I love it when we're cruisin' together

My little cruiser is still going strong. That kid LOVES to cruise. It's super cute. She has even less interest in lying down than ever (unless she's being tickled, then it's sort of a different story). She is getting really good at it. She can pull up against challenging surfaces, like the wall. She can purposefully sit down from a standing position with no help. She can go from crawling to cruising to crawling again with no effort. And she is getting FAST! I was sort of expecting walking after all of this cruising, but I'm glad we're not there yet. I'm not ready! She does take the occasional step or two. So I am guessing that she is close.

She is getting more and more interested in table food. She'll eat her food, sure, but she's not that into it. But cut up (into little cubes, not puree) bits of roasted sweet potato and she is all about it. Roasted chicken? Yes please! Strawberry cubes? You bet! It's cute. It's so amazing to watch her grow.

We are debating it, but I think that Jocelyn has been saying her first word for a few weeks now. Mike does not think so. To back up, of course she can baby babble. Lots of MAMAAMAMA one day, DADADADADA the next. Da-goo! is a good one. But she does look at me and say "Ma Ma" (except for that one time) and does not look at Mike to say "Da Da." What she DOES do is look at the cats and say, "Ca." She doesn't do it every time, but she does it often enough. Sometimes it is clear, other times it's more like a throat clearing, and sometimes there's even a 'c' or throat clearing sound at the end. So I think that her first word is cat. But we are disputing it. I, unfortunately, did not chronicle it the first time it happened. But it was within the past month. So April somewhere early.

She had her first real park sliding today. We tried it once before with us, but she wasn't ready. And she has slid at Gymboree, but again, she didn't really get into it. This time I took her down the small slide then Mike took her down the big spiral slide. Oh the big one she started out with a look of fear, but once she was safely at the bottom she got a HUGE grin on her face. We thought that was enough playing (because we had already swung for a while after all), but it wasn't. When I sat her in the stroller she burst into tears and gestured toward the slide. It was adorable. So we went back to the smaller slide and let her slide down 'alone' (one of us always held a hand and the other always caught her).

I'm glad we did it, because it seemed to tucker her out. My baby has once again become the sleepless wonder! Only minor naps in the day, and a HUGE fit at bed time. It bay be rooted in teething pain, but it's manifesting as bratty, tantrum activity. She cries, screams and carries on. The first day she did it I thought she had a tummy ache due to all of the squirming. So I lied her down on the floor to rub her belly. What did she do? She rolled over and crawled (in her sleep sack, mind you), to her gated door and pulled up on the gate and shook it like a prisoner. She then reached her hands out, as if to tell us that she wanted to be out in the living room playing and not in her bed sleeping like a good baby should.

There are more teeth coming, though. I could tell because of the gnawing and drooling. But no more Baby Orajel due to the benzocaine (grownups should not use it, either). So that's rough. Tonight we gave her some Gentle Naturals and so far it seems good (the running around the park also didn't hurt).

Anyway, this got long. Gonna go enjoy my sleeping baby and go to bed!