Wow has this summer been going by quickly, and it is not
going to slow down until sometime in October!
We have been busy trying to fit in all the activities we
want to do over the summer, all the while trying to stay cool. It has been very
hot up here, sometimes hitting record breaking temperatures.
Taylor has been very busy as well. She is making great
strides in her physical therapy, it seems like every day she makes a noticeable
advancement. She is so very close to crawling it is both exciting and
terrifying (this weekend we will be buying more baby gates!). She is also
making strides towards walking (pun intended) by standing with very little
assistance. She is slowly getting over her previous aversion to having weight
on her feet; because of this she has “rediscovered” her jumper!
She has also officially cut her first tooth, with a second
one close behind it. She continues to discover new foods through us feeding her
off our plates. There seems to be very few foods she doesn’t like, I think she
gets this from her father.
Taylor has also been in swimming classes every Saturday for
the last 6 weeks. She is a natural in the water! I truly believe that this is
one of the reasons we have been seeing such advances in her gross motor skills
this last month or so. The other reason she has been advancing is due to
doubling up her therapy sessions; we have one every other week now!
Taylor has also discovered a new talent. This one she most definitely
gets from her mother. Taylor loves to sing! She started out by copying a song
that Kelly has been singing to her since she was born. Now she will start
singing this song (the words are all various forms of “da”) on her own and
starting to come up with her own. This is a huge deal because it further
confirms what we have known all along, Taylor will be verbal. With this in mind
we are getting more into learning and teaching her baby sign language. We know
she is already trying to communicate with us, she just can’t use words yet. She
is already full of gestures and different sounds when she wants something. We have
been doing our best to decipher these while encouraging her to learn the signs
for common messages. The goal is to increase the level of 2-way communication
between us. As she starts to communicate more consistently she will start
dropping the signs and using more and more words.
All of this has kept
us plenty busy with much more to do!
We hope you all are enjoying your summer as much as we are.
