An Update about Elora

Elora has been amazing us with how strong she is.  She is pulling up on anything she can to stand up -- the couch, her toys, the train table, cabinets and her favorite -- the bathtub.  I often find her standing in the bathroom looking longly at the toys in the tub. It might also be soothing on her gums because most of the time she is gnawing on the edge of the tub.  Elora is teething and having a rough time of it.  The top gums are very swollen and we should see her pearly whites within the next couple of days.  That also means that our nights with her have been rough.  Anyway, back to her physical feats.  Today Elora was standing holding onto my knee as I was sitting on the floor.  She then stood up a bit taller, let go of my knee and stood there balancing on her own while giving me a big grin.  "HAH!  Look at me!" she seemed to be saying.  She has tried to stand on her own a couple other times (like in the bathroom letting go of the tub), but I thought that she just forgot to hold on.  Today it was very deliberate; she was trying to stand without holding on.  Go Elora!

Elora races all around the house with her crawl.  She crawls properly on one knee, but on the other side she uses her foot instead (someone called it hitching, but I don't know if that's the proper terminology for it).  She'll carry toys around in her mouth to get from one spot to another.  It's very cute to see her racing along with a stuffed animal or plastic doll in her mouth. (One of her favorite toys is a small plastic doll figurine that Delenn had gotten in a Happy Meal.  On that note, her favorite book is still Baby Chick's Day.  She is quite pleased with herself because she can now make the chick squeak.)

We had Elora weighed and measured last week.  She's about in the 50% percentile for weight and 95+% for height at 8 months of age.

Elora is a great eater.  She has joined us at the table and eats lots of finger foods.  She'll eat any finger food I put in front of her -- diced fruit, cheerios, cooked soft vegies, shredded meats and so forth.  Tonight after eating a full meal for Daddy (1+ jars of baby food plus finger food) she went CRAZY until I let her try my pizza.  Then she continued to claw at my hand until I fed her more.  It leaves me wondering how it is that she's in the 50th percentile for weight!

Her personality is still very sunny.  She's quite happy and laughs hard when Logan and Delenn joke around with her.  She wants to be right in the middle of things, so if Logan, Delenn and I are reading or playing together Elora needs to be sitting ON TOP of everything!  She is a bit shy around strangers at the moment.