More exploring

This weekend Gwendolyn had her first park experiences. We've been meaning to get her there sooner, but it finally worked out. She wasn't completely enamoured with the park, but she didn't mind it either. Here is a little video of a park visit with buddy Tia. Tia seemed to really enjoy her swing, whereas Gwen was relatively indifferent. But we all enjoyed watching the girls have some new experiences.


Gwennie tries out the swing from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

Gwennie's walking has improved a lot lately. She still wants to hold your hands, although one hand is now often enough. She finally got a handle on how her walker works. Here's a little walking video:


Gwen and her walker from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

What fun! I leave you with a cute little picture of Gwennie checking out the kitty.

Sleep - The more she gets the better she sleeps!

What a fantastic 24 hours it has been for Gwennie sleep-wise! The girl is normally a relatively decent night sleeper - - although she's usually up at least once for some food. But she's not a great napper overall, and sometimes has days where she doesn't nap at all. Occasionally she'll go the other end of the spectrum and have a 3+ hour nap, but that is very very rare. More common are two short naps of somewhere in the neighbourhood of a half hour - - usually less. But yesterday was a great day. She woke up shortly before 9am, after having only woken up at 3am through the night. Then she had two really good-sized naps through the day. I believe the first was a good hour, and the second around that as well.

The evening was even better. Gwendolyn usually goes down to sleep between 9pm and 10pm. Last night she was in dreamland by 8:45pm. But here's the best part...her first wake up for food was after 6am! She went right back to sleep too, although I have yet to find out for how long, as she was asleep when I left for work.

We think the fresh air and sunshine is making a difference, since we've started to have actual spring weather. Yesterday she didn't even need a warm coat on her walk. But we also noticed that she flipped onto her stomach to sleep. She seems to sleep longer that way - - which seems to be pretty common. I remember that cousin Emily prefers stomach sleeping, and I believe that buddy Tia seems to sleep longer that way too.

To finish off the post, here are a couple of 'fountainhead' pictures, just for fun. Enjoy!

Finally got it on video!

That's right folks, here is our little walker, showing you her stuff. Just a couple steps on her own, but it's a start!!


Gwen taking a couple of steps alone! from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

Gwen had a great day today. She started off with music classes with her buddy Tia. Then spent some time visiting people like her future highland dance teacher. Happy girl!

Two videos for Great Gram

I promised Gwennie's Great Gram that I'd post a video, so I've got two. Unfortunately we are still working on getting a video of the walking. We made a good attempt, and managed to get some cute clapping and standing on her own on film, but no walking. Here's that video:


Clapping and Standing from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

Here is one more little video of Gwennie playing as well. Enjoy! (Especially Great Gram.)


Playing with her bears from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

First Steps!

Last night Gwennie and I were playing while Gordon had a bath. I started to sing the "If you're happy and you know it..." song. And up until half way through the second verse, Gwen was standing all by herself! And then, as if that weren't impressive enough, she took two small steps in my direction, following by stumbling into my arms. I called down to Gordon to tell him, and decided to try again. Lo and hehold, she repeated her performance! So Gordon hurried out of the bathtub, quickly got dressed and came in. We figured for sure that she wouldn't show her trick to an audience, but she actually did it a handful more times! The secret seemed to be the song, funnily enough. It distracted her from the fact that she wasn't holding our hands I think.

We tried to pull out the video camera, but by then she was tired and just wanted to touch the camera. So Gordon is going to attempt to get it on film. If he is successful I promise to add it to my blog tonight. Yay for walking!