Anna has hit that stage of development that leads children to fixate on their favourite song and replay it until their parents go mad. Anna is on a full-on kick for Feist's fantastic "1-2-3-4." It was bad enough when all she knew was which CD to insist on and which buttons on the stereo to stab at until the song would play. Then, this being an multimedia age, we decided she might like to see the video on YouTube. (Anna doesn't get to watch any TV at all, so we indulge her love for kitties and horses and puppets and goofiness by letting her watch wee bits and snatches on YouTube.)
Now, after playing the song twenty or fifty times in a row on the stereo, she stands at the bottom of the stairs pointing up to where the computer is, humming the tune and doing a special Feist dance. She loves the video, with lots of people dancing to her favourite song in happy colours.
After her daily Feist-ival, she spent the remains of the day eating potatoes (she can eat a whole one even when I can't) and changing the diaper on her doll, who apparently was full of pee for a non-wet-ems type of doll.
Another milestone: she helped her mom make cookies for the first time today. She whisked the dry ingredients and hardly got any strewn around the kitchen, and she poured in the chocolate chips. She was very proud. She brought several cookies to her dad to show off her helpfulness. (Of course, she also memorized the location of the chocolate chips and snuck a handful later in the day when we weren't looking, but that's another story.)
The weather has been dreadful, dreadful this winter, going from bad to worse and back again, and she has been as prone to cabin fever as any of us. When she wants an adventure or just to get out of the house, she takes your hand and leads you to her snowsuit or sits on the floor putting on her boots.
She likes longer and more sophisticated storybooks now -- the kinds with actual stories in them, rather than just short rhymes and rhythms. She tells stories, too, though still not in so many words. She tends to save words for special occasions, such as "cheese" and "shoes" and "kitty" and "eyes" and "yay" and "yippee." Her favourite word is still "daddy," though she throws in a "mommy" now and then when the occasion demands. Her bottle is a "bobby" and her dollies are "babies." She has had lots of opportunity to watch snowplows and salt trucks this winter, and she loves them. She stands in the window saying "vrmm." She can pick pictures of large snow-moving machines out of the tiniest, blurriest pictures in the newspaper before we even notice them.
Anna has extra teeth, too -- at least fourteen now, with two new incisorry types on the bottom. (That might explain some sleepless nights a while back.) We assume she's growing, because she's eating like a horse. Today, when offered her favourite pasta casserole for lunch, she said "yay" after every bite. When I called home from work, I could hear her raucous celebrations.
She's up to so much these days, it's impossible to keep up. We're sure she'll really bloom when spring arrives and she can get out of the house more and enjoy the yard and the world's blooming things and returning birds and sunshine. (Are these possible? Hope so!)
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sixteen months, and whadda ya get?
Anna is sixteen months today and is making the day last as long as she can by not going to sleep. Her father is taking a turn settling her, but all her "don't-put-me-in-that-crib" sensors are super-special-sensitive this evening, for whatever reason.
When each day is as full as Anna can make it, it is challenging to document her doings -- especially since I sometimes make an effort to hold down a full-time job or complete additional projects. But today is as good a day for a snapshot as any day.
Anna had a busy weekend, with five separate visits, parties, or activities. She had a chance to show off her social skills with other children her age and revealed, again, an odd admixture of Stephen's social style and mine -- quiet and observant for a long while, taking in all the activities from the sidelines (like Stephen) then being bossy when she finally gets in on the action. (We don't know where the bossiness comes from. Ahem.)
Of course, Anna doesn't interact with other children at all if she has an option to go up and down stairs. She has shifted her focus from walking and running (old hat) to climbing, an activity that led her to learn how to climb the furniture and stand in the windowsill over the Christmas holidays. She can climb her high chair in seconds, if the tray table is not there to block her ascent. She also has learned to move kitchen chairs up to the cupboard or the table or the sink to get what she wants to reach for.
Today, most of her climbing took her up to window-level to watch two big trucks from the electrical company repairing a damaged pole outside our house. This was endlessly fascinating, since Anna loves big trucks and plows and says "Vrmmm" happily to all of them.
At 10:30, the lure of the big trucks outside combined with a realization she hadn't been to a party yet all day, and she fetched her scarf and snowsuit and headed for the door. Once outside, she walked to the car and asked to be taken for a drive. With freezing rain in the offing, this was not an option, so we walked up and down the sidewalk, crunching ice pellets under her snowboots, and keeping an eye on the progress of the line repairs.
