Stand by me

Bella has now progressed to standing completely unaided for up to 5 seconds at a time. She then realises, flaps her arms and falls on her bum! She's becoming quite the little adventurer and shows no fear in her explorations. Unfortunately this seems to mean the odd bump most days, sometimes even when crawling. She gets carried away with rushing, oversteps and topples. I guess it's all part of the big learning curve.

First steps with walker

Yesterday Bella managed to take her first few wobbly steps with her walker. If holding our hands she can "walk" and virtually run, but has never mastered doing it unaided. The walker always moved just a little too quickly for her and would result in her falling on her knees. Being the determined little lady that she is, she wasn't going to be beaten by it. Chris and I both think she'll walk very soon, especially as she let go of the sofa yesterday and stood all on her own for about 5 seconds!

Keep on cruising!

Bella has discovered the joys of walking along holding the furniture...scary times! For the last few days she's been up and down all day but has now started cruising too. We've had a few bumps recently from where she's just let go and decided to free fall and we haven't caught her in time. Finally after standing using the sofa about 50 times this morning she learned how to get herself back down safely. Hopefully this will avoid a few more bumps, but she does forget she's meant to be holding on sometimes and lets go. I guess the day will come where she lets go but stays standing!

Back from holiday

We went away for a few days break to Sierra Nevada for a bit of relaxation and a change of scenery. We stayed in a lovely little rural finca, just like a large house really, with 8 bedrooms. Idyllic settings with a couple of horses and three dogs. Bella had a blast and befriended everybody, in particular a small terrier type dog called Gordi (gordita). Gordi was an old dog, very patient, but I'm afraid our little lady did manage to test her patience by continually grabbing her fur! We show her time and time again how to pet the dog or cat with open hand and stroke, but look away for a second and she grabs a handful of fur and pulls. Gordi was very good about it though, but did start giving Bella a wide berth by the end of the holiday although she didn't mind sitting under her high chair and waiting for the good bits to drop. There were two other large dogs, a St Bernard and a German shepherd who were more guard dogs than family pets, but were also ever so friendly. So Bella had her fair share of different textured fur to ruffle.

We went off exploring the local scenery during the day and also letting Bella have crawl around time in the gardens and the house. It's so much harder when away though as everything is a potential baby hazard and we had to be right behind her at all times as the place was far from baby proofed. It was good to get back yesterday where she could let loose in our living room and not get into any trouble. It was a fantastic experience for her and she saw many different faces, heard different languages and lots of new smells and textures. She was a great baby and fell straight into her normal routine and had no problem going off to sleep for naps or bedtime. I think the fresh air increased her appetite and I wouldn't be surprised if she's another pound heavier now!

Bella gets musical

We had a very funny day with Bella today, in a good way! Since the teeth have come through she's back to her usual bubbly self and anyone who has met her will know what I mean by this. She always has a huge grin on her face and is the constant entertainer. Today she improvised and turned a cardboard tube into her very own didgeridoo, with a little help from Daddy. It had me in stitches while filming it!

8 Months old today!

So sorry there haven't been any updates sooner, but life has been pretty hectic here. Chris is on holiday at the moment and our days have just flown by. It's been a week (and month) for amazing developments. In this past week alone Bella has cut 4 more teeth - 2 front top and 2 more bottom ones. Poor little thing went through a couple of days of hell with them where she cried on and off from the time she got up to the time she went to bed. I wish I could take her pain away for her :(
We tried calpol, nurofen, teething powders, gel, soothing rings...the works...but still she was uncomfortable. Finally they have all sprung through so she is her happy little self again, until the next batch!

Developmentally she has come on in leaps and bounds. She is proper crawling, kneeling up with her hands off the floor, sitting up from laying by herself, pulling up to stand on the furniture and also standing unaided for a few seconds at a time. She loves being on her feet and is "walking" everywhere, obviously with the support of mummy or daddy! I really do believe we will have a walker before 1 year old.

She is weighing in at 20lbs and eating 3 proper meals a day. Her milk feeds have dropped quite dramatically but we ensure she has ample calcium in her diet. I'd say she only takes around 15-17 ounces of formula a day now, but plenty of cheese, yogurt, oats, cereal etc. She is certainly very strong and healthy looking so I think we are doing a good job.

This last month has seen her character really come through. She is just the cheekiest, happiest little girl and an absolute pleasure to spend every day with. She is so inquisitive and constantly exploring and learning. She finds many things hilarious and collapses into full on uncontrollable laughter...an amazing sound. She still sleeps like an absolute dream - 7am to 7pm and two one hour naps a day. We can't ask for better than that.

Time to update with a few recent photos I think and if I work out how to upload it, then a video clip too! I promise more frequent updates will happen this month and loads more photos.