On Thursday, J started at her new daycare. I was able to take a half day on Wednesday and bring her over for a few hours to visit, and I’m so glad I did. That first day (Wednesday), she stuck really close to me for about an hour. She gradually got more comfortable with the room, and even let Ms. Olga change her diaper with only a minimum of freaking out (I stood right there so she could see me). We were there about 3 hours, and by the end of the visit she was going up to the teachers and grabbing the books they were reading, offering them her toys, and generally acting pretty content and secure. Thursday morning I stayed for about an hour with her, and when I left she was all smiles as she played with one of the pushing toys. Honestly, the new daycare is simply amazing. There is such a variety of stuff to do in the room! The old place seems very very austere by comparison. That’s probably a Montessori thing, but after watching J in the new place, I’m excited for the learning/playing opportunities she has there. She seemed to really embrace it all!

Walking is continuing to advance. On Wednesday, she walked about 30 feet! There isn’t really a space that large for her to walk in at home, but the new school has lots of room. She has definitely started to get fussy about walking though. There are lots of times where she could easily get where she’s trying to go by crawling, but instead she stands up, tries to walk, falls over, rinse repeat. She gets very frustrated.

Using a spoon! She’s having some luck with eating from a spoon. She definitely understands what it’s for. The dexterity is not quite there, and she gets distracted easily and does things like dump the food out. But she is (slightly) less apt to take the spoon then try to pick up the yogurt that I’ve put in the spoon for her.

Words? I swear she says, “Hi!” and “Dad” or “Dada.” Does she use them appropriately is more difficult. Mostly? But sometimes she says hi randomly. And she often says, “aahhh-dah!” so I don’t know. But we might have a first word :).