Over the past month I have watched my little baby gain so much independence and confidence in the world around her. It’s like she has suddenly blossomed into this more excitable, on-the-move, inquisitive little adventurer. With September being my last full month of maternity leave, returning to work in October, I’ve made sure to do the last few things I wanted us to do as a family before the summer finally finished.
One of those things was finally taking Willow to the swings
at the park. She has sat in a swing before – on a day out over the summer, but
I decided not to push her because I wanted my partner to be there the first
time she properly went on a swing. We have a lovely little park local to us
that is surrounded by huge Willow trees no-less, so we made a visit on Friday
and got that first time on a swing box ticked off the checklist.
I’ve spent a lot of the summer trying to spend as much time
as possible with Willow doing fun and memorable things, not just for having the
nice weather to enjoy together but the fact it is Willow’s very first summer. She
is tremendously inquisitive and although she seems uninterested in crawling,
she can bum shuffle wherever she needs to be and can backwards-crawl from one end of the room to the other. She’s really confident now too, which bodes well with
her love for people and interaction, she wants everyone to play with her or
read a book.
Books are still, of course, a major part of our days here in
the TTL house. Reading has been a big part of our daily routine since she was
born and now we have a huge pile of books in every single room, so that there
is always a book nearby. In the living room, Willow will make her way over to
the little alcove where we have some of her books, and pull one out, wanting it to be
read to her. She particularly loves musical books and ones which are
touch-sensory. Let me know if you’d like to see a post on Willow’s book
collection - if you have a little one yourself I would love to hear what
your little one’s favourite books are!
Weaning is still going very well. We’ve found baby-led
weaning to be a lovely experience so far and really adore having Willow eat
with us. Whether at home or out for lunch, Willow has a try of everything and
is getting a lot better at eating the food as well as touching, smelling,
tasting. She’s yet to turn her nose up at anything and all of the main allergy
risks have been tested except for one; peanut butter! I have a new mini-series
on weaning coming up, so if you’re about to start weaning yourself or just want
to see what we do when it comes to weaning, I’ll be sharing our personal
experience with weaning so far.
We had Willow weighed last week and at 8 months she now
weighs 21lbs 2oz. She’s now just below her percentile line again and the health
visitor was really happy with her progress. We have Willow’s 10-month review in
November, but I plan to get her weighed again in October too, as we like to
track her progress monthly.
I can't wait for next month, to see how she gets on as we try completely different food now that we're in autumn, than the foods she's been enjoying over the summer. I also can't wait for all the seasonal dates which come along with autumn, like dressing Willow up for her first Halloween and taking her to see a firework display. Christmas light turn on's and her first Christmas too. An exciting few months ahead, I can't wait!
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