Getting sturdier all the time

In the last week and a half, Lynsey has been getting sturdier on her feet every day. Just yesterday it seemed like she was choosing to walk everywhere instead of crawling! She still doesn't know how to stand up in the middle of a room, but she now walks away from furniture quite regularly, whereas at the beginning she would only walk when you put her in the middle of a room. I don't know when she'll be considered to be "walking well" because she still crawls most of the time, but her eleven month birthday is in a week and based on her progress so far, I will guess that by then she will be. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

We switched her out of her infant carseat last week. She is still rear-facing, but we're making a trip to La Crete after Thanksgiving and I think I will defy the law and forward-face her for the trip. She'll be so close to a year that I can justify it - I really don't want to make such a long drive at this point in her life with her facing backwards! What a nightmare! I'm looking forward to going home and spending some time with family, allowing them to get to know Lynsey a bit better. I made a decision when Lynsey was born that she would not grow up thinking of her family in La Crete as strangers. So, although the drive will be long with an eleven month old, I believe it will be worth it:).

Some more walking

So Lynsey has become a bit braver in the last few weeks. On Saturday, I was playing softball for Corporate Challenge and Lynsey and Brian were watching. There was a chainlink fence that she was hanging on to, and a few times she just walked away from it - out of the blue! There is a really short, somewhat choppy video at the bottom of the post - she had walked 5 or 6 steps away from the fence and Brian ran to get the camera while she was standing there, and managed to catch a few more before she fell. Now, some might think this means she's walking now, but that is not the case. She has become braver with standing over the last few days especially, so she is making some progress, but she is by no means walking. She clearly can when she wants to, but for whatever reason has decided to take her time.

As I mentioned before, I played in Corporate Challenge for BDR last week and what a wake up call! I am so very out of shape it's shameful. I have decided to become active again. I'm going to play volleyball in a league this fall and I'm going to start swimming again at least once a week. I used to be so harsh on people that would really let themselves go once they had kids, but I can totally see how it could happen. It just won't happen to me - not if I can help it!

10 months old!

Lynsey turned ten months this week - so crazy that she's that old already. She has started posing for the camera a lot of the time (see below - a lot of fake smiles!). She can be so silly! We had a fun long weekend. Brian went camping with his dad and other male family so it was just Lynsey and me for the weekend. On Friday we went to Three Hills for a girls night with my sisters and nieces and on Saturday we went to Banff to hang out with Brian's mom, aunts and cousins. I was a bit worried that it would be a stressful weekend, being away so much, but it ended up being a lot of fun! Lynsey did pretty well, with the exception of Saturday bedtime when she freaked and wouldn't drink her bottle. The good news is, she finally cut those two top teeth that have been hanging around for weeks now! What a relief! Since those teeth came out, she has been eating, drinking and sleeping a lot better. Her nights have been really good all week. She doesn't do so well at naptimes, though - she keeps waking up and crying before she's ready to get up, so she cries for a bit and goes back to sleep. Not really sure why she's doing that, but I'm hoping that it will just be a phase.

I went into BDR on Friday and told them that I'm not coming back to work. I had been thinking over the last week that I might be interested in working one day a week, basically just to get out and do something different. I wasn't completely sold on this idea, but I thought I'd pitch it to them and see if it was even an option and then take it from there. As it turns out, that isn't what they would want so that makes the decision for me. It seems kind of final that I'm definitely not going back now, but I still think it's the right decision for me. I know I'm ready to get involved in more things this fall so that should help me not feel isolated. I'm looking forward to this week because I can still participate in Corporate Challenge for BDR. It should be fun to participate in some competitive sports again, even if I'm not at the top of my game anymore:). Once a competitor always a competitor!

Lynsey's walking hasn't progressed much over the last few weeks, just as I sort of suspected. She still takes steps sometimes, but she isn't very balanced and as soon as she realizes we've let her go she instantly goes down to her crawling position. Oh, well - we'll keep encouraging her and let her get there on her own time!

Some shaky first steps!

