First's

Laura has had a busy week this week, and it is only Tuesday.

Yesterday (Monday 5-24-10) Laura decided it was time she helped to feed herself. This is something that Tara and Laura have been working on for some time. The closest Laura has gotten to accomplishing this goal, was to be able to grab her bowls, bang them briefly then toss them on the floor. A big mess is sometimes made (if there was food in them), and big laugh is had by Laura and whoever saw her do it (this makes me wonder if she has my diabolical streak), then we clean up and try again.

Yesterday, at her snack time, she purposefully reached forward and pulled her snack to her mouth and began chewing. She was working on two different items. The first one is a little cloth like baggy that you put chucks of fruit in to. The purpose of this device is to teach children to chew. The theory is that the child bites down on the fruit filled bag and some of the juice from the fruit comes out. To me it sounds kind of weird, but it is actually kind of cool. Laura was able to pick her fruit baggy up several times, and get it to her mouth to chew on. She did this with little help and allot of encouragement from Tara. She even worked on transferring the bag from one hand to the other.

Laura also took a rice cracker from Tara's had and chewed on it. In the past, the closest Laura had gotten to something like this would involve her grabbing one of our hands that had some of her food in it, and she would then pull that hand to her and we would have to guide the food into her mouth. However, yesterday she took the cracker from Tara's hand and chewed on it several times. I am hoping to have a video of this posted on my FaceBook page later today.

Beyond the chewing, she is getting better at standing. And, she happily drinks her bottle through a straw. We are still sometime away from her drinking out of a cup, but we are getting closer. She can hold a cup or glass all by herself though. I know these may only seem like little things to some people, but to us they are huge, and we are very excited.