few minutes.  Then you go in and reassure them - not picking them or anything.  Then you go back out after a  minute and you let them keep crying  - increasing the intervals in between when you go back in.  Friday night, she woke up at about 11:30 and cried for about 30 minutes but then she slept.  Last night, she woke up once at around 3 and cried for only about a minute and went back to sleep.  We didn't even have to go through the entire interval process.  Fingers crossed that we have progress.  Letting her cry was one of the hardest things I've had to do.  It is not natural to ask a mother not to go to her crying baby.  BUT...it is also not natural to have a girl going off to college who still needs a pacifier to sleep through the night.  So, we do what we have to do!!

We also might have a budding artist on our hands!  The other night, some food got on her tray and she started finger painting with it.  I don't know about you, but I see a masterpiece!

And just for fun - a few other cute pictures from the week.  Just so you know, we did NOT let her drink soda - she was just being a helper and holding the cup for daddy!