On January 1st of 2011, Maarika took her first crawl forward! Up until then, she had been going backwards, falling on her belly a lot, and rolling around to get places. She starting bridging, but couldn't figure out how to get her knees to go. It's been a week now and she is MOVING! I feel really proud to have such an advanced and smart little girl! She has been clapping for about a month now and the doctor just told us that that is the behavior of a 9 to 10 month old! Wow! Who did she get her big brain from? Mom or Dad??
Maarika will be 8 months next week. We signed up a for a music and a pool class at the Elgin Community Center. We were supposed to start today, but we'll have to wait till next week since Maarika and I have both been very sick with a bad cold. She celebrated her first Christmas this year with all her cousins-Dayne, Evan, Audrey, Matthew, Marissa, Mikey, Mandi, and Rachel. Also, Nana and Grandpa, and Gramma and her other Grandpa. And Aunt Tammy, Uncle Case, Uncle Jon, Aunt Jill, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Brian, and Uncle Jeff. All her Schroeder Aunts and Uncles sent gifts home since we couldn't see them Xmas Eve. Everybody spoiled her rotten and she has been crawling to play with all her toys!
One of her favorite things to do is take a bath with mom. We fill up the tub and she kicks and kicks like a natural swimmer. She always shows off her kicking skills when Daddy comes to check in. She's still quite fond of Elmo, but she's come to find out that Dora is pretty interesting too, thanks to Nana! So far, she's right on track-happy, gorgeous, sweet, curious, smart, amazing, and perfect!
