I will deny it if you ask me, but I think I have to face the facts. My child is not really a baby any more. She is a toddler. Now, she's not quite walking yet, but it is literally going to be any minute. She walks holding onto everything she can. She holds our hand/hands and walks around. She has 2 different push toys and a baby stroller that she walks with all over the house. At this point, it's just a matter of confidence. She'll stand all by herself for 30 seconds, very excited and proud of herself, but if you try to get her to step toward you or something else, she freaks out and refuses. It's actually pretty funny. We say, "Okay, one, two, THREE!" and sometimes she throws her hands up in the air to stand on her own and other times gets fussy and refuses, because she totally knows what me mean by it. : )
Kalaya has officially said her first word! Some parents may have given her credit a while ago, because she has definitely looked at Nelson and said Dadadadada and me and said Mamamamama and Pippy and said Dododododododo, but not completely consistently. Today Nelson was leaving the room and I said, "Bye bye Daddy!" and she looked right at him, waved her hand (which she's done for quite awhile) and said, "Buh bye!" It was wonderful! And she's been doing it at the appropriate times ever since!
She is definitely learning more and more about everything. She gets into drawers, bags, purses, the dog dish, computer stuff, and the recycling. (no garbage cans yet, they're out of reach!) She loves to play with her cars and trucks, her baby dolls, stacking toys, crayons, pens (learned to stay right next to her with those, she drew on our TV stand this week), forks, spoons, bowls, you name it!
She's finally eating pretty well. (for her) She's never been a big eater (other than nursing!), but she's consistently eating 3 meals a day with a snack or two. She is experimenting with whatever foods we're having at a meal, but we still give her "baby" food as well, to make sure she gets enough to eat. (we tried relying just on her feeding skills, but her stomach would be growling late at night and she'd wake up crying and hungry) Her favorite foods are avacados, plain yogurt, oatmeal, cottage cheese, pasta, and most of the baby food we offer, which are a variety of mixes of veggies with meats and grains. She hardly likes any fruits. We've tried more than I can name; pears, apples, strawberries, mangoes, peaches, grapes, cherries, bananas and she spits everything out. We've tried purees, dried, fresh, frozen, hiding them in cereal, yogurt, anything we can think of and she clamps her mouth down or just plays with them. We'll keep offering them! She is very independent and loves to feed herself when she can.
Kalaya still nurses really well. I hear about other toddlers starting to lose interest, but that doesn't seem to be the case with her. We nurse first thing in the morning, nap times and bedtime, but she signs for it a couple of times throughout the day and doesn't just graze; she does around 5-10 minutes when she's interested. I love it and I'm in no rush to wean her, so it's working well for us.
