Heaven, I'm in Heaven

Yesterday was a full day of Riley. Jay and I played with her in the morning, settled her for her morning nap and then went out to do errands. Jay did the errands and I wandered around showing her off to anyone that would glance our way. And because she is the cutest baby that ever was everyone glanced our way!!!

Living far away from Riley and Jay and Dori means that our celebrations of her milestones are vicarious. We hear about them, see pictures and videos and dream about them - everything from her first roll over to her first cheerio.

But yesterday was special for me - Riley began to crawl. She has been doing a crawl version - more like scooting - first on her back and then by sort of flipping and sitting. But yesterday for the first time I saw her put one hand forward and then one knee and actually get somewhere.

She can't really control it yet and she's not doing much of it but it was there - and if it wasn't the first time she did it then I am still witness to very early attempts.

In the afternoon she spent a lot of time on her alphabet tiles (you can see them in the picture below). The tiles are like jigsaw puzzle pieces and she delights in pulling the edging pieces off and then of course putting them in her mouth. She methodically goes after each edging piece ultimately getting 4 or 5 of them off in one sitting. Its fascinating to watch her practice and gain control of her small muscles movements. Progress in a baby this young is so apparent - it seems slow but in reality a few repetitions and she has the muscle patterns figured out.

I couldn't get enough of her finding her "binky" - her soother - in front of her - ;picking it up, studying it and then finally figuring out how to get it into her mouth properly. I can almost see the wheels turning

Today is a work day but there will be some time with Riley - who knows what miracles I'll witness today.