Later on, Anna would only eat her lunch with her hat and scarf on, just in case an opportunity for a party or other adventure might come up suddenly and without warning. Her diet these days consists of stuck together food -- casseroles -- especially those stuck together with tomato-vegetable sauce. She's still crazy about protein-rich foods like meat and beans and cheese and eats berries until they are all gone. Ketchup is a food group. Gravy can be eaten by the fistful when one is motivated sufficiently. And yogurt is eaten independently, from a grown-up bowl with a grown-up spoon.
Anna was helpful all day -- helping her parents by wiping the table (standing on a chair and swishing with her facecloth) and folding and putting away the laundry (dumping the clean laundry on the floor, crumpling up underwear, and "putting it away" by dumping it on the bedroom floor, just like her parents) and sweeping the kitchen floor (spreading the dirt around with a badly handled broom and screaming if the broom got taken away) and putting away the dishes (standing on a chair by the sink and handing dishes to me to dry -- or tossing them back into the sink if they didn't meet her exacting standards for cleanliness).
She tended her doll carefully today. She dressed her doll in a new outfit and checked her diaper and shared her cookie and washed her face with a cloth. Dolly gets a lot of rides on the rocking horse, usually accompanied by Anna and also dolly's teddy bear. And bunny. It gets a bit squishy.
Anna (and dolly) love books, especially ones with farmyard animals Anna can imitate. Today, Anna also learned from one of her books that kittens like to play with balls of string, so we found a ball of string and woke poor Moon, who was napping unsuspectingly and was roused to a game of chase the string by a delighted, squealing toddler. Anna waves her hands in the air when she gets excited now.
Anna did her yoga stretches in the tub this evening. She usually does them on the living room floor, but she didn't get around to it with everything else that was going on. When she meets someone new, one of the first things she likes to show them is her yoga routine, which is elaborate and runs from downward dog to triangle postures to lying-on-her-back-with-her-feet-in-the-air poses. Just like her mom, she loves to stand on her head, with a little help. And just like her mom, she avoids the "hero" posture, virasana, even though it's usually a natural for kids to flop down in.
Anna understands everything and communicates her needs very clearly, but her poor independent little heart wants words, now, and she is frustrated that they are slow in coming. She's very good at the words she has, but she wants a bigger vocabulary. If vocabulary displaces some of the high-pitched screaming, her parents will be delighted, but we figure we're in for more yelling more often for more months than we are prepared for. Today's new word was "baby," a word that well describes what Anna Sophia is not, anymore.
When each day is as full as Anna can make it, it is challenging to document her doings -- especially since I sometimes make an effort to hold down a full-time job or complete additional projects. But today is as good a day for a snapshot as any day.
Anna had a busy weekend, with five separate visits, parties, or activities. She had a chance to show off her social skills with other children her age and revealed, again, an odd admixture of Stephen's social style and mine -- quiet and observant for a long while, taking in all the activities from the sidelines (like Stephen) then being bossy when she finally gets in on the action. (We don't know where the bossiness comes from. Ahem.)
Of course, Anna doesn't interact with other children at all if she has an option to go up and down stairs. She has shifted her focus from walking and running (old hat) to climbing, an activity that led her to learn how to climb the furniture and stand in the windowsill over the Christmas holidays. She can climb her high chair in seconds, if the tray table is not there to block her ascent. She also has learned to move kitchen chairs up to the cupboard or the table or the sink to get what she wants to reach for.
Today, most of her climbing took her up to window-level to watch two big trucks from the electrical company repairing a damaged pole outside our house. This was endlessly fascinating, since Anna loves big trucks and plows and says "Vrmmm" happily to all of them.
At 10:30, the lure of the big trucks outside combined with a realization she hadn't been to a party yet all day, and she fetched her scarf and snowsuit and headed for the door. Once outside, she walked to the car and asked to be taken for a drive. With freezing rain in the offing, this was not an option, so we walked up and down the sidewalk, crunching ice pellets under her snowboots, and keeping an eye on the progress of the line repairs.
Later on, Anna would only eat her lunch with her hat and scarf on, just in case an opportunity for a party or other adventure might come up suddenly and without warning. Her diet these days consists of stuck together food -- casseroles -- especially those stuck together with tomato-vegetable sauce. She's still crazy about protein-rich foods like meat and beans and cheese and eats berries until they are all gone. Ketchup is a food group. Gravy can be eaten by the fistful when one is motivated sufficiently. And yogurt is eaten independently, from a grown-up bowl with a grown-up spoon.
