Entertainment

Anyone looking for a way to keep a toddler entertained indefinitely on a snowy day?

Not really sure why people buy baby toys. A box of cloth diapers and a couple of board books and Blaise is set for hours. (And so am I, if I foolishly decide to try to contain the chaos.)

Milestones, expected and otherwise

Cheerio?

Here is the very brief post I was going to make today: "Everything is going very well. Blaise seems able to tolerate wheat, which opens up the door for pasta, toast and lots of other goodies. We are also delighted to report that Blaise has a new friend, Josie. She was born Wednesday evening to our friends Chris and Aurora. Blaise is interested in, but slightly intimidated by, Josie's big brother Max, who is almost 3, so maybe the two girls can team up once Josie is able to lift her head." That seemed like enough exciting news for one blog post.

But now I also get to report that Blaise knocked down two milestones today. First, we're finally giving her credit for a stable, reliable first word: Madeline. It comes out "Madai," but it's very consistent. She still says both "mama" and "dada" but not exclusively for me and Ben. Her therapist thinks it's very funny how strict our criteria are for giving Blaise credit for words. Apparently other parents would have claimed "mama" and "dada" a long time ago. Madeline, though, is clear and definitely refers to her doll and only her doll.

Now for the unexpected milestone: Blaise took her first unsupported steps today. This was unexpected because she doesn't stand independently for more than a second or two and she hasn't taken more than a few dozen supported steps. She's not walking by any means. She had pulled to stand at one of the boxes in her room, Ben asked about the toy she was playing with, she turned around, took her hands off the box and took two lurching steps toward him before falling on him. They were, as he reports it, uncontrolled and treacherous, but steps. Steps! Yikes!

Everything's fine

I hear that people get worried when we don't post. Things are fine. It they weren't, we'd have more to post about. The short version of our lives right now: busy but uneventful on the Blaise front. This blog is in danger of becoming a normal baby blog/brag sheet, although I feel like I'm tempting fate by saying so.

Blaise is doing well. We did a full soy challenge this week and it looks like soy is on the okay list. You might not think you eat a lot of soy, but you'd be amazed. Tofu is not a new favorite, but Blaise will eat it and her gut seems to have no problems with it. If it turns out that she has a million other allergies, she'll at least be able to live a relatively healthy vegan existence. Her favorite finger foods these days are peas (duh), chopped up green beans and cheerios. Almost all of her solid food intake is finger food and it's lots of fun. She's also doing better with bottles, so it seems like the Flagyl took care of whatever the issue was with her appetite.

Now for the shameless bragging portion of our blog post: Blaise reliably points on request to dogs, cats, elephants, shoes, books, babies, Mama, Dad, Leila (our cat), Aunt Kate (who she also identifies as Uncle Andrew; they do tend to come as a unit) and probably lots of other things we haven't tried yet. She startled a golden retriever puppy by barking at it the other day and she meows at our real cat and at her stuffed cat. She says "mama" when she's upset with Dad and "dada" when she's upset with Mom. She can take both hands off whatever she pulls up on and stand on her own for a moment, but she has the Wile E. Coyote problem of falling as soon as she realizes she's unsupported.