Ready to go...gone!

About a month ago Natalia, Irini and Laurence were perusing the Early Learning Center to find a movable toy that might befit Irini's recent developments. Natalia found a wonderful little cart named a Toddle Truck. Laurence thought Irini was not quite ready and might fall over and hurt herself. Can you say paranoid father? A few short days later they found the very same 'truck' in the home of our friends John and Melissa (and little Isabelle). Irini took to it so well that John and Melissa have now lent it to us. Laurence has been seen lately walking with his tail between his legs and his foot in his mouth. Natalia smiles a victorious smile. She was right all along.

Irini moves on...

Transportation leads to independent thinking

Irini works her way over to the table. She pulls herself up using the table legs for support. She looks around, finding nothing. She lowers herself back to the floor again and crawls her way to the sofa. Picks herself up, moves to the other side, grabs the TV control and plays for a short while before losing interest. Another short crawl later she finds her toy stash in the living room. She pulls at the basket and the toys come tumbling out of the basket as it crashes to the floor. Happily she basks in her new found independence of movement and the discovery that this has brought. Along with the movement, it has allowed her to understand her world better, to recognize new things and relationships. She is excellent at ripping things, tearing things down, breaking things apart, dropping things to the floor. She grows by the day, and we can't help but be so extremely happy to watch her and share our lives with her.

In the video below she's not quite roaming the apartment as described above, but mobile none-the-less and inquisitive, as babies should be. She discovers new things every day. Yesterday she learned how to turn off the faucet. Today, who knows?

Playing and Growing

Irini continues to impress. At ten months she can single-handedly remove every book from a book case in a matter of seconds. She can leaf through a single book over and over again for several minutes and then move on the next one. It seems speed reading comes naturally to her. She leafed through my copy of The Lexus and The Olive Tree in just about 12 seconds flat. Not too shabby! She can rearrange an entire room's contents with less trouble than it takes us all to reset it again.

Her favorite pass time, however, is to walk. Oh sure, she isn't quite independent on that front yet, but boy is she happy to hold one's fingers (anyone who offers) and just push on forward through the living room, the bedroom, the hallways, the bathroom, any space that lends itself. Every once in a while she'll sit down, take a short break, put her hands up, grab the said volunteer's fingers and push onward once again.

She likes to pull herself up to the window now too... and to look outside to the pool below, the lake just beyond and the distant mountains, clouds and sky. Or so we like to think. Perhaps she's just checking to see if the pool is available for her afternoon swim.

Laurence and Irini went downstairs yesterday to allow Natalia some time to work on grading and comments and such (the trimester ended Friday). Irini splashed her hands happily in the water over and over again. Her face, caked with a glistening layer of water, smiled broadly as she continued for over 15 minutes. By the end it was Laurence who tired first and, with a quick whisk pulled her out of the water, onto the towel sitting by the pool, and upstairs! Irini was in seventh heaven. We all are with that smile of hers!

Time flies. Time stands still.

Wow! It's hard to believe that a month has already flown away since little Irini was down with Roseolla. As many have visited the blog and worried about her, she has recuperated marvelously and has continued to impress us all with her daily discoveries.

Irini is now well on her way to independence, roaming around the apartment effortlessly and pulling herself to a standing position. Yesterday she even worked (with Daddy's help) on getting down off the bed to the floor feet first. The other day (Halloween night) she decided it was time to celebrate and she clapped her little hands together in a silent round of applause. She asks to be lifted regularly now and is often found sitting on the floor with her hands up in the air. We move along to her and put our our two hands, not to pick her up but to offer the support of our two index fingers. She happily grabs each one of them, pulls herself up from the floor, takes a brief moment to balance just so, and then starts a sometimes short (couple steps) and sometimes longer (across the living room) journey into walking. On occassion she will live a little dangerously and let go with one hand and take that one extra step, gingerly mind you, just to test out her skills. Then she carefully balances as low as she can before her little butt plummets the last few inches to the floor.

She continues to amaze us daily. She is as beautiful now, with six teeth (four top and two bottom) as she was with none. She is as smiley now as she always has been and her communication has become a repertoire of different sounds for different occassions. Mom and Dad are trying to figure out her language as best they can.

She is also now able to put herself to sleep. After just two days of the "new" approach to putting her to bed, she is comfortable being put to bed before she falls asleep, only to lie down and work on it independently. This allows us to bathe her, clothe her, feed her, sometimes read to her, brush her six teeth, and then put her to bed. Gone are the days when she would be placed into her bed while sleeping from her feeding. She's a big girl now.

It's amazing really to think that, in some ways, the mind plays games with you. In some cases you look at her and say "has it already been 10 months?" as she grows and develops by the minute. But then, looking into her beautiful eyes, watching her smile at you, it's as if time stands still, along with your heart. The beauty of parenting. :-)