Toddler

Well, today I am the mommy of a toddler. She went from those few deliberate steps to taking many steps between things and even purposefully walking to get to something she wanted.

While we were out today at Hallmark, she wanted to be put down again. Once I did, she started pulling me around the store to look at stuff. Eventually, I didn't want to let her near a display so she pulled her hand out of mine and just walked over to it. She had taken a few steps earlier that morning, but this was impressive.

Once Chrys got home, it was apparently time to really show off the new 'skillz'. She decided to walk almost everywhere - around the kitchen, the living room, between rooms. I guess if I'm going to get some video or pix of her crab lady crawl I better get her on a hard surface tomorrow.

She's very close to having another tooth. I think her left front top tooth is about to break through. She's gnawing on anything she can get her hands on, including the foot rail to our bed (which now has LOTS of little baby teeth marks on it). I think this is also the cause for her snifflies. Poor baby! I just hope it clears before we get on the plane.

I need to go get some simply stuffy tomorrow and see if that will help her nose so she can get some better rest. The past couple of nights she's woken only because she can't breathe. After almost a week of sleeping 7:30p to 6:00a, this was quite a blow.

She went through a period of chewing on her blanket while she went to sleep. While not all that bad, she liked to get her bottom teeth hooked in the weave and tug. I don't want her to hurt her blankets from Grandma so I try to distract her with her teether bunny. The ears seem to make an acceptable alternative.

Also, she doesn't seem to like the feel of grass on her legs. We were at Kity's a few weeks ago and Kity kept putting her down in the grass. She would sit with one leg up in the air or try to balance on Kity's legs (which since she's about half the size of Kity is impressive). She wanted to play in it, though, so not wanting to sit in it while she played presented something of a challenge. She even holds her feet funny when we let her walk in it. Such an odd child.

Only a few more days until I head out of town with R on my own. I'm still semi-worried about how this is going to go. Lucky(?) for me, she's still very mommy-centric so we won't have too much separation anxiety to deal with. I think R will be fine (other than deciding to walk RIGHT before we get on a plane...ugh!), but I have no idea how I'll do. Between wanting to walk, teething and stuffy noses, this could be quite a miserable experience. I'm hoping for the best, though.