Bella Monkey

Over the past two weeks, Annabelle has learned to crawl. Getting to her desired location was slow at first, but now she's fast enough to get into trouble. Bella started with a wheelbarrow style, planting her face on the ground and pushing forward with her legs. I was glad when she learned to hold her head up, but it took a few more days before she actually started using her arms to help her move. Now Bella is exploring everywhere, and she has a knack for finding something that she's not supposed to have and heading straight for it. I have to keep an eye on her even during a quick task such as washing my hands after a diaper change.

Annabelle is our little wiggle worm, always moving. She loves to flip upside down and do other baby gymnastics. Perhaps her favorite activity is watching her big sister, which always makes her smile. When she is excited, Bella bounces and bounces and flaps her arms.

One of the cutest things Bella does is play peek-a-boo, which she figured out all by herself. If she gets ahold of a piece of cloth, then she'll hide and wait for you to notice, then she'll pull the cloth away from her face to reveal a huge smile. Peek-a-boo is so exciting that she usually bounces a few times before she hides again. The easiest way to get this little wiggle worm to be still enough for a diaper change is to give her a burp cloth to play peek-a-boo with.

Bella recently mastered clapping to make a clapping sound. She's signing "more" and "eat" and working on "all done." She pulls up on everything and will sometimes begin to cruise. There are so many new gross motor skills to practice, Annabelle certainly keeps busy. She's perfecting some fine motor skills as well; she uses the pincer grasp to pick out all the fruit bits first when I give her fruit and Cheerios.