Anna was helpful all day -- helping her parents by wiping the table (standing on a chair and swishing with her facecloth) and folding and putting away the laundry (dumping the clean laundry on the floor, crumpling up underwear, and "putting it away" by dumping it on the bedroom floor, just like her parents) and sweeping the kitchen floor (spreading the dirt around with a badly handled broom and screaming if the broom got taken away) and putting away the dishes (standing on a chair by the sink and handing dishes to me to dry -- or tossing them back into the sink if they didn't meet her exacting standards for cleanliness).
She tended her doll carefully today. She dressed her doll in a new outfit and checked her diaper and shared her cookie and washed her face with a cloth. Dolly gets a lot of rides on the rocking horse, usually accompanied by Anna and also dolly's teddy bear. And bunny. It gets a bit squishy.
Anna (and dolly) love books, especially ones with farmyard animals Anna can imitate. Today, Anna also learned from one of her books that kittens like to play with balls of string, so we found a ball of string and woke poor Moon, who was napping unsuspectingly and was roused to a game of chase the string by a delighted, squealing toddler. Anna waves her hands in the air when she gets excited now.
Anna did her yoga stretches in the tub this evening. She usually does them on the living room floor, but she didn't get around to it with everything else that was going on. When she meets someone new, one of the first things she likes to show them is her yoga routine, which is elaborate and runs from downward dog to triangle postures to lying-on-her-back-with-her-feet-in-the-air poses. Just like her mom, she loves to stand on her head, with a little help. And just like her mom, she avoids the "hero" posture, virasana, even though it's usually a natural for kids to flop down in.
Anna understands everything and communicates her needs very clearly, but her poor independent little heart wants words, now, and she is frustrated that they are slow in coming. She's very good at the words she has, but she wants a bigger vocabulary. If vocabulary displaces some of the high-pitched screaming, her parents will be delighted, but we figure we're in for more yelling more often for more months than we are prepared for. Today's new word was "baby," a word that well describes what Anna Sophia is not, anymore.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Close Shave
One more cute thing I forgot to mention that Anna did this past weekend: She was looking at photos on the mantelpiece of Grandma Marjorie's. Her auntie Sandra asked Anna to point to mommy, and Anna pointed to the picture of me from our wedding. Then Sandra asked Anna to point to her dad, and Anna looked at the picture from the wedding, scrutinized it, and instead pointed to a picture of her dad from his sister Mary Jane's wedding.
Why? Stephen had a beard when Mary Jane got married and was clean-shaven for our wedding, and Anna has never seen her dad clean-shaven! If he ever shaves again, Anna won't recognize him.
Why? Stephen had a beard when Mary Jane got married and was clean-shaven for our wedding, and Anna has never seen her dad clean-shaven! If he ever shaves again, Anna won't recognize him.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Time/Change
Someone Anna-sized didn't get the memo that the clocks went back an hour on Saturday night. Or she got the memo but can't read yet.
We tried to keep Anna awake a little later last night to begin to align her body clock with the kitchen clock, but at 6:30, which felt to her like 7:30, she felt strongly that her parents were overlooking her needs and had forgotten her nightly rituals, so she grabbed her father's hand, led him to the bathroom door, looked at him meaningfully so he would understand he was supposed to run a bath, then wandered to her changing table to get a facecloth.
She is either a smarty-pants or she is as routine-oriented as her dad!
At thirteen months, Anna is an expert walker and now is willing to sit and play for whole minutes at a time. She loves to sit on anything at bum-level: the crossbar at the bottom of her highchair's support, the baseboard heaters, the cat. Her grandma gave her a little stool to sit on, and she loved to spend happy minutes sitting on it -- for the first hour she had it at home. Ah yes, off and on for that whole hour, she sat by the pots and pans and clattered them happily. Then -- bored -- she picked up the wee stool, carried it to the living room, maneuvred it to the side of the piano, climbed up on it and stood there playing a little "tune" of her own devising and dancing precariously close to the stool's edge.
She learns new things every week. On Saturday, when she hosted a three-hour gallery opening for her father, she learned to blow kisses. (Thank god someone in this family can schmooze.) She has also learned this week that she can get her parents to follow her by grabbing them and pushing them or dragging them in the direction she wants them to go. ("There -- towards the crackers!" "Here, where my blocks are!")
