Daya

It may be Lauren's first word. Not "aBOOah!" which she's been shouting for a few months now but which can mean anything she wants. On Monday she said "Daya" while looking at Ryan. A few times since then she has been babbling "dah dah dah" or "dee dee dee" but no "Daya" again, and no "Da Dee" together.

On Friday she'll be 8 months old. She weighs approx. 23 pounds, 11 oz (weight the weekend before last but while wearing clothes & diaper) and is about 28 1/2 inches long. Her doctor didn't want to measure her today but just consulted her chart and said that she is about the average of what a 12 month old would be, so that's her height. I have tried to measure her myself with a tape measure, but the wiggle factor interferes.

Lauren knows some of her colors, and can point to red, yellow, green, and blue BUT the items from which she is choosing have to be more or less equal, other than color. For example if you ask her to pick yellow, and show her a boring yellow shirt and a red shiny toy, she will go for the shiny object no matter the color. But if you show her legos that are all the same, she can pick out the right color. I said she knows some of her colors. Ask her for "sage" or "mauve" and she cannot tell them.

She is crawling a lot these days, backwards and sideways. She rolls over, sits up and still loves her bathtime. In fact, when she tried to crawl forward, she does this by trying to "swim" forward. She lies flat on her stomach and flaps her arms like she can move the air to go straight ahead. It's really funny to watch. It works for her in the bathtub, so she's trying to make it happen on land.

One place is which she's not "advanced" is in hair growing. She still has only an inch or two of light duck fuzz on her head, necessitating wearing hat. She likes to pull hats off, and a few weeks ago we lost a hat at the park that way. A really nice yellow lined velour bucket hat that looked adorable and was one of a kind made my some lady who sells at farmers' market. Wah! Oh well, I'm sure this is the first of many pretty things she will lose in her lifetime if she takes after Mommy.