New milestones every day

So what has Emily been up to lately? Our little girl is walking like a champ now and yesterday she was able to stand up on her own from the floor without pulling up on anything. She probably has had the strength to do this for awhile, but yesterday she did it! I counted at least 5x that she did it yesterday.

I've been working with her on how to get on and off of the couch or chair safely. She's not climbing on them yet, but when she does, I want her to know how to get down (and NOT head first.) When she's up on my lap in the chair, I often guide her to get her feet down first when she gets off the chair. Well, this evening I was playing with Emily on the couch and she was getting squirmy and wanting to crawl and move on her own. I left her to her own devices to see what she would do (I was going to rescue her if needed.) Emily has been paying attention! She let herself down off the edge of the couch feet first and walked away safely without missing a beat! Proud mama!

Jeremy and I have noticed that she is understanding more of what we say and it can be seen through her play and actions. Yesterday Jeremy asked Emily, "Emily, where is your baby? Go get your baby and bring it to me." Emily's baby doll was on the kitchen floor and Jeremy was in the bathroom. Emily pitter-pattered into the kitchen to get the baby and pitter-pattered back to Daddy and handed it to him! I tried the same thing today and asked her to bring me her ball. She walked away, but didn't bring anything back to me. We are still working on consistency!

Finally, I'm not for sure if I've mentioned this before, but Emily is doing very well with feeding herself finger foods. She's been doing this for over a month and she's definitely mastered the "pincer grasp." She is pretty delicate with feeding herself one piece at a time, but she will throw food off the high chair if she doesn't want it or when she's finished so of course we have to watch her. We just give her a little at a time. We haven't tried any utensils yet and I'm really in no hurry. (It will be SO messy!) We still feed her cereals, yogurt, and other foods that are too messy for her to eat on her own.