December milestones

I'm a little behind on posting, so I'm going to write a post about December even though it's already January. Claudia was 8 months old in December. We thought she would crawl by the end of the year, but it's slow going. She is able to twirl around on her belly and push herself backward, but she hasn't figured out her legs yet. She continues to amaze us with her love of all food, especially anything she can put in her mouth herself. She is really starting to understand "object permanence", which means that if a person or toy is out of sight, she knows they will come back and she can even anticipate it. This makes peek-a-boo especially fun because she giggles and gets so excited. She has discovered her tongue and likes to stick it out constantly. We haven't seen any teeth yet, but she has been gnawing on her hand and toys a lot, so it might be soon. Lastly, Glen has been working hard on teaching her to clap her hands by singing "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" and she finally worked it out and now loves to do it, especially when we celebrate and say "yay" when she does. Most of her antics have been fun, but two have not. One, she gets constipated a lot and does gigantic poops, so she's always grunting and hollering when it's time to go which is frustrating and painful for everyone! And second, she is really challenging us with sleep. She has never been a great sleeper, but once we got over the hump of no nighttime feedings, we thought things would be better, which is not the case. She seems to wake up even more now trying to get our attention and wanting to be held. That girl has a strong set of lungs and "cry it out" is not always an option when you live in a condo.

Big toothless smile.


Look at that belly. This girl likes her food.


See, she can scoot backward.


Backed into a corner.


Yay, meal time again.