New Outfit from Great Gram and Grammie

I just thought I'd post a few pictures of Gwendolyn in her gorgeous new outfit from her Great Gram and Grammie. Thank you so much for the outfit Great Gram and Grammie! Gwennie loves it as you can see. I put a couple of pictures on facebook as well.

Walking and Sleeping like a Champ

I have been falling behind on my blogging lately. The main reason is that I've been trying to get a good video of Gwendolyn walking. She's really walking a lot these days, and without any prompting! She's still doing shorter distances for the most part, but she has done some longer distances too. So I thought getting a video of all this walking would be a cinch...nope! The second she sees the video camera she plops to the floor. I finally got a video the other day, although she still can walk longer on her own than she does in this video. I like it, though, because at one point you can see that she is quite pleased with herself walking along. And then, just like I knew she would, she spied the camera and immediately dropped down! Anyway, enjoy the video:

Gwennie walking and pleased with herself from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

I am very happy with Gwennie's sleeping lately as well. She has a few rough nights here and there, but for the most part she is sleeping for around 9 hours before waking up, having a bottle, and sleeping for around 2 hours more. In fact, last night she didn't wake up until she had slept for 10 hours! I could get used to this.

Oh, and there's another piece of news I don't think I've mentioned yet - - she FINALLY has a tooth! I'll try to get a picture of that, but she likes to keep it well covered with her tongue. Her new tooth officially made it's entrance through the gums on May 1st, just a few days past her 10-month birthday. We still just have the one tooth, but I wouldn't be surprised if more arrived fairly soon after, since this first one has been on the later side for a first tooth.

Overall she's a very happy girl. Apparently she's quite a social little girl too. yesterday Grammie and Great Gram took her to the mall. She was apparently quite the little clown, making another young boy at the mall laugh by poking his shoe, shaking his stroller and sticking her tongue out at him. Flirting this early? I think I'm in trouble!

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!