Baby Love

Marissa, my baby love.

Marissa started crawling right before Christmas and then really took off right after that. While she does try the traditional hands-and-knees crawl now and again, she prefers the commando style, and is quite proficient at it. The director of the school jokes that if she were in a crawling contest, she would win hands down. Marissa makes mad dashes for the classroom door when someone comes or goes, trying to escape. At home, she really just heads straight for Laurens toys, usually the dollhouse or the baby doll crib and stroller. Lauren actually picked her baby's stroller up last night and moved it to the front room where "it would be safe".


She stands too. Marissa is not particular about what she chooses as help in getting upright - it may be a chair, or your arms, or your pajama bottoms. As long as it helps her to stand, anything is fair game.


Yesterday, Marissa found her voice and in a big way: she said "dada" about a thousand times, loudly, and we were beyond excited. My poor little baby has been sick since she turned six months old at the end of October: she's had one ear infection after another, with a couple of other random illnesses thrown in for good measure. She currently has a double ear infection, newly diagnosed this morning, which earns us a visit to the ENT in two weeks and tubes seem inevitable. We are pretty sure she has not been able to hear since this all began and so she has not spoken. There has been no babbling or consonant sounds, which is worrisome, so when she popped out with all of her dada's last night, it was really a big deal to us. She can be as loud as she wants to be at this point, no one in this house is going to complain and quite honestly, she fits right in. We might just be a loud family, which is A-OK by me.

She is trying to get the yogurt melts to her mouth but isn't too concerned that she missed.