Alrighty, here we go.... (or: one mother of a blog post)

I'm at that blogging point right now where there is just so much new stuff that I feel very daunted by the task of trying to put everything in. Yes, I've certainly been there before, but I swear that it is especially hard to keep up with Juniper these days! Perhaps I'll start where I left off last time: all of Juniper's new tricks.

1. On the move
I had mentioned that Juniper seemed to be close to crawling, and that perhaps I'd be able to show some footage by the time I posted. Well, she's not actually crawling at this point (although she often pulls herself to her hands and knees, and sometimes her hands and feet), but that doesn't mean she's stationary. Instead, she has developed her own way of motoring around: rolling. Yes, I know, the whole rolling thing is old news, but Juniper now rolls with determination. She rolls with a mission. And she rolls from one end of the room to the other if it suits her. Here is a little example of her daily romping about:

2. Standing
For many months now, Juniper has enjoyed bouncing, and every time she was on our lap, we'd give her some time to use her legs, making them very strong from a young age. More recently, however, she began showing an interest in pulling herself up. At first this was assisted - any time she was sitting, if you held your hands out to her, she would immediately try pulling herself to standing (with a little help, of course, from the person who was holding her hands). Now, however, she is a pro at getting herself up. As long as she is sitting in front of something that is the right height for her, she grabs a hold, and up she goes. Then she likes a little acknowledgment - perhaps some cheers and applause - and she'll look to see what fun things she can do from her new vantage point. Here's a little montage of some examples:

3. Scrunchy face!
Well, this isn't so much a trick as a new thing that Juniper has been doing for a few weeks. It goes along with her increasingly saucy attitude. At various point throughout the day, Juniper will scrunch up her face, make pursy lips, and then breath very quickly in and out of her nose. It is ridiculously cute. It goes quick, so it is hard to catch, but here are a few shots that my mother and I were able to capture:



Juniper is also now waving and clapping, and she is a pro at giving herself water out of a sippy cup. We had thought we would just forego the sippy cup and get her used to drinking out of a glass, but I liked the idea of her being able to do it all herself. Unfortunately, I don't yet have these skills on film, so I'll have to save them for the next post.

Besides new skills, another blog-worthy event was a recent unexpected adventure: this past weekend we took a bit of a whirlwind trip to Fredericton. There was a bit of a last-minute family reunion of sorts on my side of things: all of my sibling were going to be home at once, which essentially never happens. Especially exciting was the fact that Juniper got to meet her uncle Michael for the first time. Mike (who lives all the way in Vancouver) was the only sibling (on my side and Clark's side) who had not yet met Juniper.


And here is Juniper, Andrea, mom and dad, all dressed up on a beautiful spring Fredericton day:


Also on that trip to Fredericton, Juniper got to meet my aunt (her great aunt) Susan, who was the last immediate family member on my side who hadn't yet met her.


On the eating front, Juniper is now a pro. She gobbles up just about everything we put in front of her, and her digestive tract has adapted to the point where she now has official big girl poops. Not nearly as benign as breast milk poops, but pretty exciting none-the-less :) Her new favourite things to eat are reconstituted dried prunes and apricots, which I'll either give her to eat on a rice cake or on a special spoon (that she manipulates herself), or just in globs on the placemat in front of her. No matter which way, it ends up as a ridiculous mess, which Juniper never seems to mind (until it comes time to clean it off her face and hands, that is).


Another fun new thing: now that the weather is nicer, Clark has been getting up most mornings, and taking Juniper for a jog. Juniper doesn't squeal with delight, but she also seems to tolerate it nicely, so that's a good sign. The Bob (that is, the brand of stroller that we got) works perfectly for this. And Juniper has been sporting her new, and oh-so cool shades. Here is a picture of Clark and Andrea taking Juniper for a run when we were in Fredericton (not with the Bob, but with the stroller we keep at my parent's house):


And here is a close-up of Juniper and her shades. As you can see, they are not yet her favourite thing in the whole wide world (but she looks adorable):


And finally, the biggest recent change is that we moved Juniper from our room to her very own bedroom. This was a bigger change than you might think. I cried the first night we did it. But the way we had had things set up was that one side of her crib was off, and the mattress was attached to our mattress (ie, we were co-sleeping), which was fine when we were all there, but I wasn't comfortable leaving her like that on her own any more (what with her mad rolling skills). So we had to put the crib together for real anyway, and decided that if we were doing that, we might as well also try moving it to her own room to see if she slept better. Result: no. But she's also not sleeping worse. And it is, admittedly, nice to be able to put things away and whatever else we want to do in our room while she's sleeping. We have some decorating to do in there yet, but when it's done I'll take a picture and post it. Also, if we end up getting anywhere close to a real sleep at some point in the near future, I'll blog about that as well. But I think this is probably enough for now.