On Her Feet!

Ridley took a few steps by herself today!!! She only gets to 3 or 4 steps before she starts to loose her balance, but it's very exciting! For Ridley too! She gets very excited and laughs while clapping her hands. Our excitement rubs off, I'm sure, but I also think she's really having fun learning to walk on her own. It won't be much longer now and she'll be Miss Independent.
Phil and I have recorded her walking a little back and forth between the two of us. I'll post it soon!

Familyfest!

This past month has been filled with family! What could be better? Aunt Christy and Cousin Titus came on their annual visit from CO for three weeks! We had fun on the beach and in the pool. Towards the end of their trip, we traveled to N. Wilkesboro to visit more family. AND THEN, after returning, our cousins Jessica, Amanda, Sydney and Alyssa came to visit the following weekend.

Ridley LOVED all the attention and commotion. She followed all the bigger kids around and learned all about cuddle-puddles!
Ridley is still learning to walk. She will sometimes walk while only holding on to one of my hands, but most of the time she wants the reassurance of both hands while she cruises. Her vocabulary has increased over the past month to: "bye-bye, dada, hey, hi, dog (sounds more like "d'oh"), duck ("d'uh") and NO!" Notice any important word missing from the list? haha She's not yet interested in saying "mama." Of course I'm usually always around and respond to "uh, uh uh!" so why bother with formalities?

I'm very excited for her first birthday party and I'm already brainstorming ideas for the day. Since her birthday falls on a Saturday, we get to celebrate on the day! I think I may even set the start of the party to 3:27pm.

Learning to Walk and Talk

A few weeks ago, Ridley started saying "Bah-bah-bah-bah!" with every "bye-bye" wave. I thought it was cute, but wasn't sure if I could count it as her first word. Then, one morning last week I was bringing her into our bed with her bottle, as I do in the mornings before we start our day, and as soon as she saw Phil she exclaimed, "Dah-dah-dah-dah!!" After a few days of consistent "Dah-dah"s around Phil, I'm finally willing to admit that she has said her first word. It could just be her new sound she's trying out, but she seems to know that it means her Daddy. And every time I say "Ma-ma! Ma-ma," to her, she looks at Phil and screams, "Dah-dah! Dah-dah-dah-dah!"

She is also getting very stable at standing and pulling up to a stand. She cruises around on the furniture and she tries very hard to climb out of the tub every night. If we had stairs, she'd be climbing them for sure! She loves to grab my hands and "walk" me around the house.

Here's a picture of Ridley and her grandma doing just that at our yard sale last weekend.

Tubes

Ridley was seen by an ENT this morning. A total of four ear infections (three in one month!) brought us to the appointment. As it turns out and as we suspected, she needs to have tubes inserted into her ears. The fluid just simply isn't draining. Phil had to have tubes when he was a young child and his family has a history of ear problems.
I hoped that we wouldn't have to go to this extreme, but I know for sure that it is the best thing for Ridley. The poor thing has had a ton of fluid in her ears for well over a month now. Hopefully we can schedule the procedure ASAP.
The ENT doctor said that many children make big jumps in speech after having tubes for the simple reason that they can finally hear! Ridley can hear now, but everything sounds muffled to her. There isn't any long term damage so far, and we definitely want to keep it that way.

First Rule of Fight Club is...

She has teeth, and she knows how to use them! Watch out!

No worries, she isn't really biting. She just looks fierce in this photo, showing off her two bottom teeth.

Happy 4th of July!

What do you get when you drag your tired husband off the couch from his nap to force a family photo on July 4th?




Hope everyone had a great 4th of July! This was the first 4th that Phil and I have EVER spent together not working. At least one of us has always worked or we've worked together on the 4th. This was the first time we've ever spent it together doing nothing, enjoying the day (in 10 years!). We spent it being lazy, and it was wonderful.



"Come on, Mom. It's Independence Day and I'm still not allowed to play in the dog bowls?!"

Crab Walking on the Shore

Summer time, and the livin's easy.

Here's a video of Phil and his girls hitting the beach, doing some crab walking, and taking in the water.