Yes, she said it - this morning Nadia said "Mama!" It was the sweetest sound! And while I doubt any of you reading this will believe me, she also communicated with me deliberately two other times today... here's how. During Mother's Day Out, her teachers will come and get me to nurse her when she's hungry. Today she wasn't interested in nursing (she was fussing and turning her head), but instead kept saying, "Ba, ba, ba". So I went to her diaper bag, made a bottle and sure enough she drank the whole thing... now don't tell me she wasn't saying bottle! Later this afternoon, we were reading a book that has lots of first word pictures in it. We had been through several pages and she had pointed to random and various pictures and objects on the pages. Then we got to the page about eating and she kept touching the baby that was eating and the one that was drinking - over and over. I talked about "yes they are eating and drinking," etc and tried to turn the page, but she'd have nothing of it. She kept going back to those two pics - so I swooped her up, put her in the high chair and gave that girl and snack and drink! Clearly that's what she was trying to tell me?? Okay, don't think I'm crazy - but I know we have the smartest baby around, so why wouldn't she use any method necessary to convey her point?
Her latest routine includes a 45 minute morning nap, an hour to hour and a half afternoon nap and sleeping all through the night (from about 7:45 PM to 6:45 AM). She loves to squeal and is grunting often. Her favorite toy of the week is a chunky pieced wooden puzzle of jungle animals. She always goes for the alligator and giraffe - with second favorites of the monkey and elephant. She is very into testing and stretching her limits with sitting up. She likes to put toys as far behind her as she can reach and then reach way over to get them again. She also always wants the toy that's just farther than she can comfortably reach - but she'll try and try and sometimes tip over. When she tips, she'll just roll to her side or tummy and keep playing from there. She is always moving her legs - from jumping dramatically in the exersaucer to bouncing for 30 minutes straight in her jumpy seat (see video for demo and keep in mind she'd already been at it for 20 minutes by the time I got the camera out!)
Nadia LOVES electronics! No matter how many toys she is surrounded by, if there is a remote control, cell phone, calculator, camera or computer near by, she will do whatever it takes to get the grown-up electronic device and forego all the toys! 
She is getting around quite well! This is a space about 8' x 10' and not thirty seconds before I snapped this picture, she was playing with the popup busy box on the other side of the room! Seriously - she got all the way over to the other side in nearly no time at all. She is doing barrel rolls in every direction to get where she wants to go. She'll go up on all fours but hasn't figured out what to do from there, so she just rocks back and forth and then collapses to her tummy and kicks which propels her only a little bit, so she resorts to rolling and dramatic reaching again! This was the neatest this room looked all day as she kept straying toys here and there and pulling out more and more stuff!
Shop 'til you drop! Thursday Nadia was helping me buy supplies for Vacation Bible School. One minute she's babbling away while I go down the aisle. The next second I reach over to get something off the shelf, turn back around and she's completely sound asleep in the buggy. She stayed that way for a good 20 minutes while I finished my shopping, checked out and went to the car. 
This is an old picture but I just pulled it off my phone - swinging at the park in our neighborhood - she loves it! 
Daddy pushing Nadia in the swing
This dress was made my by mom (Nana) for me (Becca) when I was little! It's such a cute dress - Nadia likes it too! 
Sweet girl posing in her dress mommy used to wear!
Lounging in the bathtub... Nadia is very into a relaxing soak in the tub and our latest arrangement wasn't allowing her to stretch out enough I guess! She'll just prop herself up and lay back to chill (but only for a moment because there is cup banging and duck eating to do too!)
Eating is quite the messy event these days. Nadia loves to feed herself little pieces of things we're having but when I've been giving her veggies from a spoon and then she picks up something to put in her mouth, her fingers get in her mouth and there is quite a bit of mixing of these two things leading to the mess you see here... Dinner is always quickly followed by a bath! 
One Happy Happy Girl!
Last night we were giving Nadia a bath in the kitchen sink. She reached over to the other side and grabbed the sink stopper. She was trying to put it in her mouth when I grabbed it from her, not knowing that her right pointer finger was in one of the holes. When I pulled it away from her, it sliced open her finger. It bled and bled and made a little flap of skin so that we weren't sure if it needed a stich or not. We called the pediatrician who advised we go on to the ER. We got her dressed and took her to Doctor's Hospital ER because they are known for short ER wait times. They took us to sign in right away and at their initial look thought it would likely need a stich. They put some gauze and tape on it and sent us back to the waiting room to wait. By this point, she was happy as a clam watching her Baby Einstein DVDs just laughing away. After three hours of waiting, they finally called us back to a room. She feel asleep before the doctor came in and slept through his entire 3 minute exam where they decided a band-aid and some neosporin would do the trick. They agreed that they could put a stitch in it, but it really wouldn't help anything, would be more traumatic than needed and would raise the risk of infection. So our first (and hopefully last) ER visit resulted in a band-aid - we are grateful. Of course I still feel TERRIBLE that I let it happen/caused it to happen at all! But she seems to have forgiven me and actually is quite proud of her wrapped up finger. Today with Sarahbeth, she pulled the bandaid off, and it started bleeding again, so Sarahbeth (with the help of her nurse mom) taped it up all the way to her wrist with tape and gauze. 
