Almost Up

She's getting close now! From her tummy, Jillian can push herself up on all fours for a little while. Here's a sampler video while she was in Castle Rock celebrating Cousins Emmy and James' birthdays ... that's Rielee next to her, watching up close.

Familiar Songs

Jillian has learned a lot of new songs at swim lessons, and she remembers them really well, too. Whenever Mommy or Daddy sings one of the swim lesson songs to her, she listens closely and then gets a big smile on her face. So far her favorite songs (that we can remember the lyrics to)are "I'm going fishing", "Motor Boat" and "Wheels on the Bus".

Sighting No. 17

This is another photo of our little sweetie-pie, enjoying a nice Friday afternoon on the living room area rug ... one of her most favorite places to play.

Jabbering

Lots more talk lately from Jillian, now that her teeth have come in. Once in a while, she'll just start jabbering, using her tongue and lips to try making different sounds. Here's a short video of a little baby-talk:

New Chompers

Jillian has her first set of teeth! The bottom two finally popped out of her gums.

Grannie Woodruff was babysitting Jillian today, and noticed that she was a very happy baby ... which was different from the past couple weeks when she was a cranky girl. So, Grannie ran her finger over Jillian's gums, and found two sharp little teeth sticking up! Now that they had come in, Jillian was all smiles and played all day and took nice long naps. Mommy and Daddy are very happy.

Razzy

Jillian just learned how to razz, and now that she knows how, she won't stop. It makes for a big, sloppy, wet mess all over her face. Here's a short clip of her doing her razzies.

First Nosebleed

While sitting on the area rug in the living room playing with her toys, Jillian rocked forward up onto her hands. She was pretty high up and on the edge of the rug. Then her balance shifted forward even more, and she ended up falling face first into the hardwood floor. It was a short trip, but it still hurt, and Jillian was so mad that she let out the "silent scream". Mommy got her comforted pretty quickly, and then noticed that she had her first nosebleed. After getting cleaned up, Jillian got right back to fearlessly scooting around on the floor.

Biter Biscuit

Mommy gave a biter biscuit to Jillian this afternoon for a playtime snack, and she was all over it ... and it ended up being all over her. Grabbing onto her food is a new thing, and she loved it, of course.

Scooter

As we wait for Jillian to begin crawling, she has found another way to get around ... by scooting. It's slow and not always predictable, but she can cover a little bit of ground this way. Her neatest trick has been to spin around while on her tummy. The other tummy movement has been going backwards when she tries to push herself up. Her third way of scooting has been while sitting up; when she rocks forward and reaches out for things enough times, she ends up traveling around a little bit. The more Jillian gets moving, the more determined she has been at trying to get to stuff!

Crib Time

The crib has turned out to also be a playplace for Jillian. When we're using the computer, we'll put her in the crib and give her some toys to play with, and she's usually pretty happy to be there ... rolling, talking, throwing things around. Her favorite thing to do, though still, is grab onto the slats and pull herself up, and then suck on the railing. Here's a photo of one of those times.

Social Needs

Jillian wants company all the time now. There are still times when she'll play by herself without us around, but most of the time she gets upset if either Mommy or Daddy is not in the room with her. As long as we're in her eyesight, she stays content. In extreme cases, she's not happy unless she's being carried around ... though this probably has something to do with the teething pains.

Greetings

Jillian always gives Mommy (or Mama, as Daddy likes to call her) a big, happy welcome when she comes home from work. She gets so excited, she couldn't smile any bigger if she tried (and if you listen closely, you can even hear a little "snort"). Here's a video of Jillian greeting Mommy as she walks into the house.

Roll, Baby, Roll

Just a couple days ago, Jillian started rolling from her tummy to her back with ease. She learned to tuck her arms under and lean her head back, and softly roll back over. So now, she doesn't get mad when she's on her tummy ... she just rolls back over. This has meant a lot of rolling around, which is a big change. Before, we could put Jillian in one spot and she'd stay there, because she couldn't crawl, and she couldn't roll more than once (onto her tummy). With this new skill, she has now been covering a lot of ground, rolling over a couple times until she gets stuck up against something. Our little rugrat continues to become more mobile every day!

Liftoff!

Jillian is taking a new route to learning to crawl. Today, she started trying to get her knees under her while she's laying on her tummy. With her arms holding her chest up, she has been pulling her knees in and lifting her tummy off the floor. It looks like a really low crawling position. Combined with the fact that, while sitting, she is now rocking all the way forward and putting her full weight on her arms, the whole crawling thing looks to be just days away.

Ottoman-Sized

For the last couple weeks, been helping Jillian stand up on our lap, or on the floor by holding her hands. And she loves it, so much so that she would rather stand up than sit or lay on the floor. She likes to tense up her whole body so that her legs will stay straight, though with the occasional bend that makes her bounce around. But she's gotten much better about being stable, so now she can hold onto something and keep herself up. The ottoman in our house is just the right size, plus it's kind of soft for when she bumps or crashes into it. Here's a photo of Jillian enjoying her standing-time with the ottoman.

Familiar Sounds

There are certain sounds that when Jillian hears them, she understands that someone is coming or something is going to happen. One of the more common ones is the door opening ... she knows that someone is about to appear, so she starts looking in that direction. Another one is the shower ... when it turns off (it makes a squeaking sound), she starts looking to see Mommy or Daddy come out of the bathroom. And of course, there's the sound of the bottle being shaken up, meaning feeding time; that usually gets Jillian excited, or mad that she hasn't gotten to eat yet.

