Hello? Maia?

“Maia’s sure growin’ and growin’!” exclaims Keana, and indeed she’s right.

The Communication Front
Maia’s always been our little squealer, often producing the loudest, highest, sustained pitches you’ve ever heard. After a few months she augmented that squeal with a low growl, often growling when she’s found something interesting to her. Not long after that she began saying, “Ma-ma, Ma-ma,” these first words confirming what we already knew; this is a mama’s girl. Then in August she began saying, ” Dada” when I appeared. Around the same time Maia also began waving at “good bye” and “hello”, sometimes with both hands. She also started shaking her head, showing a definitive “no” where appropriate. And just two weeks ago she began pointing to where she wanted to go or at what she wanted. Finally, just last week, Maia started mimicking talking on the telephone by picking something up—a spoon, a bear, her hand- producing a huge smile, and sometimes saying, “Hiiii.” Absolutely adorable.

The Movement Front
As just about everyone knows now, Maia started crawling at the end of August, and instead of just moving fast after Miko (the cat), now she moves fast to follow her sister or one of us around the house. She’s a master of the two carpeted steps we have downstairs and has even attempted the full case of wood stairs that goes between levels (not quite up for those yet). She also pulls herself up to a standing position on anything raised off the floor quite easily, and even practices going up and down, up and down. When she’s excited or listens to music she sits on her butt and waves both arms up and downs, sometimes with such force she pulls both her legs off the floor. Two weeks ago she started walking with assistance and it’s really fun to let her lead the way to whatever interests her. She also uses this new-found technique to kick balls around the house like a little soccer player. And to round things out, Maia loves to bounce. She loves to get up on the bed with her sister and jump, jump, jump. She can stand in the crib herself and do this, but on the bed really goes for it when one of us holds her under her armpits.

The Eating Front
So far, Maia really only likes yogurt, black beans, avocado, cheddar cheese, kamut puffs, zucchini, and tofu. She’s still nursing quite a bit and loves sharing sips out of water glasses. No bottle for this one either and since Keana stole her sippy cup, she’s gone straight to glass.

The Sleeping Front
This one’s been tough lately, but for the last couple months she’s gone to sleep pretty easily in our bed when Keana goes to bed around 7:30 p.m. Sarah would take her downstairs, lay with her and nurse her, and she’d drop off to sleep, waking up occasionally until we got down there, then sleep through the night. For the last three weeks though Sarah’s had to rock her to sleep for quite some time, then lay her down, which has been wearing on Sarah. I tried to help out once and I was greeted with a shaking head, signaling “no, no”, and so much crying that she actually threw up. Needless to say, she does not like her papa rocking her to sleep. Nap times are tough too because she really needs Sarah’s undivided attention to sleep, but with Keana running around and thirsting for attention herself, Maia doesn’t always get to sleep. So, as it seems to be with most kids, sleeping and getting enough is an issue, but for the most part we have been pretty spoiled with Maia.

So I think that’s pretty much the latest and greatest of the one called Maia (a.k.a Deedles a.k.a. Maimi a.k.a. Mimi Maimi a.k.a Snuggy Dugs).