We really have had amazing progress lately. Whitney is crawling everywhere. We are actually having to baby-proof the house, finally. She has discovered the laundry room and the dog food we keep there. Yum. Looks like cheerios. We have all seen her pick up cheerios with her fingers instead of her whole hand. John, our sitter, has seen her eat them too.

She has started to stand at a table, holding on lightly to a toy or the table. We took pictures of that! We started putting sturdy shoes on her. It really seems to steady her. Her trunk is getting much thicker as her muscles develop. It is really helping to steady her when crawling and standing. I really think we will meet my personal goal of having her walking by her 2nd birthday in July.

Her ability to communicate is getting better. She hs learned to imitate our movements, like hugging a doll. This has helped with her speech. She now says Bye-Bye and waves with both hands. Gosh it is cute. She seems to be picking up the concept of sign language having real meaning. She has been saying "finished" and "eat" in sign for a long time, and has done a few groupings of those signs. But now, when I sign, she tries to follow my hand movements. She signed "shoes off" after I said "shoes off" in speech and sign.