She's Got Skills

It is amazing the things that we take for granted and realize that we actually had to learn how to do them. Even more amazing is the fact that children pick up on things so fast, without much in terms of intentional instruction. For instance, over the past few weeks she is starting to master the 'skills' of clapping and waving 'bye-bye'. If you think about them, the ideas of clapping and waving goodbye are quite arbitrary -- how is that placing our hands together ever became a sign of approval? Over the past few weeks, Lydia has certainly started to pick up on the 'context' behind waving and clapping - today in Church Lydia knew enough to start clapping when she heard others clapping -- she couldn't even see people clapping as she and I were in another room at that time. And waving, we no longer have to 'prompt' Lydia to make the action of saying 'bye-bye' -- she is getting to the point at which you say the words 'bye-bye' - she will start waving. She is one amazing little creature!

It has also been fun to see Lydia make the transition from baby food to real food, and start enjoying eating most foods now. She used to be such a picky eater and meal times would be more frustrating than anything. Well, she has definitely come along way -- all she used to eat was avacodo -- now she eats everything from Kale to Pasta. She even ate some garbanzo beans from my plate tonight, how fun!

It is hard to believe that is already August and summer is winding down. Fortunately we have been able to get outdoors alot with Lydia this summer. She loves to sit and feel the grass with her hands. We have also gotten to the pool several times and Lydia has become more and more fond of being in the water -- she is even starting to "let go" a little more and exploring more on her own. Probably the most fun that we have had outside this summer is going on family bike rides. We bought a infant bike trailer to pull behind one of our bikes and Lydia loves being it! Not once has she cried while being in it and she is almost always looking back and forth to see the scenery as she passes by it.