mia Bella

My sweet, sweet, little girl. She's doing so much now! I can't believe how she just goes, goes and goes.

In the past few weeks we've conquered crawling forward which was shortly followed by pulling herself up slightly. Her Aunt Jackie tried and tried to persuade her to clap while they were here visiting, but she was more entertained by the four boys running around creating chaos. Last week however, she did it, she clapped. She was watching Alex do something and then he turned to her and clapped and she mimicked his actions. While I didn't have the camera in hand to capture the moment I can remember the look on her face when her hands made a noise when they hit each other. Most mornings when she wakes up on her own, she is so happy. She always has a smile on her face and lately she's been standing up in her crib. Yesterday I ran upstairs to help Alex find some clothes and so I could get ready to head to the grocery store, I came down the stairs to her whining. I hit the landing in the middle of our stairs and almost had a heart attack - there she was almost halfway up the first set of stairs. I still can't believe that she decided to attempt it.

She loves to eat banana baby food and will devour nearly a whole container of it. She likes some toast on occasion, strawberries, string cheese and of course the toddler staples fries and chicken nuggets. I can't begin to imagine where the last 10.5 months went. Pretty soon she's going to be one. It's going to be a bit of a lonely birthday for her. Her brothers do get out of school for the summer the day after her birthday though, so that will be an interesting change of routines around here. I'm going to miss this stage of her babyhood. The nearly always smiling faces and when she is upset it's usually a quick and easy fix. She loves to sit with me and still will rarely nap without laying on me, I don't embarrass her yet and she relies on me still for everything. All too soon she'll be pushing me away so she can do it herself. She won't nap at all, let alone while sitting with me. It's all going to come to an end so quickly and I don't want it to. Besides that it breaks my heart that her dear dad isn't here to see what she's doing now. I try my best to fill him in, but it's just not the same as being here for it all.