Great strides!

Clara is developing phenomenally.  Two posts ago, I mentioned several things that she is/has been doing lately. 

It has been really wonderful to see her develop since we have been home.  Even during transplant, you all saw the pictures of her standing on the bed/couch!  What I don't think we fully comprehend is how delayed these babies apparently get.  I have been told by the outpatient nurses a lot lately that she is just turning into a little girl!  When they start explaining how most babies that have gone through what she just did are 6-8 months behind developmentally and how they are very infant-like and how impressed they are that she has such a great suck on her pacifier.  It makes me realize how lucky we are that she is as strong as she is and has made it through this with relatively little delay.  She is incredibly social although she has a very sweet and shy disposition - unless you have just the right demeanor that sends the message "I'm a happy, non-scary person, and you shouldn't be afraid of me."  Then it is amazing how quickly she will become not just comfortable but engaging with people.  And not just people that she sees frequently...it could be the first time she's met them in some cases. 

She loves to nod at people with the biggest smile on her face.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Goes that little head as she agrees with whatever you say or ask of her.  At the end of last week, she learned how to shake her head from side to side in a "no" pattern.  I realized that we never say no around her.  Our world has been so full of not fun things that we had to stay positive and always say yes.  She has always been shown and told, "let's do this, shall we?"  So it wasn't surprising when she started nodding yes all the time!  But this no thing was shocking really.  I realized that she was just realizing she could rotate her head in a different way.  And when she would speed up the shake, you could tell she was process how the world spun in a different way.  It was great to see her then realize she could switch between the two.  Yes, no, no, yes, yeno, noes!  All with a silly grin on her face.
 
She has also begun cruising - it is just the beginning mind you but is developing fast.  Earlier this week she was standing, hanging on for dear life, tiring fairly quickly, being unable to lift one foot or the other while standing at the mirror, or on her musical table that I bought her a couple of weeks ago, and I would have to stay directly next to her with my hands constantly correcting her footing or supporting her torso should she accidentally let go.  Now, she leans towards the floor so that I will put her down standing next to the ottoman, couch, mirror or table.  She is getting better at playing with something in her hands and just semi leaning on the furniture.  She will stand there just hardly hanging on while shifting her weight from one side of her foot to the other or her heel to her toe and then from foot to foot.  She easily walks if she is holding onto our hands, but has not quite learned how to side step along a piece of furniture nor gained the confidence to move from one piece of furniture to the other.  She will attempt moving from the mirror to the musical table.  Not sure why that perpendicular move is less scary for her.  Probably because of the height of the table.

The best news of the day is that she ate some solid food today.  This is the second time in a couple of weeks where Alan offered her some toddler puffs and she actually gnawed on them until they dissolved and were swallowed!  Today he had been eating a salty cracker snack pak and she wanted one.  He stuck one against her lips, and when she actually started licking it he realized it was time to get out her food.  She did a great job!  I was asleep taking a nap and tried to get her to duplicate for me.  She didn't eat.  However, she was LOVING her bowl.  She would put her lips to the edge of the bowl and tip it so that it covered her face.  She hasn't been exposed to many bowls so I think she thought it was a giant Mommy and Daddy cup.  PLUS, there is a sippy cup we have been giving her for the past two weeks just trying to get her to play with it and rewarding her with praise if she touched it or especially if she put her mouth to it.  Today, she actually let me put the spout in her mouth and move it around while making silly noises as it rubbed against her gums.  I was so very proud.

These are massive strides, and I really hope we will have her eating even a little bit in the next couple of weeks.