Toys

Sunny is shining through! She is starting to show us her personality which is great fun. She is also growling. Seriously. Just this morning, she was laying on her changing table, "grrahhh, grrrrr, grrkkkk, grrrrr". You sort of have to be there, but it is so cute. She sounds kind of intense and frustrated when she makes the sound. More than anything, she likes the way it feels in her throat. That and the reaction she gets from grown-ups. It totally cracked me up this morning.

Below is a great picture of Sunny that Lesley's daughter, Holly, took while we were visiting a month ago:



Sonia is not just playing with her voice. Toys have become more and more interesting, although she is still pretty happy with faces and hands. For her, variety is a top priority. We are trying to avoid a mountain of unnecessary toys, but lucky for us, she is content with the ten or so we have on rotation.




It has been really fun introducing her to veggies and fruits. So far she has tried carrots, bananas, green beans, apples, yams, spinach, and squash. All of them except the spinach either I or Tammy just cooked and pureed. Mostly, I think the pure stuff just tastes better but I also want her to have a taste for real food. Not that I am a purist about it. We often add the rice ceral flakes and I do not hesitate to give her a jar when it is what we have. She always makes crazy faces when she is trying something for the first time so it is difficult to know what she really loves, but we tried apples and spinach enough to know she would rather avoid those two.

Of course, there is no toy like an edible toy.

First Bites

Sonia has been looking at our food almost as much as our faces when we eat, so we decided to give her some. We started with rice cereal, though from her faces you would have thought we gave her chopped liver (apologies to all you liver fans). I think she was just getting used to it because at the next meal she smiled as she ate. She tried some bananas at Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Jeff's house. Those were also met with surprise, then acceptance. She remembers to chew and swallow with about every fifth bite so most of what we give her ends up on her rather than in her. It's lots of fun!

We are trying to just boil and mush her food rather than use the jars. In that spirit, I put three carrots to boil for her. I forgot about them until I wondered where that smell was coming from. Luckily, I could scape off the bottom and they just had a slight grilled flavor. Then I tried to puree them with my immersion blender, which gave me a bunch of chunks. So out came the strainer...two hours after I put them to boil I ended up a couple tablespoons of pureed carrot. I then went to Amazon and ordered a food mill. Sonia appreciated my efforts though.



She also laughed for the first time! Alan went to pick her up at Jeff and Tammy's and she just got so overjoyed to see him, she laughed out loud. She smiles at us most mornings these days. It is such a treat to come in and see her start smiling at me in the dark when she sees me. Even though she is slow to wake up, she is happiest in the mornings. I am enjoying being back at work, but it is awfully hard to leave her when she is being so adorable.

Grass

If Sonia is cranky inside, she often relaxes and wakes up out in the sunshine. The intense light used to make her cringe and hide her face. Now she still closes her eyes but she takes little peeks to see if she can open them fully. We have been spending more time sitting in the yard. She pulls on the blades of grass. She tastes them. One day the chickens got out of the coop and were prancing around the yard but she hardly noticed that. On the other hand, she kept craning her neck to get a better view of the ruckus that the hummingbirds were making in the pine tree.








As you can tell from this photo, she is oh-so-close to laughing out loud. She gets so smilely and full of joy sometimes she can hardly make a sound. Eventually a little squeak gets out that is so close to a laugh, but just not quite.

Coy Pond

Sonia has something in common with her Grandpa Jeff and Grandma Tammy. They all love looking at fish.



When she gets fussy at their house, looking at the coy pond is her Grandpa's favorite way to soothe her. It works well, especially when he holds her face down and horizontal so she looks a bit like a fish herself.

Thirteen days ago, Sonia grabbed her rattle. It is amazing how dexterous she has become since then. She swings her hand into place, steadies it, then carefully opens her fingers and places them into position. Then she snaps her finger closed around the rattle or whatever she has fixed on. Amazing since it is something most people do without thinking about it. How is that possible? It is a pretty complex process! She is getting better and better and can now even grab stuff beside her that she cannot see. Luckily, dog hair is too small for her to grasp since her main goal is to get any and all objects to her mouth.

It will not be long before we are feeding her some real food. I almost wrote, 'adult food', but I do not know many adults who even taste rice cereal or strained peas. She looks interested in our food now. We still let her smell our food, but now I feel more like I am teasing her rather than helping her explore. Don't worry- we will post pictures when the big event happens.