Pointing at Pictures

Sophie's latest trick is pointing at pictures and sometimes identifying them.

She'll point enthusiastically to Clifford the big/little red dog (we think she thinks he's Elmo). She points to monkeys and makes the monkey sign and says "ooo, ooo!". And every time she comes across a toothbrushing pictures she puts her fingers up to her mouth in imitation.

So all that reading (and brushing of teeth) seems to have paid dividends.

She'll also point at pictures in response to our prompts. "Where's the flower?" we'll ask, and after a moment's hesitation she'll point to the squirrel and look at us hopefully. "Ooooh!" we'll say, "Not quite. But you found the squirrel--good job!"

I could wish for such a cheerful spirit of open exploration and a willingness to make mistakes in my students. As opposed to Sophie, they seem sometimes paralyzed by the thought of getting something wrong. So far "C'mon guys, my baby can do this!" has not proven itself the way to motivate them to experiment and take risks.

Sophie draws

Sophie loves to draw on paper, for about two minutes. Then, she wants to draw on the table, floor, or anywhere but the paper. Then I take away the lovely crayons and we move on to the next activity.

Sophie speaks, signs, counts and sorts.

Sophie's starting to say more and more words each week. She now says nose, shoes and banana. She can now point to pictures in the book and sign the animal--duck, monkey, elephant. She seems to understand just about anything. I ask her a lot of yes/no questions and she often nods her head yes when she answers, even when sometimes she possibly hasn't thought through the whole question. But I like this positive feedback, so I ask her questions that sometimes should just be statements. Last night I asked her if she wanted to go to bed, because for the last three nights she'd said yes. Last night she said no. I didn't expect that and no wasn't really an option. I read her a couple of more books and then took her to bed, no questions asked, which seemed to work, luckily.

She's also taken to counting and sorting. Yesterday morning she took out three cereal boxes and repeatedly counted them or at least wagged her finger at them as if she were counting. Then she emptied out our teabox and kindly separated the teabags: those with clear wrappers went in the library, those with colored wrappers, in the kitchen. One the one hand, it's very exciting to see her count and sort, on the other hand, I fear there will be more to clean up.

Sophie reaches her newest height :-(

Mike mentions how unchildproof our house is in the next blog entry you will read, he's right. We have all the basics down: locks on cupboards, electric sockets covered, etc. The problem is that Sophie's favorite places to be are those where she will find the most trouble, especially the library where all of our books and computers are. This morning, I left her there reading Goodnight Moon, walked into the living room to get my wallet, then heard a thud. I just thought it was the book hitting the ground. I was wrong. It was my newish laptop. Mike walked in and collected it off the floor. Apparently my coping mechanism is to just not think about the possibly broken computer until I need to use it again. Luckily, all is well. It didn't fall far--I've dropped previous laptops from higher up--and the landing was pretty soft on the carpet--I dropped another one on the cement once. One of my laptops--the one that was dropped on the cement--was sold to a friend who then days later dropped it down a flight of stairs at the Bibliothèque nationale. She still uses it years later. So hurray for Apple for making such nice durable computers; boo for me for leaving the computer out where Sophie can get it.

Her first lie?

Sometimes we want to play with Sophie in her room. Sometimes we're tired of running after her in our imperfectly childproofed house (she keeps reaching new heights!). Sometimes she really wants to get out of her room.

One of her signs is "feed me"--which is good for signaling hunger. When she signs "feed me" we all go out into the living room to find her some food.

Lately she's been signing "feed me" a lot when she's tired of being in her room.

Sometimes she doesn't seem too interested in eating when we get out to the living room.

Nap time!

It is a minor miracle that I can give my daughter a bottle, put her in her sleep sack, tell her it's nap time and leave the room.

And she doesn't protest. She totally bought it!

Diaper time!

So! Much! Corn!

Still or sparkling water?

She's reached an annoying stage wherein she both signs and moans plaintively.

I looked in the mirror while driving home from the grocery store today. She was grunting urgently and signing "more". Blueberries.

"I know, Sophie, but I'm driving."

This did not placate her.

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So anywho, I had just taken a sip of water when Sophie started whining meaningfully and pointing to my glass.

"You want water?" I asked, and tipped the glass so that she could wriggle her tongue around just inside the rim while taking little swallows--this, for some disgusting reason, being her method of drinking from cups.

Just as she started to drink, I considered that I had been drinking sparkling water and that Sophie would not be expecting this.

She jerked her head back and regarded the glass solemnly.

I chuckled and took a drink myself. As I did so, her expression changed to something like horrified incredulity--an expression I would like to characterize as a "You've got to be F-ing Sh-ing me" stare, if this were not a family blog.

Really, I wish I could have captured that look on film.

I spewed water all over the place, which restored her to her former good humor.

Her third joke--a sophisticated pun!

Brushing our teeth together in the mirror--one of her favorite parts of the evening--Sophie stops and looks at me. Then she takes the toothbrush out of her mouth and puts it to her head as if she were brushing her hair.

We giggle delightedly.

Gehen für Fortgeschrittene

She's got walking pretty much down, and is now working on running.

Also, she's started walking on her tip-toes. Just 'cause she can, apparently.

Still doesn't leave the ground when she tries to jump, though.

More! More!

She's signing enthusiastically, but sometimes opaquely.

"More" is a favorite. More what? Sometimes we don't know. But she sure wants more of it.

More, just general, you know, life experience--seems to be her intent.

I think she thinks "More" means "give me that thing or do that thing that I would like now".

She's very exasperated when her parents can't understand what she means.

