We went to the park yesterday to soak in some late January sunshine before the rain returns. It was a family affair with John and myself, a rarity. Stella surprised both of us by walking all over the place. She’d walk, fall, knee walk to an object, pull herself up and throw herself out on her feet again. It was a sight. And she is, of course, looking at us and smiling the entire time. Look at me, I can do this now.  She also learned how to slide down the toddler slide all by herself. I called her the “butterball express” as she swooshed down a giggles and shuffled (on her knees) back to the stairs to go down again. She was an amazing collection of energy and gross motor skills.

In the hustle and rush of our daily lives, I need to remember to back off and give the girls time to explore. To try things out and to also remember that for them each day is so new. One day Stella wouldn’t walk. Now she’s stepping out. It’s amazing.

But after thinking about Stella and her general physical milestone attainment, John and I thought it best to wait it out. Stella is on her own schedule. She loves to be held, picked up, and is not very motivated to try new things unless she initiates it. We find she does hit gross motor milestones about a month to six weeks after Elise does. And when she hits them she masters them fairly quickly.

So the other morning when Stella was just yelling her head off and we went to her room to investigate we shouldn’t have been surprised to see her standing in her crib complaining she couldn’t get down. That’s so Stella.

And yesterday she pulled right up on our friends ottoman and just beamed with pride. And this morning she finally took to the kitchen step stool I keep out just so the girls can play on it, grabbing hold and lifting herself on to her feet with no fuss. Until she tried to get down and just, you know, let go. The dismount learning will be quicker than the pull-up learning was, I imagine.

Welcome to the vertical world Stella dear. We are so glad to see you.

Also. She might be a greyhound and not a racehorse. She loves to pick up toys, flotsam, jetsam, anything, put it in her mouth and crawl away. Keep the rabbits away from this one!

She is working on popping some more….at least I think she is as it’s drool city around here.

And yes. Each tooth shall have a post. I am teething obsessed.

Her current stats:

Height– 25 3/4″

Weight–16#6oz

Head Circumference–17 3/8″

She’s right in the 50th percentile for height and weight…and 75th for head. More about that later.

All in all, Dr. Don was very pleased with how the girls are doing. We’ve bumped them to two solid food meals a day and they are loving it. Stella hasn’t rejected a single taste I’ve given her. She’s loved peas, pears, mixed fruit, spinach and potatoes and all the squash you can shake a stick at. If you put the spoon in her line of sight, she opens right up and gobbles yummies down.

I’m thinking of giving both Stella and Elise teething biscuits next so that they can begin to practice feeding themselves. They’re going to have to learn how to do it soon enough.

In other news, Stella figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach today. She’s been *almost* there for about a week, but she got her leg kicked over today and flop! There she was. She wasn’t too happy about it though. As soon as she rolled over one way she would roll back the other, complaining the entire time. I think she’s just bored of the floor. So more “frog sitting” for her. Soon enough she’s going to figure out that her body works for moving as well as for grumping…then watch out! I’ll never rest easy again. As if I do now.