Our sweet little Ava is on the go! She is in the midst of a major "developmental leap", haha. This one is actually observable as we have seen her start to really crawl this week. Not only is she crawling but she is playing around with movement whenever she can. She reaches for toys then sits back up. She goes down to her belly, rolls over a few times, then reaches for what she wants. She uses toys, furniture, and Mom and Dad to climb on and pull up to standing. I had read about LO's getting stuck standing up in their crib and not knowing how to lay back down during this particular learning phase. Well yesterday Ava actually fell asleep sitting up in her crib and then when she woke herself up, she had a hard time getting back to laying down. The fun part of this is now once she is awake in the morning, she sits up and waits to "get up"!
Ava has had many other changes this month too. Mid January we started a gentle nap transition to get her ready for 2 naps a day by 8 months. Ava is now taking a morning nap and an afternoon nap, usually both around 1.5 hours. She is sleeping at night from 7-7 and during the past month we eliminated the dreamfeed, so Mommy has a full 12 hours off after bedtime begins.
Ava has tried a few new foods this month. She still doesn't seem to mind being fed mostly with a spoon, but we have tried to add in some mashed foods rather than just puree textures. She is working on picking up small bits of food, but can get frustrated with the slippery ones like bananas. She is still advancing in those fine motor skills and figuring out how to get the Cheerios in her mouth when smashing a fist towards her mouth doesn't work.
Ava had her first fever this month that was accompanied by some not so fun cold symptoms on top of that. She was out for 2-3 days with lots of resting, Tylenol, and extra cuddles. Now she seems to be feeling better if the never-ending runny nose would finally depart.
No big trips planned for February, but we are looking forward to our March visitors (Aylesworth's Senior and Jon Matzke) and beginning to plan for a family trip to Spain in May for Carlos and Carla's wedding. We are hoping that the Matzke's Senior and maybe Christina Matzke will be able to join us for a visit.
Happy Winter!
The Aylesworth Trio