What is it with people this week? Twice this week, I've had total random strangers come up to Zoë and start touching her up! She was in the carrier both times so they also had to invade my personal space to get to her. Once was on the subway with a seemingly normal young woman (whose boyfriend was very polite and did not touch my baby even though he was urged to by his girlfriend). The other time was in a MacDonalds with a borderline crazy person. (I know, what did I expect, going into the MacD's?) Both times I had to resist the incredibly strong urge to shield Z with my body and scream 'STOP TOUCHING MY BABY!' This was WAY worse than the people touching my stomach when I was pregnant. Those people were usually content with a quick rub and then they were gone. These people just want to hang around and talk to me for however long I'm trapped with them, all the while touching my baby!

Ok, sorry about that. Just had to get it off my chest.

As for the little one, her newest thing is clapping. A couple of Saturdays ago I took her for a sleepover at her aunt's house, and as Joe says, I took her away and she couldn't clap and brought her back and that was all she wanted to do! She does it fairly randomly - or at least Joe and I can't seem to figure out what makes her want to clap, but she will do it when we do in a sort of call and response thing. Unfortunately when other people start clapping and cheering around her, she gets really upset. It happened at a recent baby shower and again at a book launch, we had to remove her from the scene because she wouldn't stop crying when people cheered.
Something else that she does that took me a while to figure out. She shakes her head, also seemingly randomly. It was weird for me because I don't shake my head 'no' very often, so I didn't know where she could have picked it up from. In fact, she doesn't do it to indicate 'no'. I finally realized that the only time I shake my head even vaguely like that is when we dance!

On the crawling front, I think she's had a bit of a breakthrough in the last couple of days. She's started to really put the hand and leg movements together so she's actually getting real forward movement. She still hates being on her stomach though. She'd much rather be standing. If Joe or I are lying beside her, she will use us to pull herself up to a standing position. And Joe loves to hold her steady while she walks around the living room.
She's also doing really well with the swimming. She rarely complains when I dunk her head under. The other day, we got there a bit early so she was dressed and ready to go before the previous class was over. She started to fuss and I was worried that she was going to be a problem in the pool, but it turned out she was just impatient. As soon as we got into the pool, she was happy as a clam!

And one thing on the food front. I tried her on yogurt but I noticed she was spitting up a lot more for a couple hours after. Does anyone know if this just means she's not ready for milk products or if it's normal for yogurt or if it's something I should talk to the doctor about? It's the first adverse reaction to a food she's had (that I've noticed) so I'm not sure how concerned I should be.

Ok, some pics. Weeks 33 and 34 and her first trip down to Harbourfront