a bit of us, but mostly Brie

We went to the beach on Monday and saw a guy with his guitar case out for donations, playing and singing the Beatles, greeting some Messianic Jews who were passing out tracts, and were seranaded by a fellow playing his mandolin under the pier. And all of this with the sun shining and the blue waves crashing and the everpresent sight of snow-capped mountains in the distance. You gotta admit there's some good stuff in SoCal.

Brigid didn't seemed that impressed by her first view of the ocean, but she was very interested in playing with her daddy's tripod, and many people were impressed with her - this cute baby collects flirts everywhere she goes. It doesn't hurt that when flirted with, she stares intently and then smiles with such brilliance and joy you'd swear the sun hadn't come out until just then.

Our little one is beginning to work on the scooting thing and beginning to work on the talking thing.

Now, I want to be clear - lest you take me for an overeager parent who sees what isn't there - that she can't scoot and she can't talk. But she's WORKING on it. :)

In regards to the scooting, she's begun to try very hard to move forward when she's on her tummy. So far, this means that when there's a toy she wants within reach (or, better yet, a PERSON), she pushes herself up on her hands, wiggles her knees as if she wishes they'd do something, gives up on the knees as uncooperative, and dives forward, reaching her hands and arching her back to get maximum extension and to keep her face from hitting the floor. It's an impressive effort, if not terribly effective yet.

What is effective is her changes of directions. She can't move forward, but she can move around in a circular manner with her tummy as fulcrum by crawling her hands sideways.

And if you're holding her - boy howdy! It's up, down, turn around, stand, squat, sit, reach this way, reach that way, tilt her head over backwards to look behind her and dive, dive, dive! So, the she certainly has the concept down that there's different directions and she can go in them.

In regards to the talking, her range of noises grows larger almost daily, and lately I've noticed that she uses different sounds for different things. The two biggest ones that I've noticed is that babies and lights get high-pitched shrieks (this is probably largely emotional, because babies and lights are the things that get her excited), and that eating tends to elicit serious-faced "bwah-bwah-bwah"'s. I first noticed her "bwah-bwah-bwah" speech when she was nursing, and I hear it most often now when I'm giving her cereal or yams or what-have-you.

The above I take as serious signs of language development, because of their consistancy. And now, the things that probably aren't, but are, like Jenn's observation of Elisa's "bug, bug, bug!", tempting to take as real words:
-"HHHHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" as "hi!" Brie often makes this noise, and makes it appropriately as a greeting, and it's the greeting we use with her most often
-"nummma!" for "num-num", as I consistantly call her solid-food meals, hoping she'll pick up on it.

So, yeah, those last two I'd be tempted to take as first words, but they aren't consistant enough.

At least not yet. :)

-a hopeful mother