My little Pearl

I still need to write a proper post about Lucinda's quick and amazing birth, but she's so busy doing new things these days that I thought I'd put some down here. Lemon's almost 11 months now. Good grief! This time last year I had swollen ankles and lived for my air conditioned room. Well, I still sort of live for that air conditioner, but the cankles are a thing of the past! Lucinda was so active right from the start and she really hasn't slowed down at all. Her path to crawling began by pulling herself around with her arms. She's got considerable upper body strength, so this was an effective way for her to get from place to place. She's been crawling properly for a while now and is fast! She's pulling herself up to standing on absolutely everything (regardless of whether or not it can support her). She does a lot of up and down. She's also cruising all over, quite proud of what she can do! As of a few days ago, she's also standing for about 6 seconds at a time. Slow down little lady! She needs a lot of supervision at the moment. I'm sort of dreading this next phase where she'll be standing and toddling. She'll need someone to spot her all the time. I'll try to put Deston on duty!

Lucinda babbles constantly and says "Mama," "baba," and "dehdeh" (which is her name for Deston), and lots of other sounds. She'll wave and say, "haaaaaaaaa," which we've labeled as "hi." We've officially decided "Hi" and "Up" are her first words. She says "up" quite often and we're usually happy to oblige. She claps, does High Five (she learned that at daycare), and is starting to do some baby signs. I've been trying to teach her the sign for "milk" since forever and she has used it once on her own and often with prompting. She also does a modified clap for "more."

She has a great appetite and enjoys eating lots of new foods. Yesterday she scarfed down some cantaloupe that I broke into little pieces, so now we're starting on finger foods. She still nurses like a champ. In fact, there's a cat in our neighbor's backyard that has a litter of kittens and when I saw her stretched out, nursing them the other day I knew exactly what she felt like.

Lucinda is the friendliest baby. When she was on the bus with me most mornings, she'd be smiling at just about everyone around her. It's hard to imagine when she wasn't part of the family.

Lemon!