Lynsey has been busy growing up over the last 10 days:). She is starting to love it when we read to her - in fact, we have found that when she is whiney, we just have to pull out "I Love You Through and Through" and as soon as she sees it she starts smiling and crawling over as fast as she can. We think she has a crush on the little boy in the book:). We've been spending quite a bit of time with Ruthy and little Elijah before they move in a week - it's so sad that they are leaving! We'll have to find another best friend for Lynsey:(. She shrieks when she sees him (he's the boy in the pool in case you don't know who I'm talking about) and follows him around everywhere. Hopefully we can still see them from time to time - Westlock seems far away!

Now I don't know how people measure when their babies start walking, but I think I can safely say that Lynsey took her first real steps today! They were shaky and a bit unbalanced, but she definitely put one foot in front of the other unaided and reached her destination (fell into her destination really:)). It was very exciting to see! When Brian came home we tried to get it on video, but it was difficult to do because we really were both required to try to get her to walk so we'll have to wait until there's a third party around to properly get it on video. She did do it again in the evening, so Brian got to see it which is nice. I sort of think she might do what she did with her standing and take some time off now, though (she hasn't stood for more than a second or two since that day she did so well). She seems to lack some confidence. She does, however, like independence, so I think that once she realizes that walking can get her from point A to B with a better vantage point than crawling, she will try harder.

To Manitoba and back!

Sometimes I think I should rename this blog "Lynsey's Life". But then I think, Lynsey is our life now so the title of "Brian and Sarah's Life" is still appropriate:). We have had a busy few weeks! After the campout we hung out at home for a while to recuperate from the drive, knowing what was coming up. We had some company over the long weekend and went out with Brian's Penner family to celebrate his Grandpa's 80th birthday. We did some shopping, finally getting a baby gate so we don't have to keep laying down our bar stools as barricades. We also got Lynsey this walk-behind toy which she loves! She's so cute plodding along behind that thing:). Last Wednesday morning, we departed for Brandon, Manitoba to attend Brian's brother Steve's wedding. The trip wasn't too bad - we stopped in Regina on the way there which was really nice. Lynsey loved the pool (as usual!). The wedding was on Friday and it was a beautiful day. It was a very nice wedding - I was a bit stressed out because Lynsey hardly slept all day and because Brian was in the wedding party, he was obviously busy most of the day. It was nice at the reception because we took her little walk-behind toy along so she was able to run around in that big open space. Weddings are not as relaxing as they used to be, that's for sure! Oh, well - I guess it's my turn to be running after my baby as she's crawling over to get into someone elses purse. We stopped in Saskatoon on the way back to visit my friend Leanne which was really good. On Saturday, Lynsey stood on the grass by herself for a long time! I put her down thinking she'd stand for her normal 3 or 4 seconds, and it was more like 10 - 15! Very exciting! She did it on Monday, too - often! I got it on video with her standing for 20 seconds, but since that day, she hasn't really wanted to stand. She starts crying and wanting to get down and crawl as soon as we try to stand her up. I think she's a bit of a scaredy-cat all of a sudden. She still does it when she's distracted by a book or something else, but we're just going to have to make sure we don't push her too hard.

A summary on how Lynsey has been doing lately:

Sleeping: Going through a rough patch right now. She got a tooth on the top a few weeks ago and she's cutting three more at the same time, so that could be why, but she is not herself these nights. Last night she actually grabbed my hand and was quiet while I was with her, but when I let go started crying like the world was ending. I hate to let her cry it out in those circumstances! I think she'll come through it like she has every other phase, I'm just a bit tired these days.

Eating: Not really so much fun right now! She wants to try all different sorts of food, but it's hard for me to know if she's getting all the right nutrients. She spits her food out a lot of the time which is really frustrating. It was much easier when she just ate her baby food without a fuss.

Playing: So much fun right now! She is so cute! She plays by herself a lot better now, but still wants to play with us and we are having a blast:). She giggles and shrieks and is happy a lot. She's very active, climbing up on everything and crawling around, but so far I haven't actually found it that hard to manage. I just have to be aware all the time of where she is. So far she hasn't gotten mad when I've taken her away from something, so we'll see when she'll enter that phase!