Sept 13th - Week 22 - sitting up, exer-saucer

Boy did I have fun imitating mommy this week. On Monday night we played games sticking our tongues out at each other for almost 10 minutes but that wasn’t my biggest accomplishment.

Mom can officially call me a big girl this week! On Tuesday morning, as mom was packing up for work, my nanny Monica got to me to sit up for the first time all by myself. Mom and dad had been working with me all weekend to try and get me to sit up but I always seemed to need some support. Talia’s mom had just dropped her off at our house on Monday morning and Talia was sitting in the bumbo chair. Monica had me on the floor and I kept trying to get Talia’s attention. Over the past few weeks, Talia and I have started to notice each other. Each morning, Monica holds both us on her lap and encourages us to interact with each other. Over the past few weeks, we’ve started reaching out to one another and I’ve even been known to suck on Talia’s fingers like they’re my own. Since Talia was in the bumbo chair, Monica had me sitting on the floor looking at her. At first I was leaned really far forward trying to get her attention but once she noticed me., I was strong enough to use those ab muscles to pull myself up and spent a few minutes sitting completely on my own. Mom didn’t make it into work until almost 9:30 on Tuesday but she was so happy that she was still at home to see my new trick.

Now that I’m over 20 weeks, I’m finally big enough to use the Exer-saucer that grandma and grandpa Hadank got for me. Dad set it up last weekend and the tips of my toes are just barely long enough to touch the bouncy platform. The minute mom and dad put me in the exer-saucer, I started turning the toy flower. It makes a really loud clicking noise and really scared me. It took me a few days to get use to it but now I love it and I look like such a big girl entertaining myself.

Mom got a little ahead of herself with my progress this week. When she came home from work on Thursday all I wanted to do was practice standing. I was doing so well that I was even standing all by myself just holding onto the ottoman. I had the biggest smile showing off my new trick, that mom just had to grab the camera. No sooner did she take her arms away, did I completly lose my balance and tumble right onto the floor. Funny enough, mom was in the midst of trying to take my picture when I fell. She debated on whether she should even document this fall because she felt so bad about it but since mommy learned her lesson, and will never forget it, she figured she'd document it for me too. Plus, how often do you capture such an occasion while it's happening (and you can still see how happy I was even while I was going down)!. Daddy did convince mom that I'd be fine when he got home from work and this would be the first of many falls but mommy still felt terrible and woke up 3 different times that night to check on me to ensure I was ok.

On Friday night, Mindy, Scott and Riley came over for dinner. Now that mom is back at work, I don’t get to see Riley as often as I use to. We had originally talked about all of us heading to the Berkhoff Oktoberfest party together but decided it was starting to get a little too cool in the evenings and it would be too much work to get both of the strollers downtown. Instead, mom and dad decided to meet at the Oktoberfest party over lunch on Friday while they were already downtown for work. It is probably the closest mom and dad will get to Oktoberfest for quite some time but dad did pick up a mini-keg of the Oktoberfest beer to share with Mindy and Scott since we didn’t all get to go to the festival together. You can tell that I have German roots because as soon as I saw the German keg, I wanted to get my hands on it. Dad had to hold me back but mom and dad better watch out…I’m going to be a handful once I make it into my teen years!