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What can I say, I adore my little Ila.  Her sweet smiling face melts my heart and I love that she’ll let me hug and cuddle her almost any time I want.  There’s nothing better than cuddling a sweet baby in your arms.

She says “ma ma,” “da da,” “iya” (Ila), “uh, oh” and “no, no, no.”  The last one I think she picked up from Nicole because she sounds just like Nicole when she says it. She also makes a “meow” when she sees a kitty.  She loves to play games where I make a noise and she repeats it or I repeat a noise or sound that she makes.

She crawls with ease and can walk along furniture.  She likes to stand in a squat sometimes and can balance for a few seconds while standing straight.  She also recently learned how to stand up in the middle of the room from her squatting position.  She does not walk and I’m predicting that she’ll be my slowest walker.

She likes music and when she hears it she often dances by shaking her hands up and down or nodding her head.  She likes to splash and play in the water, but is scared of the bath.  I think it’s because I tried bathing her with Nicole one day and Nicole would not stop pouring water on her head.

Ila is unique from my other children in several ways.  She’s more resistant to other people than my other children were. Most of the time if I’m holding her and someone reaches out their arms to hold her she will cry, bury her head in my shoulder and cling to my clothing.  At one point she’d do that to people who just talked to her.  If another adult is visiting the house, she acts as if the visitor’s presence is a threat of me leaving and becomes grumpier and clingier.  When I sit on the floor and play with her, she often holds onto my clothing with one hand as she plays. 

She loves the gals in the childcare at my gym and it astounds me that she accepts them so willingly.  She usually doesn’t cry when I drop her off and she doesn’t cry and reach out for me when I pick her up.  She will even wait contentedly in someone else’s arms while I finish signing her out.

Ila is also my pickiest eater to date.  While all of my girls refused to take a bottle at some point, the other two girls accepted sippy cups.  Ila is content to only drink milk from her mom.  I have tried a variety of sippy cups holding my milk, formula, and cow’s milk and after weeks of setting them out for her and offering them to her, she finally took one sip yesterday.  That was a huge improvement from crying at the sight of a sippy cup (which she did do seveal times).  I’m still waiting to see if she’ll take a second sip.

Her favorite finger foods are Cheerios and Ritz crackers and she will only eat a few other things.  She refuses to even taste any new food that I place on her tray.  I’ve come to appreciate that stage where babies put everything in their mouth because it means that they actually taste new foods.  She even rejected her birthday cupcake.  She does like baby food, but has become very particular about which food.  If she sees me try to feed her from a jar, she rejects the food before I get it to her mouth.  Her favorite foods come in a little round plastic container.  So if I want to fool her into tasting a new baby food, I have to put it in a plastic container or risk getting the spoon knocked out of my hand.