Update

Here's what Louise is up to these days:

When we say "what does a doggie say?" she pants like a dog! Sometimes she slaps her knee, too, making the sign for dog in baby sign language.

She's obsessed with a new sound that sounds like a drawn out "k" sound. She started it after she began associating "quack quack quack" with ducks. And, probably because I am always saying "Yuck!" to her when she crawls on the floor stinking random bits of leaves and dirt in her mouth. So, I think she's trying to say "Yuck" and "quack" but she only gets out the last part. It's really exaggerated, and it's really cute. She makes the sound all day long because she thinks its so cool.

She constantly wants us to hold her hands and let her walk. She cries and throws herself on the floor when we stop. Sometimes we have to stop because she's nearly horizontal with exhaustion from trying to walk, but she still doesn't want to stop trying. She's a trooper.

We're really working on being gentle. Louise is vigorous with her affection, to say the least, so we are trying to guide her hands to be gentle, soft, and slow when touching others. She also likes to give big squeezes when she hugs and that's just fine with us. It's nice now that she hugs us back and cuddles with her stuffed animals.

Louise has also amped up her eating lately. She eats all of the time and she eats so healthy, I am really trying to eat more like her. She likes oat porridge, baked apples, prunes, spinach, parmesan cheese, kiwi, grapes, sweet potato, whole wheat pasta, avocado, peas, cashews, and she is most crazy about bread.