Where have we been?

Well, on the floor mostly. We have continued to have some fun adventures during this posting drought, including some holiday festivities and really splendid visits with loved ones. But the biggest story around here is about what has been happening underfoot. (Or at least under-chair.)Our little mover and shaker has been revving up and ready to go ever since she wiggled out of mom's arms and discovered the nasty carpeted, tacky linoleumed, world that is now her own personal amusement park.With so much to explore, Rhodie made quick work of getting this mobility thing down and then getting her self up! She started crawling at the beginning of October and was pulling up to stand by November. Before long she was a standing on her own and now is determinedly vertical most of the time. She can even reach down, without falling over, and get a toy in order to in enjoy it in her preferred position.When she first started crawling, one of her favorite adventures was to get herself into whatever tiny corner she could find and peek out at mom and dad. That’s our little hermit crab.Her manual dexterity has been keeping right up, aiding in much cord pulling, lint picking, and paper tearing. She really loves to point to something and have you tell her about it and is becoming a proficient pincher.She still loves to crawl under things and her favorite place to be is under mom's chair or desk where she gathers her toys then stands up to play with them, usually bonking her head several times. Fortunately she is very resilient and usually only needs a little sympathy to get her going again. As you can tell there has been a lot of fun going on down under and a lot more motivation to keep the floors clean (we definitely needed it). Yesterday the dad showed Rho how to take steps while holding on to his fingers so it looks like the level of cleanliness around here is going to continue to be elevated. More likely though, the mess will just get elevated, out of arms reach.