whirlwind

I can't remember what's new and what's not.

She claps on command.

She understands no, but does not necessarily obey it.

She had an intriguing encounter with a (fortuitously declawed) cat. I'm pretty sure she never realized the cat was anything other than overjoyed to see her).

She's been sleeping wonderfully long through the night.

She likes to drop things and see us pick them up.

She may be catching on,...

She's taken to stumbling forward a few feet to get to the things she wants to get to.  Thus, she'll eyeball the gap between the couch and the ottoman, take a breath and tottle over, landing with  her arms out and then looking at us with a big old grin, as if to say, "Did you SEE??!!"

This afternoon, she was so overtaken with joy at finding herself at the entrance to "My Urban Toddler" that she tottered her accustomed two feet into the room with nothing to catch her but the floor.  Then she took off for the ramp as fast as hands and knees could take her.

She has also started responding to the request: "Gimme five".  She'll hold her hand out and writhe in joy when we give it a little smack.  This falls under the developmental category: "can understand and follow simple instructions" and also confirms her irretrievable Americanness.  This is almost surely nurture rather than nature, as the security guard at day care demands his daily five as a sort of toll from all the children.

It also brings home, with a visceral jump of my gut, the fact that we're raising a real live little person here and not, say, a particularly gifted cat.  (Though some dogs, I suppose, do shake on command.  But still, I'm fairly sure she isn't a puppy.)

Best Foot Forward

Sophie can walk; she just doesn't know she can walk.

Let me 'splain:

Of an evening, her mother and I will usually find ourselves sitting on the ground a few feet apart while Sophie holds onto our hands and totters from the one of us to the other in paroxysms of indecision. This so excites her that she starts losing all sense of balance and ends up giggling and gasping on the floor--whereupon we sweep her up for a group hug. It's all very sweet.

There's a small window of opportunity in this process in which Sophie is excited to distraction but not yet so excited that she's in actual danger of falling down. Last night, at just such a moment, she turned, let go of her mother's hand, and tottered 4 or 5 excited-but-consecutive steps before falling into my arms.

So that's it, I'm calling it: first steps as of 11 Feb. 2009.

It may be more accurate to say that she can stumble a bit further before she falls, since there was no way she was going to come to a halt and remain vertical on her own. But whatever. They were steps and they took her where she wanted to go. Right into Daddy's arms.

Treasure Trough

So many things that didn't quite make sense pre-Sophie now do.

Sophie has progressed from cute little cloth bibs--mere decorations, really--to a full-body jobbie that did nothing to keep her clothes food-less since it soon soaked through.  She now has a thick plastic bib with a trough to catch the detritus of her feedings.

She so wants feeding to be interactive.  Also, she's learned to throw things--kind of.  She's still working on it, but goes to it with a good will, and manages to get the food fairly far away.  Certainly usually further than her highchair tray.

If she doesn't manage to get the throw, she's always got the dribble.

This is where the trough comes in handy.

She likes the trough, because she enjoys fishing out bits of food and conveying them to her mouth.  (Thus,this is her treasure trough.)  Mmmmm, tastes better second time around.

Disgusting to watch, but I'm told it will get better.

Cuddly

Cuddly is a good thing, of course, but Sophie is now cuddlier than ever due to a slight ear infection that has her, at times, listless and out of sorts.

Rather than attempt to climb the blinds, she is now happier in our arms--that was our first clue.

This morning at 5 a.m. she wailed mightily for our attention.  She did not want to be held by me, lie next to me, or be stroked by me.  She wanted to use me as a mattress.  And so it was, for about an hour:  her head on my tummy, her legs on the mattress.  She appeared to be asleep, but complained when I tried to move her.  Finally she, and I, did get some sleep.

Her medicine smells, and apparently tastes, like bubblegum.  She's quite enthusiastic about it.

BTW Xmas

s-d-r-a-w-k-c-a-b

She enjoys it when we hold her hands and let her walk along with us.  Lately she's taken to walking backwards.

She discovered patting her hand on her mouth and making noise today.  There was an incident when she tried to substitute the side of the tub for her hand.  (Smash mouth on tub: no fun).

She continues to enjoy what the day care people call "give and take" and I call "offer and rescind":  she holds out a toy to you, waits until you reach out your hand to take it, snatches it back, and cackles.  (Cf. Freud, S.  Beyond the Pleasure Principle.  1920.  Trans. James Strachey.  New York: Norton, 1961.  12-16.).

Her crawling is sufficiently advanced that she can now sprint-crawl.  She does this when she gets to the doorway to her room, beyond which lie wires and lint she is not allowed to eat.  Knowing that she'll be prevented from leaving (or at least pick up a tail) she makes a mad dash when she thinks we're not paying attention.

Yes, mom, I know!

And fairly solid evidence that she knows what boundaries are and is testing them comes from an incident today when I trailed her out to the living room and under a side table.  Under the table were a piece of paper, a pair of sunglasses, and the plug in to the lamp.

She picked up the paper.  Looked at me.  Played with the glasses for a while.  Looked again.  Put down the glasses, looked, picked them up again, played.  Looked up.  Grabbed the wire.  No! I said, picked her up, took her back to her room.

She cackled.