Respecting her elders

Last Monday, Heather and Sara Beth went down to the Woodlands to visit Melanie for her birthday.  While down there, Sara Beth learned all the things that 10 month old Audrey could do, and decided that she should be able to do them as well, even though Audrey is only 2 months and 6 days her elder.  Ignoring such minor details, she had now begun to refuse baby food, and demands to be fed the same thing that adults and big kids get to eat.  Heather has been stock piling a vast variety of baby food to ensure that Sara Beth would get something unique to eat every day; however this plan has backfired and I returned a pantry's worth of baby food to the grocery store two days ago.  

  Sara Beth has begun trying to pull herself up into a standing position based on her observations on Audrey.  She will reach a hand hold above her head and try pulling up.  Minute details, like using her legs to push herself up, do not concern SaraB as she attempts to stand up.  If I help her with leg placement, then she is able to pull herself up, so we'll see how quickly she will be able to preform the act on her own.

In addition, Sara Beth had begun to crawl on her hands and knees instead of just army crawling on her belly across the floor.  This has allowed her to be much more mobile.  Just today, Sara Beth and I chased each other from the back of the house all the way to the front.  I would hide around a corner, poking my head out to say "Boo" or something similar.  Sara Beth wouldn't craw to me; she would crawl past.  I would bump into her and she squealed with laughter.  I then moved on to the next corner and repeated the process all the way to the front of the house.  Of course, as soon as Heather brought out the video camera to record the interaction, Sara Beth decided that she was done, and decided to play with the pantry door, and the parts of bags that she could grab from under the door.

Below is a picture of Sara Beth and Audrey.  Note how Audrey is sitting sweetly with her hands in her lap, while Sara Beth is sticking some miscellaneous foreign object into her mouth. 

What follows are two pictures of Sara Beth as she consumes some vegetables and rice with her parents.  The process started nice and neat with Sara Beth taking handfuls of food from the pile in the middle of her tray.  But by the end, the food was strewn across the tray and the chair she was sitting in, not to mention the floor.

Sara Beth still loves bananas.  She will eat them when we feed it to her, but she is most happy when she can feed it to herself.  She will grab the banana and munch on it like I would eat an ear of corn.  As with most of her meals these days, messes are the rule, not the exception.

Heather calls this Sara Beth's "Junkyard dog" face.  I am just glad I was able to capture it with our camera.  She will scrunch up her face like this, and then breath in and out really fast through her nose like she just smelled something funny. 

After eating half of the banana, she goes into a sort of daze and will sit still while she digests the large amounts of fruit.

My sister Jill visited for the afternoon on Saturday.  We all went for a walk to the park.