Eating & Drinking Progress

This week Kinsey has another new skill - drinking from a regular straw! She's been drinking from her teddy bear that has a straw for about a year now, but that straw is like medical grade plastic that she can bite on without closing the straw and preventing the drink from getting through. We've given her a regular straw a few times, but she's always bitten down, prevented the drink from getting through and then destroyed the straw. But last weekend we were at a restaurant and I gave her my water from the straw and she drank it with no problems! In fact, she only wanted to drink from the straw after that and hasn't touched her regular sippy cup since then! I have several straw cups (I could open my own store with all the different types of cups I bought and tried for her over the years) so we dug out some of them. Her current favorite is a cup that has a hard spout straw that she still has to tip up like a sippy cup (a happy medium I guess). But we've also been giving her a regular straw in a regular cup at meals (we obviously have to hold onto the cup or she'll make a huge mess. Or stick her hand in the cup and play with the water).



She's continuing to do really well with eating more solid foods and feeding herself. Last weekend she actually even attempted chewing a baby carrot (raw and hard, not cooked). Jamie was giving her dip on the carrot and she took the whole thing and she actually did a decent job chewing some of it up and eating it. She really prefers to feed herself now so we've been using a lot of the food pouches that she can suck the food out of, finding foods that she can pick up herself, and helping her use a spoon. This all means that mealtime is much messier than before (which, as you know, I'm rather neurotic about, but she's just been getting a lot more baths lately!).

Today was a teacher planning day so Kinsey didn't have school. We also had beautiful weather (sunny and about 50) so Kinsey and I decided to take advantage of the annual pass my dad gave us to The Farm and we went to check out the animals. I got to practice with my new camera too. It's great that she's doing so well standing and cruising because I was able to stand her up at the fence by the animals and she could see them really well while I stepped back to take pictures. We also used one of my Christmas presents today for the first time today: a folding wagon! We have a regular wagon, but it doesn't fit in my car so now I can take a wagon with me and it's so much easier for things like this because I'm not constantly strapping her in and out of the stroller. I love it and Kinsey's always enjoyed riding in her wagon.

Anyway, here are some pictures:


 

   
The horses/ponies were her favorite today. Every time we go she really enjoys a different animal! 

   
It looks like she was screaming at him! Silly girl!

   
She got to pet him (and poke him in the eye a little too)

   

   
And he enjoyed a good sniff of her too! 

   
Of course, no trip to The Farm is complete without yanking on a goat's ear! 

   
I was trying to get some cute pictures of her on the picnic table, but she just wanted to get up and cruise around it. 

   
 And here's one from earlier this week - she emerged from my craft room one evening with all these different pieces of fabric wrapped around herself - I think she has 5 different fabrics here (and no we're not Colts fans now - that was an order for a friend!).