And her repertoire of dance moves expands every day. At first when she started dancing, she mostly bent her knees and bounced her bum. Now, her whole body has got the action. She dances in ways she has never seen anyone dance -- it is all inborn in her rhythmic little person and her happy little imagination. She bounces her bum and moves her arms and bobs and dips her shoulders and head. All it takes is someone clapping their hands or threatening to hum a tune, and she's all a-dance. Her favourite CDs these days have Latin rhythms. Salsa, mambo . . . you name it. She loves music and sings more and more. It is again possible to figure out from her body language and her singing which songs she likes best on any given CD. She likes all the songs good and loud, too!
Now that Anna has eight teeth through, she is also very independent about her food. She eats grown-up food with gusto, protein most of all, the spicier the better. She's never met anything tomato-based she didn't like. And if her parents want to eat an apple, they can only do so in a dark room with the door closed -- otherwise, the apple will be stolen and gnawed on ferociously, consumed with startling efficiency. Anna is not satisfied to eat with her fingers (like her mother does, since her mother has never had a good relationship with cutlery or society). She now wants to control her own spoon. This results in a lot of soup and yogurt on the floor, on her parents, on her lap, on the cat. We might not give her soupy foods until her motor control matches her control-freakiness.
Verbally, Anna meows. She says "Shh" with her finger to her lips and whispers her garbly babytalk if the cat is asleep and doesn't want to be wakened. She doesn't say a whole lot of words, but she still manages to communicate very well and she understands everything she is asked. She will get a book if you offer to read to her, knock on a door if you step behind a closed one, hide if you say you're going to find her, get her shoes if you say it's time for a walk, get a facecloth from her changing table if you say it's bathtime.
And if you are her parent and are not giving her your full attention, she communicates her displeasure by scooping up the catfood and throwing it across the room. Which is why the cat now sometimes is served her supper on the counter. Fortunately, Moon loves to play with Anna as much as Anna loves to play with Moon -- otherwise, the food-swiping would be an issue for the cat as much as for the parents.
Anna's keen on "helping" when she's feeling less destructive, though -- putting away stacks of laundry (if by putting them away you mean picking up folded laundry, dragging it to the next room, and dropping it behind the furniture), tidying up her toys (if by tidying you mean throwing them in a box and then standing on top of the box), and sorting her socks (if by sorting you mean pulling them out onto the floor, putting half back into their box, and stogging the rest under the furniture).
Anna is still pretty popular with her parents and grandparents and relatives and friends, for all.
We tried to keep Anna awake a little later last night to begin to align her body clock with the kitchen clock, but at 6:30, which felt to her like 7:30, she felt strongly that her parents were overlooking her needs and had forgotten her nightly rituals, so she grabbed her father's hand, led him to the bathroom door, looked at him meaningfully so he would understand he was supposed to run a bath, then wandered to her changing table to get a facecloth.
She is either a smarty-pants or she is as routine-oriented as her dad!
At thirteen months, Anna is an expert walker and now is willing to sit and play for whole minutes at a time. She loves to sit on anything at bum-level: the crossbar at the bottom of her highchair's support, the baseboard heaters, the cat. Her grandma gave her a little stool to sit on, and she loved to spend happy minutes sitting on it -- for the first hour she had it at home. Ah yes, off and on for that whole hour, she sat by the pots and pans and clattered them happily. Then -- bored -- she picked up the wee stool, carried it to the living room, maneuvred it to the side of the piano, climbed up on it and stood there playing a little "tune" of her own devising and dancing precariously close to the stool's edge.
She learns new things every week. On Saturday, when she hosted a three-hour gallery opening for her father, she learned to blow kisses. (Thank god someone in this family can schmooze.) She has also learned this week that she can get her parents to follow her by grabbing them and pushing them or dragging them in the direction she wants them to go. ("There -- towards the crackers!" "Here, where my blocks are!")
And her repertoire of dance moves expands every day. At first when she started dancing, she mostly bent her knees and bounced her bum. Now, her whole body has got the action. She dances in ways she has never seen anyone dance -- it is all inborn in her rhythmic little person and her happy little imagination. She bounces her bum and moves her arms and bobs and dips her shoulders and head. All it takes is someone clapping their hands or threatening to hum a tune, and she's all a-dance. Her favourite CDs these days have Latin rhythms. Salsa, mambo . . . you name it. She loves music and sings more and more. It is again possible to figure out from her body language and her singing which songs she likes best on any given CD. She likes all the songs good and loud, too!
