Playing catch-up

I feel like I haven't been that good about keeping up with my blog lately. I've had other things to take care of, plus Leah's just been getting into everything and has been keeping me pretty busy these days, so I've been going to bed when Leah goes to bed. And since the only time I can sit behind the computer undisturbed is in the middle of the night, I've been just too pooped to blog lately. I've barely even had time to figure out this awesome new Macbook we got recently! And that's also partly the problem. I've had to spend some time transferring things over from the old computer to this new one, while getting up to speed with how iPhoto and Mobile Me works. Plus, I was running out of space for photos on Picasa and had to start a new account. So, anyway, it's in the middle of the night but I've had some coffee, so here goes nothing.....

Ever since we said goodbye to the ducky tub (which is now a fun toy to play with in her room), Leah has been having so much fun during her baths. She has always enjoyed bath time in her ducky tub, but now we've taken it to whole 'nother level. She loves her new Boon Flo faucet protector since it creates a cool waterfall effect and is very interesting to look at and play with, and I like it because it keeps her from hitting her head on the sharp faucet fixture, plus she can't take it off no matter how hard she tries. She loves to open up her mouth and drink the water and stick her hand in it while the water's running.






She really loves having the whole tub to run around in now. She stomps her feet, dances and twirls around because she's having so much fun. It's really hard getting her out of the tub. She'd stay in there forever if she could. Even after I've drained the water out, she still loves to play for a while and I have to be creative in coaxing her out of the tub.

She has become quite the little monkey lately. She's just climbing everything in sight. A while ago, we had to move the couch away from the wall because she was able to stand up on the back of the couch and hike her leg up on the ledge between the kitchen and family room. Nowadays, she has started to stand up on the back of the couch without any support. I'll hear her laughing or doing something to get my attention while I'm in the kitchen, and when I look over, there she is, standing up on the back of the couch smiling at me, teasing me. Now, I have to be really careful and pretend not to react while I walk over to her because she thinks it's really funny and will start laughing hysterically and dive back onto the couch shrieking and giggling. It's a bit nerve-wracking, but fortunately, our couch is not that high off the ground and we have carpeting.




She's also decided that the musical table is a lot more fun to play with when you're standing on top of it. I'll be doing something in the kitchen and will hear the table sounds thinking she's just playing with the table, and then I'll look over and there she is, standing on it making all those sounds with her feet.





I've had to rearrange the upstairs furniture again because she was climbing off the arm of the the glider chair and trying to get on top of the dresser. And now that the chair is back in her room again, she's constantly trying to push up the seat cushion and stand on the metal seat frame, which I really had to put a stop to since it's so dangerous.



She's also started to climb on the subwoofer downstairs to try to get onto the TV console. She's always been fascinated with our TV and really wants to touch it, so I'll have to do some rearranging again to make sure I don't find her one day with her face pressed up against the TV, drooling all over it.

In the kitchen, she loves hauling things out of the pantry and the fridge. We've decided it's just too hard keeping her out of there since she makes a mad dash every time she sees them open, so the lower shelves are full of things that are ok for her to play with. And she's also finally trying to get the kitchen cabinet doors open. There are a few single cabinets that we can't use a sliding lock on, so I've basically just given those over to her. It does mean that she's making a huge mess wherever she goes now and I'm spending a lot of time picking up after her.




The other day, I took her to another library to play in the children's section. This library had a lot of toys and puzzles to play with and the other kids there had fun with her. They thought she was so cute. She also had a lot of fun looking at the magazines and books, pulling things off the shelves, and so I just basically followed behind her putting things back where they belonged. She had so much fun, she didn't want to leave, so we'll be back soon. I'm going to start taking her to story hour at the library. Plus, I'm going to sign her up for a music and movement class this fall.



This weekend, we decided to hit some museums. Yesterday, we took her to the Natural History Museum and she actually got really into it. She loved looking at the animals and the other exhibits, and was wide-eyed and gasping and pointing at everything. She loved running around and was really taking everything in. We thought it was pretty neat that we could take a 13 month old to that kind of museum and have her actually get something out of it.



And today, we took her back to the Children's Museum and she really enjoyed herself again. In the little "grocery store", it was so cute watching her push her little shopping cart around, picking items off shelves and putting them in her shopping cart.




Other things she's been doing lately...

Getting all her teeth in.....canine teeth and first molars are all coming in. She's drooling like crazy these days and must be having a lot of discomfort. Poor thing!

Clapping her hands and smiling when she sees people on TV applauding (yes, we're probably watching too much TV).

Making phone calls. Beware! You may be next! Our new phones somehow make it easy for her to get into our phone directory. She used to play with our old phones and never managed to do this. But she's already called Beppe (John's mom) a few times, babbling into the phone. But Beppe didn't mind! She's also figured out how to leave voice memos on our phone that play on our answering machine. (I had to look in the user manual to figure this out). So we now have 3 really adorable little messages from her that we can't erase. And she just loves to listen to them. She knows they're of her, and she listens intently and giggles and thinks they're really funny.

Falling asleep in her high chair. She gets really drowsy while eating lunch and will sometimes zonk out for a whole hour and a half. Funny thing is that when she wakes up, she resumes eating like nothing happened.





Saying Uh-Oh! She started this about 10 days ago, and now she says it all the time when she (deliberately) drops something.

Pointing out dogs, cats and ducks everywhere. Whether it's on TV, or in a book or magazine, or on something in a store, she's still obsessed with dogs and cats. She sees them everywhere when we're out in a store. She shouts "dog" "cat" over and over, and when I look around to find what she's looking at, sure enough, way off in the distance, or on a greeting card or magazine or on some product, she'll see dogs and cats. When I strolled her through the pet supply aisles of Target, she was so excited, she couldn't believe her eyes! So many dogs and cats! We've taken her to a few pet stores lately just to look at the animals there. And the first words out of her mouth every morning are still "dog" and "cat". But today, it was Uh-Oh!