dhara wearing a beautiful cotton gauze Ethiopian dress that gifty aunty picked up on her travels to Africa

She is so much fun.  I love my baby girl.  Greg and I always say, “we’re so glad we got this one.”  Thank you, Jesus!  This one being a little cherub baby in disguise.  This little cherub has got everyone’s attention here in our household.  When each person here comes home from work, the first question they ask is, “where is Dhara?!”  Her Josh Uncle cares little about what we think of him, he comes straight to our bedroom door, taps lightly, but purposefully, and says, “can I hold Baby?”.

She really is alot of fun.  She loves fun.  She loves people and being with people.  She’s also a very loving little person.  I love it when she holds my face to give me one of her special open mouth (slobbery) kisses.  She’s like a puppy — joyful, so very curious, and loves it when we play with her.  I personally love to hold her close so I can squeeze her and give her kisses upon kisses.

Dhara started army crawling around 6.5 months, which means we’re constantly keeping an eye out for her lest she put shoes in her mouth, fall down the steps, or bump her head somewhere — feels like the list is endless.  She’s quite fast.  And everything goes into her mouth.

She’s begun saying “mamamamamama”, but only when she cries.  A part of me loves the fact that she only wants me when she’s sad.  She still snuggles close to us when we lay next to her to put her to sleep.  Although before falling asleep, she is all over the bed, rolling this way and that, until she rolls back to us, and nods off to dreamworld.  It’s quite sweet.

no, she’s not standing on her own yet, she’s being held up

She started clapping her hands last month.  She claps especially when we sing, “Oh, clap your hands, all ye people, shout unto God with a voice of triumph! Clap your hands, all ye people, shout unto God with a voice of praise!” She loves music, and looks intently at the source of it, and then looks up at me and smiles.  My mom talks to her in Malayalam (our native language) and asks her to clap her hands.  Our little bilingual baby, or soon to be bilingual, knows exactly what to do.

the dress came with a scarf — like it as a headpiece?

or as a diaper cover?