Emma Lee is now 14 months old. Here are some adorable pictures of her! :) She smiles big and laughs hardy. She has big blue eyes and love to interact with us and especially her siblings. She has an interesting mix of Olivia/Gabe personality and Ezra's (shall I say) stronger personality. She also following in the footsteps of her siblings, especially Gabe, in that her large motor skills are a bit delayed but we are confident that they will catch up. She had primarily been pulling her self around on her belly with her forearms and pushing with her toes as her means of moving about. This has led to her have low tone in her legs/thighs. They remain chubby and infant like. She is just now started to work on normal hands and knees crawling, as you will see in a few of the pictures below. We have a friend that is a pediatric physical therapist and she gave us some tips to help her develop her muscles/strength in her legs. Emma would normally just cry and get really upset if you tired to get her to stand on her legs or left her to hold herself up on something. So we have been working on having her go from sitting to standing positions, like from a really low stool or our legs. That has helped, especially if we can find the right toy for motivation. She wants to put her legs out straight and lock her knees but we have been working on helping her plant her feet and really work to raise to a standing postion.
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| happy girl in the bathtub. she likes to play in the water. she chats up a storm with her toys and anyone that is in the room with her. she especially like to scoop and dump water. |
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| Here she is working on her hands and knees crawl. |
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| And here is she finally starting to pull up and stand on the edges of her crib. Yes, she just started doing this in the last month.These pics were of one of the first times that she did it and you can see how she moved her legs underneath her. She looks mighty proud of herself doesn't she! I love her smile! :) This has quickly progressed with better getting up technique and to cruising all around the crib in the last week or so. Finally time to drop the crib down. She now can pull up on the bottom step. We don't have a picture of this as we mostly try and keep a close eye on her when she is there like good parents of our 4th child. (haha!) ;) And she will more willing stand and hold on to one of the ottomans in the living room. And sometimes she will even let me put her feet down on the ground and help hold up her weight while I hold her arms or midsection. So we are definitely progressing.  One of her favorite places to play in the house is with the play kitchen. She loves to take everything out. And she often beats on the pots and pans or stirs her utensils around in them. She laughs at herself and babbles away. The other day she was playing in their while the other kids were out in the living room. She heard them all start laughing and she just burst into giggles herself and started "calling" to them from her play area. It was a really funny back and forth that lasted for several minutes. The other place that Emma likes to play is in either bedroom and it mainly involves pulling books down off the shelves. She does sort of flip them open like she is actually interested in the book too...maybe. :) She is also likes to sit with one of us and pass a toy back and forth. With her siblings, she mostly likes to take toys and isn't quite as good about giving them back. And she complains loudly when they take toys from her hands. hmm, interesting that it starts early. :) |
