Status of Whitney Paige

I have a lot of updating to do on the status of Whitney Paige. It seems that in the last two weeks, she has really turned a developmental leaf! Just a month ago, she was still a wobbly-sitter-now she is sitting, positioning herself on all fours to crawl, inch-worming, rolling and scooting to where she wants to go and ALMOST getting into the sitting position from laying down.

It really is remarkable to watch her learn things and to push herself developmentally. She will likely be a full-on crawler in a week or two.

My new favorite thing that Whitney Paige has learned to do is give kisses. When the mood is right (isn't that true for all of us!) she will lean in with an open-mouth, half grin face. She plants one on, without making the kissing noise, and just rests her lips on our cheeks. It's too funny. I laughed so much when she first started doing this, that now, she plants her kiss and giggles! It's hilarious. She has given kisses to Mommy, Daddy, Hannah, herself (in the mirror), Aunt Whitney and the lady bugs in her favorite story book.

In other big, baby news...Whitney Paige has said her first word...and wouldn't you know, it's Da-da. She likes to coo, ahh, laa, laa and now Da-da-da-da-da. The funniest part is that I swear she looks at me with a smirk as she says it...Almost like "Yeah, what are you gonna do about it ma-ma-ma-mama?" Only she doesn't say it-or anything relatively close to the M-word. I will remember this in years to come when she says "Mooooommmmy, Maaama, Mother, etc." I will smirk and simply respond "Da-da-da-da".

In random, Connley household news. Clark is training for the Flying Pig marathon. He and my dad are planning to run the 26.2 miler on May 1. I am planning to cheer for them and feed them when they return home. I have been THINKING about getting in shape. It's not high on the list--well, it is, but time is a problem. As the weather started to warm up, I took goosey for a couple walks. At least its some movement in my tired, lazy bones.

We have also made a new purchase-which I think will make my blog better! We have a wonderful Nikon camera but we bought a manual lens for it. It's very tricky to get a good photo with manual focus-at least when you are not a pro-photog. Clark has researched and with the assistance of Whitney, purchased the better, auto-focus lens. I hope this makes life easier.

We also had to purchase another car seat. We had been given a Graco My Ride 65 (another Whitney reco). My family gave it to us at our family baby-shower. However, Clark does the morning drop off and I do the evening pick up. So, two seats are in our future. We chose the same seat, but in black and gray-to match the interior of Clark's car. I feel a bit badly that WP doesn't have a girly-girl car seat, but if a second baby were to join our family (this is NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT) we would want to repurpose the seats. I thought gender-neutral would be better. After all, if a second baby were a boy, he'd have a purple bedroom with Beatrix Potter decor. The least he deserves is a non-pink car seat! I am secretly thrilled with the purchase (i LOVE baby gear!). I sat her in the new car seat yesterday (in her nursery) and just stared at what a big girl we have. I remember opening the car seat last June, thinking "This is for a BIG kid"...and now, 8 months (and a day) later, we are there!

I have several new photos and videos to share that document a lot of the changes that our sweet pea is going through. I promise an all-photo/video post this weekend. It's long overdue.