Long overdue!

I'm sure that's a mantra of every working mom, but I'm now getting requests to update my blog so that must mean I have at least one follower (happens to be Grandpa). Time has been moving at the speed of light these days, as has Ginger's growth! Hitting those milestones sure are fun. Since Halloween, Ginger has learned to crawl, pull herself to standing, and on December 17th she took her first "real" step! Since Halloween, she has also had 4 more teeth pop through, has had her first ear infection, and had the stomach flu. So it's been quite a roller coaster but we've enjoyed every minute of it!

We continue to see peeks into Ginger's personality, which is a blast to watch. She seems to be following in Dad's footsteps, in that she is very curious, cautious, observant, and has a quiet/soft presence. We thought this girl would come out larger than life, and in a lot of ways she is, but very unexpectedly she is calmer, softer, and sweeter than we could have imagined.

Now, that's not to say that she's not a chatterbox- they say some kids are walkers, some are talkers, and she is definitely a talker. She now has "mama, dada, dog, baba, nigh-nigh" in her vocabulary, in addition to all of the cute baby babbles she enjoys. Her first word was dada, which softened my heart and made Paul beam. :)

She adores stuffed animals of all varieties, I would have to say that some of her favorite toys are her stuffed monkey, teddy bear, and yo gabba gabba stuffed characters. She loves to hug and kiss her friends, she dives into them and rolls around on the ground with them as though they are her best friends. Some of my favorite moments are watching her show compassion of any sort to her little buddies. It's wonderful to watch.

Other than cows milk, sweets, honey, and juice, Ginger pretty much eats it all now. She loooooves pasta, definitely takes after her mommy on that one! Ravioli, bowtie pasta, tortellini, she loves it all. Funny though, that she doesn't like it plain like most baby books say they will. She likes pesto and tomato sauce, not a ton but just to flavor the pasta. Yum yum yum.

Ginger has moved up into a big girl car seat, which she adores!! She was definitely getting antsy in her infant seat, so we decided to make the switch and she is so much happier in the car now. She can look out the window and see all there is to see, and she loves it.

Sleep, well, you just never know what you'll get with Ginger. She cut out her second nap early, I've read babies usually don't drop the 2nd nap until 12-18 months (or later) but she much prefers to sleep 2-3 hours on one sitting, around 11:00 am to 1:30 or so, and goes to bed around 7 or 7:30. She seems to like to wake around 5am or so, so Paul or I will give her a bottle, she'll snooze for another hour or two, and we'll get ready for the day in the meantime.

Being a mom is so incredibly fulfilling- I get just as much back from her now as I give, and Ginger is such a sweet, snuggely, calm little girl. Other than when she's teething, of course, then Mom can't leave her sight, but outside of those parameters, she is pretty even tempered. Let's hope that continues!!