First things first: Jessica was 8 months old yesterday! Wow, I can hardly believe it…
So, a week since the last entry – what have we been up to? We have been to the playground in the park across the main road a few times. Jessica loves going on the baby swing and just generally walking about looking at things and people. We’ve tried her on the small slide, which she seemed to quite like, but she seemed a little underwhelmed by the roundabout.
Another place Jessica really likes is the library, especially the children’s section at the back, because there they have cut-out paper animals dangling from the ceiling and lots of colourful books in boxes that she can lean against and touch. (She’s not too interested in what’s inside the books as yet…) Most of all Jessica enjoys running back and forth in-between the shelves – exhausting for me who has to lend my index fingers for support here as well as at home, but at least a change of scenery…!
When we were at the library last, Thursday afternoon, a little girl (2 years and 3 months, her Mum later told me) came up to Jessica while were walking around, took Jessica’s hand and stroke it very gently and patted Jessica equally gently on the cheek. Then she started waving to Jessica in an encouraging motion (“follow me”) as it seemed she wanted to show Jessica a tunnel with padded seats inside, for kids to sit and look at books in. Jessica was more than happy to get the attention and I was quite impressed with how careful the girl was when approaching and touching Jessica – most toddlers seem to have a slightly more ‘rough’ way of dealing with babies and other toddlers.
At home, when were walking about, we sometimes end up doing ‘circuits’ – a particular walk about the house that she repeats a few times. For example: through living room stopping at highchair to grab hold of with both hands shrieking from delight on approach, then to the radiator at the bottom of the stairs banging the right hand against the radiator itself and then bending down to twist the knob (It’s quite loose so this is easily done – I do try to remember the setting before she starts so I can discreetly twist it back when she’s not looking…), then into the kitchen to bang on the top of the kitchen bin with the right hand, then over to the cupboards where we keep saucepans, baking trays and the like to open and close the doors a few times, then turn around and on the way out of the kitchen stop at the fruit rack and touch the clementines in their little red net bag. After this out in the hallway to touch her shadow on the wall and then grab hold of the push chair and roll that back and forth a bit. The different stops vary every day but she certainly has a few favourites, plus things I’m surprised she hasn’t spotted yet and dread when she will…
Jessica is more and more confident on her feet. She will bend down to pick up things only holding on to one of our hands and no other support. She also now walks in-between the sofa and table without any assistance, only holding on to the furniture. And – ‘stop press’ – today she pulled herself up from sitting to standing all by herself! She held the handle of a little wooden trolley / baby walker that Ian had bought her to practise walking with, so that she could become a bit more independent – Ian held the main body of the trolley so it wouldn’t topple over her.
When it’s just me home with Jessica, Jessica so far hasn’t walked with the trolley or walked along the sofa much – she seems a bit ‘mumsy’ at the moment and wants me to hold her hands most of the time. But when our friend Cara and her little girl Daisy came over to visit last, Jessica got so excited she walked with the trolley all along the sofa and then walked along the table supporting herself on the tabletop – just to show off, I expect…!
Weather’s definitely colder now, especially at night and in the early mornings, so it’s a case of wrapping up warm for our walks:
Gabriella