Growing Ayla

Hi everyone. Well, lots have happened since we last updated about how Ayla is actually doing, and a lot has changed. As mentioned below, Ayla celebrated her 6 month birthday recently, and with that she has had a flury of development. A little after her 5 month birthday she started showing signs of crawling. We encouraged her to continue, and within a couple of weeks she started to advance by herself. She can now move herself around the house, enough that if we leave her in one room she can make her way to another. When she crawls, she lifts herself up with her hands and semi-drags her feet forward. It's not a complete crawl yet, where she moves with alternating hands and feet (lift left arm together with right leg etc.) which means that she hasn't got to high gear yet. It's fascinating though seeing her learn new things every day, and seeing her progress towards full mobility. In the meanwhile, she is in this very unique developmental stage where she is can be at times left (supervised of course) on the floor to entertain herself without her being able to get in to much trouble. We know that this won't last long, so we try to enjoy it as much as we can. Her amazing advancements (comparatively of course) is showing up in other areas as well. She can sit and sit up without support, she can stand with only little support - if given a surface to lean on she can hold herself up for a substantial amount of time. If we hold her up and advance with her she can also 'walk' i.e., she'll moves her legs in a walking pattern, supporting her own body weight and angling her movements towards where she wants to go. She's still has a lot to learn, and her body is still not ready for free walking, but she is definately learning with each time she tries, and seems to enjoy the prospects of it very much. A few weeks ago she started teething, which was at the beginning an unpleasant experience for her and us as her gums were hurting her. Now she has two lower teeth clearly visible which she is just starting to learn how to use. We are now slowly introducing her to the world of solids, starting only with crushed bananas. So far she seems more fascinated by the texture and the feel of it in her mouth, and sees it less as a source of hunger relief. We are taking it slow, making it available for her if she is interested and letting her set the pace. She also started babbling. In the beginning it was just 'Ba' sounds, now she's into 'Ma' sounds. It almost sounds like she is trying to talk, but so far we havent heard her make a clear intentional word, though there were some close calls.
	Ayla sitting without support
	Standing with little support
	Ayla sitting on a high chair on a dinner table
Ayla Laughing	This is a link to a home video of Ayla after she had a nice shower. She is seen chuckling in her most unique laugh as Ania jumps in and out of her view.