Climbing the Walls

Here's a video of Jillian, doing her best spider-monkey imitation. When she's sitting up inside her crib, she immediately goes for the slats, grabbing onto them and pulling herself up to a kind-of kneeling position. It's hard to tell if she's trying to get a better view, or just wants to gum the top railing (she usually puts her mouth on it as soon as she gets up). Looks like we need to lower the crib bed down a notch.

Ouch!

The closer those bottom 2 teeth get to popping out, the crankier Jillian is getting. The last few days have been some very cranky days, with lots of fussing, crying and not much sleep. And as she has gotten older, Jillian has gotten much louder ... those are powerful lungs! And everything goes into her mouth, including whatever clothes we are wearing, or even our arms, hands and face. The icy teething rings are seeing good use.

Forward Motion

Sitting up just wasn't enough. Jillian wants to expand her range a whole lot more, and it looks like this is the start of things to come (see the video below). Every day, she gets a little bit stronger and tries to rock forward just a little farther. She's also gotten pretty good at leaning to the sides, holding herself up with one arm while grabbing a toy with the other.

Bumpy Gums

If you run your finger along Jillian's lower gums, you'll feel a couple little bumps that have shown up in the last couple days. It's not always easy to do that, since she doesn't care to have fingers put into her mouth ... she usually pulls or turns away. But it looks like those bottom teeth are getting ready to pop out! Jillian has really handled the teething pretty well to this point.

Shrimp

Jillian started her swim lessons on Monday at the YMCA ... she is starting out as a "shrimp". This photo with Mommy is during her second day of class.

It was no surprise to see Jillian absolutely thrilled to be in the water for swim lessons. She is going 2 days-a-week for about a 1/2-hour, and there were a few other kids and their moms in the class, too ... but Jillian was definitely the littlest one there. And she has a great time! The instructor has the kids play lots of games like "motor boat", "wheels on the bus", "humpty-dumpty" and on and on. Mommy helps with all the movements like kicking, jumping and blowing bubbles (though Jillian tried to drink the water the first time). Jillian smiles and talks the entire time, and splashes with her hands every now and then. This pool time with Mommy is turning out to be one of her favorites.

Noisemaker

Jillian loves to make noise! She has really gotten into hitting things, either her hand against something, or banging two things together, like this video shows.

It has also meant that being next to Jillian is kind of dangerous. When she is being held, she'll start swinging her arms around trying to hit something, and often hit us in the face. Daddy has started flinching when that happens, due to being hit in the eye a couple times with a wild fist. There's also been the threat of flying objects, because she sometimes loses her grip on toys when she's hitting them together.

Night Cries

Lately, Jillian has been crying in her sleep. She'll wake us up in the middle of the night with some loud crying, but when we check on her, her eyes are still closed. Usually, she'll cry for a bit longer, and then go right back to sleeping soundly like nothing had happened. We've seen the same thing when she's sleeping in her car seat.

We're not sure what's causing it. Maybe it's a bad dream, or maybe it's teething pain. Whatever it is, it's causing some fitful nights of sleep for all of us.

SPU bound?

It looks like Jillian will have a tough decision to make in few years ... UW or SPU? Here's a photo of Jillian with her new SPU sweatshirt that Heather's college volleyball coach JoAnn Atwell-Scrivner gave her.

Ready, Set ...

... and soooo ready to go! Now that Jillian can sit up on her own, she is starting to reach out to grab things that are out of her reach. Which means that she is starting to rock forward a little bit. She hasn't tried to go all the way forward, probably because she knows she'd go face first into the floor ... her arms aren't quite strong enough for it yet. But, she's getting the idea. When she can get a hold of the shag carpet, she'll latch onto that and pull herself up a bit. Those grabby hands of hers are really coming in handy now!

Jillian also likes to stand up with help. When we hold her up, she straightens herself up stiff as a board ... but then once she's up she also likes to bounce with her knees, so she ends up moving all over the place. The cousins like to say that she's "dancing".

Beach Trip

School starts at Castle Rock this week, which means it was time for Kids' Day at the Beach! This was the grandkids version of the annual trip to the Ocean Park beach house, so it included Ainsley, Tierney, Cale, Ty, Brock, William and Jillian. The adults included Grannie, Papa, Mommy and Daddy to keep them out of trouble ... while Mocha caused her own problems.

We went to the beach right away on Saturday, and since Jillian is sitting up, we let her play in the sand. She liked grabbing at the sand, looking at it and then spreading it all over herself (like the photo shows). Luckily, she didn't care for the taste of sand (she only tried it once). Uncle Rick built the usual "moat" for the older kids, then built a little "moat" for Jillian to sit on. Neither of them lasted long before the waves wiped them out. When we went back to the cabin, it was time for Jillian to take a bath in the sink to wash all the sand off; she managed to get the sand in every possible place on her little body.

All weekend, the older kids did all of the traditional stuff at the beach, and Jillian enjoyed watching the action. She loved getting all the attention from everyone, as there was always a cousin to play with her on the floor. And, as usual, she was fascinated watching the dog run around and occasionally licking her face.