Another month has passed and it's official now. We've stopped calling her "the baby." It just isn't fair to her anymore. She's more active and smarter now than she's ever been, and even though she'll always be my baby, right now she's more my toddler. With all the good and bad that comes with it.
Standing. She's not walking yet, but she's really close. Right now she's not only pulling up on furniture and cruising, but she's started to let go. Usually it seems like she forgets that she's not holding on, and when she realizes it she falls on her bottom. Or we notice what she's doing, make a big fuss which gets her clapping, which causes her to loose her balance and fall. I'm not sure why I want her to walk so badly (things are only going to get tougher running around after her), but I do.
Little Miss Finicky. Madame has always been a good eater. Pretty much everything we've put in front of her she's eaten, but recently she just stopped. Now she makes it through maybe half a jar of baby food before pushing the spoon away, favoring finger foods she can feed herself. This is good I suppose, but it definitely doesn't make things easier. The other day she even told me what she wanted. I was feeding her some pureed vegetables for lunch and she pushed the spoon away, pointing at some bananas behind me. So I fed her a banana, which she loved. It was cool actually, kind of like the first conversation we ever had, except there were no words and I had to clean banana out of her hair afterward.
Blow me a kiss. She still won't give me a smooch on the cheek when I ask, but her Grandma taught her to blow kisses a couple of weeks ago. Ask her for a kiss now and she'll touch her palm to her mouth repeatedly, which is closer. The best though is when she does it to strangers completely out of the blue, like she did to this little boy in a high chair at a restaurant the other day. I think I'm going to be in trouble in a couple of years.