Anna's pulling up!

Wow, Anna's balance has gotten much better in the past few days! Watching our baby grow and change is a daily blessing. At six months and 12 days, she's pulling up to standing really confidently, and does it every chance she gets! The other day, she crawled from the living room to where I was standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes, and pulled herself up on my legs! In the past couple days, she's gotten really close to "cruising," moving her hands from one thing to another to keep balance, and maybe moving her feet a little, but not really taking a step.

She's still adamantly refusing food of any kind. For the past two weeks, I've been giving her cereal, applesauce, or bananas (progressively), and she does one of three things: 1) clamps her mouth shut when she sees the spoon coming, 2) allows a bite, but then shudders and gags and sticks out her tongue until the offending food is on her chin or bib, or 3) allows a bite, but immediately zerbets it back it out, spraying her and me both. Fun! She must take the bottle or food before I go back to school in a little over two weeks, b/c I'll be gone for about five hours at a time this semester. I'm trying to be positive and relaxed about her food experience, so she doesn't start to hate it, but I feel like I need to be diligent, too!

Hey, if you haven't already, go check out the brand-new site I've been writing for like crazy for the past few weeks, Katharos NOW. It's for Christian teen girls, run by a friend of mine, Lauren Bookout, and is funded by the church where her husband Travis is the preacher. Once again, my lack of paid writing assignments means that I have time to pursue my Christian writing pursuits. God is good.