She walks!

In the presence of her grandparents and great-granddad, Ena went from a stagger to a genuine walk. Each attempt, a step or two more. Now she's a walker - but only when she must, there's no willy-nilly walking for no reason! It's still a special event, and what hugs, kisses, and claps she earns each time. Lovely.

"Hot" she's saying now. As in, the oven, when she tries to put her hands on the front, but also maybe other things she shouldn't touch. They're "hot".

"Hat" (often sounds exactly like "hot") when she takes mine off while we're walking, her in the front carrier.

"Mama" is getting a good run these past few days, a sort of mantra when she's looking around for M. Last night she had been doing this, and when M returned to the room and I left (we now take turns at nearly everthing - breakfast, bathroom, dressing, etc.) I heard Ena switch to "Dada" over and over. :) I think she's right, we should both get to stay home with her all the time.

Here's a two photos of Ena with her Nanny and her Granddad on the way to Powell River last week.

Nanny & Granddad visited

We were very lucky to have E's parents here for a few days this past weekend. They haven't seen Ena since she was born and it was great to have her spend time with them. She took to them right away - she seemed to love listening to Granddad talk and smiled easily for both of them. Having them here also meant a break for E & I. We tried to get some work done around the house but we also took a couple evenings to ourselves for dinner out. What a treat! I wish that they lived closer to us (or we closer to them) so that they could be a bigger part of Ena's life. I don't want them to miss out on her growing up.
One of the negatives of Nanny and Granddad's visit was that our schedule was disrupted. A small price to pay, I know, but all the change meant that Ena was sleeping less. She spent very little time sleeping during her naps and became increasingly stubborn about resisting them (tears, yelling and all). At night she woke more often - one night she fed three or four times! - and slept for shorter periods. They left this morning and I am hoping that we can get ourselves back on track tonight. I really was enjoying those 7 to 9 hour stretches of sleep at night!

Ena can roll over!

Like most new parents, we have been reading the parenting books to find out about developmental milestones. We knew that Ena might learn to roll over at 3 months old but because we hadn't given her very much tummy time it seemed unlikely to us that she would. Ena doesn't really like being on her tummy. She will occasionally tolerate it for about 5 minutes and then she fusses until we turn her back over. A couple of weeks ago we began making a more concerted effort to have her spend time on her tummy. In not too long at all we could see that she was growing stronger, but it still seemed as though rolling over was not to come soon. Well, on Friday (Nov.27) Ena surprised us and rolled from her front to her back. It wasn't a quick or a graceful roll, but it was a roll nonetheless. Even better, Ena's grandmother, Nanny, was here and able to see Ena do her very first roll. Over the weekend Ena honed her rolling technique and can now roll over in a matter of seconds - quite gracefully I should add. What will she learn next?