Lily turned 10 months yesterday. It is very hard to believe that in just 2 short months she will be a year old! It makes me a little sad to look back on her newborn pictures and realise how much time has passed already. It is going by WAY too fast. But, I digress, this post is about how amazing she is, not about how sad I am that she is getting bigger.
On Thanksgiving weekend (the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, that is), Lily took her very first step with no help. Amazing, just 8 months old and already took her first step! But, it was just ONE step, many steps seemed to be very far in the future. For about a month, she seemed to only manage the courage to attempt any steps later in the day, as though she had been working up to it all day long. By her 9 month birthday (and yes, I call each month a birthday), she was taking a few steps at a time, maybe four or five. I was ecstatic! She was so smart and moving so well for such a little girl. For the next month she became increasingly brave, taking 14 steps without any falls or help about halfway through the month. By this time I stopped really counting her steps because she was now choosing to try to walk more frequently, even if she fell down, she would stand back up and carry on. Now, she can walk from one end of the house to the other without help and without stumbling; she walks fine with her big heavy sneakers on; she even walks over things without stumbling (much). She is still in the zombie walk mode, but she does try to run and she is quite stable. It wont be long before walking will just be another skill she knows.
Yesterday, she started to teach herself to climb DOWN the stairs! She was with Scott, she went down two stairs backward (the way she is SUPPOSED to go) before she turned around to try to go forward. Pretty amazing! Today, I wanted to see this for myself. I took her to the top of the steps, I went down one step and called her to come see me. She crawled to the edge of the stairs. She very cautiously put one foot on the first step. She would not turn all the way around. With one hand at the top of the steps, she held my hand with the other and started to come down the stairs sideways. I tried to help her to turn to go backward down the stairs, but instead she found the railing. She held onto the rungs of the railing and slowly made her way down the stairs after me. I did assist her, but minimally. My baby girl will be climbing DOWN stairs soon, too!
She has a few other skills that she has recently learned of which she is VERY proud. She loves to give kisses. For the longest time her kisses were big wide open mouth kisses, often with a tongue hanging out there, too – it looked more like she was trying to eat you than to kiss you. But, now, when she wants to give a kiss she goes ‘oooo’ which makes her lips pucker, and it’s super cute! She has learned to blow kisses. For a while, if we would blow her a kiss, both of her hands would fly to her face, but they would not necessarily land on her mouth, more often than not, one would land on her eye and the other would end up of the back of her head. Very cute, and an excellent try, but still not quite a success. Shortly after she started her ‘oooo’ kisses, she started doing the same thing to blow kisses, she gives her hand an ‘oooo’ kiss and then moves her hand away from her mouth – these quickly return to the big open mouth kisses with tongue…but at least she is actually blowing kisses. And, she waves. She waves ‘hello’ and ‘good-bye’. She will sometimes even pair her wave with a ‘heh’ or a ‘buh’. And almost always, she blows kisses immediately after waving. We were in the grocery store and a woman walked down an aisle across from us, the woman didn’t see us and didn’t pay any attention to Lily, but Lily saw her and started waving and blowing kisses!