At the lake

This morning we went down to the lake. Before we could see the water, Sophie started getting excited. It’s clear that she is starting to remember places she’s been and has associated feelings with those places. Sophie started out playing in the sand, but I could see that she really wanted to play with/in the water. After some initial wading, she started walking out into the lake, deeper and deeper. It was as if she wasn’t noticing that she was in water at all. Once the water was about up to her chest, it finally gave her pause. She wasn’t really sure what to do at that point. Quite calmly she asked to get picked up. I walked back to the shore with her in my arms and we did it again. Stay tuned, we might just be swimming before the summer is over.

MIT or Caltech?

Her new sports center toy has a basketball hoop.

When you get a ball through the hoop, the ball depresses a lever which then activates the sounds--crowd cheers, buzzers, take-me-out-to-the-ball-game noises--that are meant to reward you.

Sophie has figured out that she can cut out the middle man and just press the lever herself. She's hacked her toy.

Sophie's second joke

She farts; she giggles.

That is all. That's enough.

pink stole and water bottle

We bought Sophie a new water bottle to try to help her get over the loss of her baby bottles. It seems like she learned to say the word "bottle" really well after we stopped using them. If she catches sight of an empty one (we still use them at night time), she becomes, well, emotional. This purchase might have done the trick. She toted the water bottle around with her all day. In every picture I have of her today, she has a firm grasp on it. She's not going to let it get away as easily as she did the baby bottles, I guess.

She really wanted to wear the pink stole this morning as we played. She looked ridiculously cute in it. That was before changing into the knight chainmail.

knight writer

Do you get the pun? Probably not unless you realize that Sophie is wearing a costume that is supposed to be a knight's chainmail. Do you get it now?

A day at the beach

Representations

Pictures are things that are pictures of other things!

Sophie has started to plumb the mysteries of representation--starting with the realization a couple of days ago that those squiggles on her crib were actually pictures of elephants!

And in books! There are pictures of other things that can be pointed to! There are kittens and mittens and red balloons. And sometimes Mommy and Daddy ask where they are and then you can point there!

And at daycare there's a big mural of Noah's ark and there are animals to point at and then Mommy and Daddy make the monkey sounds and the dog sounds and the sheep sounds and there's a bunny that doesn't really have a sound and all the other sounds and you can point at them! And it's all really really exciting.

Strength Training

Oh first it was the climbing. And now it's the lifting and throwing.

Her physical dexterity and strength develop apace. Whereas her previous attempts at throwing involved a sort of run-hop with raised arms (to get up speed?) and then a hilariously ineffective drop of whatever item she was hoping to throw, now she's starting to develop a pretty good overhand.

As with many things, this is a moment that inspires both excitement and dread. On the one hand, she's learning to throw! On the other, now we have to teach her to only throw certain things and in certain places. (viz. balls; outside).

We must must must convince her to stop trying to throw wooden blocks at a short distance directly at daddy's head when he's lying peacefully on her floor and not expecting it. That's not even a throw, it was basically a stone cold sap to the back of the head when I wasn't looking. My baby tried to mug me. And she giggled when I shouted.

To gain her strength for the occasional assault, she's taken to weight training. She tosses her toys around with abandon, tips over her new toy basketball hoop and tries to ride it like Blue Horse (an inventive, but decidedly unapproved-by-the-manufacturer, maneuver), and on at least one occasion tried to flip the ottoman in what looked like a fair attempt at a Romanian Deadlift.

Shoes

She's a fan of shoes. And socks.

Have I already mentioned this?

She loves to take off her footwear and then try to put it on again.

Tonight, she took off my socks (with a little help). She was delighted.

After she takes off a shoe or a sock, she likes to try to put it on again. This is harder, but she's bravely soldiering on. Someday she'll get it!

A few weeks ago, I put my big toes into her sandals and walked around a bit. Oh, the shrieks and giggles that followed!

Baby bird

When we have breakfast in the morning, she rushes over for a bite of oatmeal or cereal.

She flings herself against my legs and opens her mouth wide, with a lopsided smile.

Still the best way to get her to try something is for her mother and I to make a big show of eating and sharing with each other. Sophie wants some too!!

Yabba Dabba Babbling

She's full into her babbling/jargoning. She's getting quite expressive.

She sounds like Fred Flintstone.

A younger Fred Flintstone, with a higher voice.

make way for Sophie

This morning, Sophie crawled up into her stroller on her own. That might sound like a simple feat, but it's not. It requires some serious negotiating under a bar while scooting up to the seat, which she did with great alacrity and grace, especially for somebody who isn’t always steady on her pins.

Not so sure about cats

Visiting friends, Sophie sees her first cats in months up close.

She's none too sure about these cats, our Sophie. She gets within five feet of them and totters to an uneasy stop. Then she whips around and holds her arms up to get picked up, or runs back to where we're sitting and flings herself into our laps.

Once today a curious cat came to up to the edge of the couch, where Sophie was just rounding the edge. Her eyes got really big (Sophie's, not the cat's), she said "Mwaaaahhhhhhh!", and hurried over to the safety of the other couch where her mother and I were sitting.

This is in stark contrast to the last time we were here, when she crawled after them as fast as she could (much to their dismay)--or the last time we visited our other long-distance friends with cats. They had a cat who snarled and jumped and batted declawed paws at her. To which Sophie at the time replied with a look that said, "Huh. Interesting. But I'm still gonna try to pick you up.

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In other news, she likes to spin. She does so on command.

Also, she chained two signs to say "More" + "Food". Still no sign of "Please".