Nellie do self!

Yes, the little lass is starting to want to do things for herself!

At the moment she has a very snotty nose (mostly because she's teething, but also because she has a eye infection and a slight cold) and has had since the middle of November (poor mite!). Needless to say, this has involved a lot of nose wiping, and she's really very good about it. She will come to tell you that her nose needs wiping if you don't notice it and hardly ever objects to having it wiped (provided you're gentle!).

Well, today she tried to wipe her nose herself! Aaaaahh! She picked up the tissue, brought it to her face, and made all the right blowing motions! SOOOOO cute! And so pleased with herself that she did it too!

THEN, in the bath tonight, she took the sponge and tried to wash herself. And THEN wanted to brush her own teeth afterwards as well. She managed to get the brush into her mouth, but couldn't quite manage the brushing action on her own. Still, it feels like today was a milestone - soon we'll be having fights because Nellie wants to 'do self' rather than have Mommy or Daddy 'do for her' - my little baby is really starting to become independent!

So much new stuff!!

Where to begin? Janel has realised that she can pull the cushions off the lounge furniture - and then throw herself on them! What fun! Likewise, she has realised she can throw the pillows off the bed, or at least move them across the bed, and then throw herself on them.

She can now use her tongue to make "bdlup-bdlup" noises (goodness know how you spell that!) here's a quick video of it. (We now think we have a way to put the video off the camcorder on the web, but haven't had the time to try, so I've resorted to using our camera again...still, it's better than nothing!) As we no longer have video editing software to resize it - our trial version has expired so many times the website won't allow us to download it anymore I should mention that these video clips will only really work if you have broadband - sorry!!!

Big news - she took her first step on Sunday!!! YAY!!! Very wobbly, and fell down immediately afterwards, but never the less, a step! (Followed within seconds by another step, so it wasn't a fluke.) Sadly, not captured on video, but here are some clips of her attempting to walk. You're going to have to turn your head to see it... And here is one of her walking with the walker.

While we are doing the video thing, here is another video of her opening and closing the gate. I'm also going to try to get one of her shaking her head and wagging her arm, but that will have to wait for another day - she got frustrated enough with me trying to take all these videos today.