Discoveries of the Month!!

I have neglected my discovery of the week(s) theme this last month! While we were down in SC, I didn't know how to upload pictures onto my parent's computer so I thought the post would be too boring with only writing.

Eliza has such a long list for her last like 3-4 wks. of accomplishments, though!

One of the biggest Discoveries of the Week is...

...She has a tooth! A very sharp tooth too! It's her bottom right, but unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of it. She always sticks her tongue out over it. She's really funny with it b/c it seems like now that she has a tooth she thinks she needs to incorporate in her talking and so she talks with her tongue over it... aka, she lisps! It's really cute and she also blows lots more bubbles now and does these tongue spray things too.


Eliza also learned how to grab her feet last month and is truly in love with them! Such a fascinating thing! I'm impressed at how easily she literally folds in half to stick her toes in her mouth!

Another discovery is that she now babbles, "mamamamama...!" Any mother would of course like to think that this is an affectionate gesture, and that their baby knows who their "mamamama" is, but I don't think I'll delude myself too much. Maybe that's how the name mama came to be, though? It was the first things babies learned to say so people assigned it as the mother's "name?"

But it is still sweet because when she starts saying it, steve or my mom or abby will be like, "Oh, do you want your Mama?" And she usually does (...want to eat).


When I'm holding Eliza, she really likes to put her arm around my neck like in this picture. It's really sweet-- sometimes it even involves her stroking my hair... but that often turns into yanking my hair, which is much less sweet.

A few other favorite babbles are "bababa" and "ieieie." Sometimes she employs the latter when she sees new people so we're pretending that she totally knows how to say hi!

The other day in Relief Society, I had her sitting on my lap, and she was getting bored. So I picked her up and let her stand on my lap, and when I stood her up she saw the lady sitting behind me and let out a very loud and excited, "IE!" and grinned at her. My visiting teacher was talking to me after class and said, "I didn't know Eliza could talk already!" So funny!

Eliza has also learned how to sit up or "tri-pod" as my mom the nurse practitioner in-training/pediatric RN told me it is referred to in the medical field. She can hold herself in a sitting position by placing her hands kinda in her lap holding her up. Although, this last week she's been able to sit up all on her own for longer and longer periods of time w/o slowly sliding onto her belly or side!



We also have had some fun developments in the food department of Eliza's life. This week we purchased our first baby foods- our pediatrician's recommendation was to start her on veggies so that she didn't develop too much of a sweet tooth preference for only fruit. So we bought some organic, no preservatives peas, carrots, and spinach! So guess which one we tried first. That's right, Dad, your favorite- PEAS!!

And Eliza's review is two thumbs up! She finished that jar off in no time! I tasted a little that got on my finger and it was totally just like squished peas and so I thought it tasted fine. We tried carrots tonight, and she ate those even quicker than the peas. I love her little green and orange "mustaches" she gets while eating. It so cute to see her smiling through a face full of green slop for some reason...

Eliza LOVES to be a "big girl" or one of the grown-ups, especially at the table. As soon as she sees one of us drinking out of a cup she leans in with her mouth wide open waiting to get a drink! It's really funny and not subtle in the least. In the picture above, I put her in her bumbo on the table while I was gathering some stuff together to get out the door.

When I turned around, I saw that she had grabbed that empty cup I had left on the table and was trying to drink out of it! Smart girl! We just have to be really careful what we leave within arm's reach these days.

Eliza's favorite song of the week is "I caught myself a baby bumble bee!" I think b/c it has really fun hand movements and b/c it's a pretty catchy tune, you have to admit. It's an infamous song in our family ever since Robby went out and really did catch a not-so-baby bumblebee in an attempt to make his mommy oh so proud of him and got oh so stung when he was like 3 years old. Robby has no guile!

Eliza's favorite activity of the week is reading with us while concurrently doing tummy time... at least, that gets to be her favorite activity b/c I'm trying to strengthen up her tummy time abilities. I've been trying to get her to catch on to the wonder of tummy time for a while, but she hates the part where I leave to go put dishes away or get dressed, so... she grows sick of it and starts crying very quickly.

So I've finally given in and decided that if we're going to fit any tummy time in at all, one of us probably just needs to sit with her while she's on her tummy. So we read books to her and sing to her and talk with her and grab toys and all of a sudden her tummy time attention span has quadrupled! Good work baby!



And my favorite accomplishment of Eliza's this week? No doubt about it, it was definitely when she was sitting up on the floor and I brought the soccer ball over to her, and instead of reaching for it with her hand which is clearly a ridiculous thing to do with a soccer ball, she started kicking it with her feet... That's MY baby!!!!! I'm so proud.