"monthly" update?

I know, it's been forever since I blogged anything, and really I should have been, because Judith's going through a really fun phase right now where she's learning all kinds of things, and becoming more and more mobile as well. But, truthfully, I just haven't felt like blogging, perhaps because I've been so exhausted, and perhaps because I don't want this to become a blog full of angst or complaining.

Sleeping
The main "update" is that Judith still is not sleeping well. In the past few weeks her pattern has either been to be up every hour all night long or to be up for several hours in the middle of the night. The first time she was up for a long period, we tried to let her cry-it-out, but we discovered that she couldn't get down from the standing at the side of the crib. (Now we know she can get down, and last night we tried again...she cried pretty much for an hour straight, then slept for 1/2 an hour, woke up and cried for a while, then slept for another 1/2 hour - I fed her that time, and she slept for about 4 1/2 hours before waking again.) We've been trying all kinds of different "methods" to see if anything helps, but so far we haven't hit on a "magic formula" (not that I think there is one, of course). We know that she's teething, which is probably a contributing factor to the sleeplessness, and with our schedule lately we haven't been able to settle into a routine, which probably isn't helping either. Our newest "trial" is going to be a later routine (we've tried an earlier routine already) since it seems like we're constantly out past her bedtime. We'll see. Honestly it feels like I've failed as a mother because she doesn't sleep anymore...she used to sleep so well!

Mobility
Mobility wise, she's making giant steps. She's completely confident in her crawling, and would explore the entire house if we'd let her...we've started keeping all the doors closed down the hallway, so that she can only crawl up and down the hall instead of exploring the bedrooms. She's also pulling herself up on the sofa (and anything else that's even remotely stable) and beginning to cruise with confidence. In fact, she sometimes has a little too much confidence, because she'll try to move to places (or let go of things) when she's really not able to balance. She's taken quite a few tumbles in the last couple days, and her forehead is a little black-and-blue. She's also able to get down from pulling herself up on things - whether it's because Lance spent patient time teaching her to bend her knees and drop or because she figured it out on her own, we'll never know :-).

Eating
We've phased out cereal except for breakfast, and we've added whole milk yogurt. I've been making her baby food, for the most part, and freezing it in cubes. There's not a whole lot of variety right now in the organic produce that's available, so it may be a little monotonous for her, but she doesn't seem to mind. We've also gotten her to take a sippy cup, and least occasionally, with a tiny bit of juice mixed with water. We started out giving her that mixture in a bottle, but since she leaked it all over that way, we moved to the sippy. Mostly she chews on the "nipple" (can you say teething?!) but she'll also suck on it as well. I've also been trying, occasionally, to give her bigger "chunks" of food to get her used to eating it on her own (that's avocado in the pictre). So far my success in that endeavor has been mixed. Mostly she plays with the food instead of eating it.

Other "skills"

• She's now mastered the pincer grip - at least with her left hand. With her right hand she mostly still "rakes."
• She claps, sometimes randomly, and sometimes in response to one of us clapping.
• She waves on rare occasions, although she now turns her hand toward herself instead of toward the other person.
• She scrunches up her nose and sniffs in and out to make a funny face...it's adorable!
• She's recently started making noise while she inhales, as though she's gasping...it really scared me the first time I heard it, but she's just exploring vocally. It's the sound she makes most when she's happy right now.

I'm sure there are a lot more things that she does, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. She continues to be an absolute joy, even though it's all currently colored by exhaustion.