Now that Anna has eight teeth through, she is also very independent about her food. She eats grown-up food with gusto, protein most of all, the spicier the better. She's never met anything tomato-based she didn't like. And if her parents want to eat an apple, they can only do so in a dark room with the door closed -- otherwise, the apple will be stolen and gnawed on ferociously, consumed with startling efficiency. Anna is not satisfied to eat with her fingers (like her mother does, since her mother has never had a good relationship with cutlery or society). She now wants to control her own spoon. This results in a lot of soup and yogurt on the floor, on her parents, on her lap, on the cat. We might not give her soupy foods until her motor control matches her control-freakiness.
Verbally, Anna meows. She says "Shh" with her finger to her lips and whispers her garbly babytalk if the cat is asleep and doesn't want to be wakened. She doesn't say a whole lot of words, but she still manages to communicate very well and she understands everything she is asked. She will get a book if you offer to read to her, knock on a door if you step behind a closed one, hide if you say you're going to find her, get her shoes if you say it's time for a walk, get a facecloth from her changing table if you say it's bathtime.
And if you are her parent and are not giving her your full attention, she communicates her displeasure by scooping up the catfood and throwing it across the room. Which is why the cat now sometimes is served her supper on the counter. Fortunately, Moon loves to play with Anna as much as Anna loves to play with Moon -- otherwise, the food-swiping would be an issue for the cat as much as for the parents.
Anna's keen on "helping" when she's feeling less destructive, though -- putting away stacks of laundry (if by putting them away you mean picking up folded laundry, dragging it to the next room, and dropping it behind the furniture), tidying up her toys (if by tidying you mean throwing them in a box and then standing on top of the box), and sorting her socks (if by sorting you mean pulling them out onto the floor, putting half back into their box, and stogging the rest under the furniture).
Anna is still pretty popular with her parents and grandparents and relatives and friends, for all.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Birthday Daze
Anna has now celebrated her first birthday. For, oh, about three days now. I took the actual birthday-day, Friday, off work in hopes we could have some family adventures, but, alas, it was very rainy, and we barely got a walk in without a drenchin'. But we got a head-start on baking and preparing for the birthday party, and we went to the grocery store. Always fascinating.
Here is a snapshot of Anna at one: She has shifted to one nap a day, but has not yet quite adjusted to getting less sleep in the daytime and so can sometimes get a little wild. (We're in favour of lengthening the one nap, a strategy she hasn't hit upon for herself yet.)
At one, she loves accessories and checks the bangles, earrings, necklaces, shoes, and handbags of everyone who comes in the door. At the end of the day, when her mom gets home from work, it is often hard to tell if Anna is happier to see her mom or her mom's brooch, watch, and (occasional) necklace.
At one, Anna has lots of hugs and kisses for her family, immediate and extended, and she loves spending time with all her grandparents. She has special rituals with each of them and has broken at least one of each of their possessions.
At one, Anna loves to cuddle up with a book and someone to read it to her. She knows what will happen on the next page of her favourite books and makes particular sounds and gestures that anticipate the next page and show how well she remembers the story. She loves to look at paintings, pointing out one colour at a time and wanting it named; pointing out cats or birds or objects she knows in the pictures. (She also likes to explore paint textures with her fingernails, but don't tell her father.)
At one, Anna spends most of the rest of her time following the cat from room to room (and the cat spends her time walking from room to room trying to be followed). Peekaboo has expanded into hide and seek as Anna has become mobile and can sidle down the side of the couch. She is so mobile on her feet, she barely scoots on her bum at all.
At one, her word comprehension is still much better than her ability to speak, and "ga" (which also specifically means "cat" or "dog" when spoken with specific inflections) is her general word for almost all concrete nouns. "Mmm" is her sound for all animal noises.
At one, she carries around shoes and reorganizes her socks. She is a connoiseur of blackberries, raspberries, and varieties of cheese. She holds phones (and remote controls) to her ear and wanders the house babbling into them, but if the phone rings and gets held to her ear with a familiar voice on the other end, she just smiles and laughs. She is still very solemn when she is observing new places and people and very giggly with the people she knows and loves.
She's a lot of fun, though it takes some effort to say so after the ordeal of getting her settled this evening after a weekend of over-stimulation. Her party on Saturday saw all her local family members and some special guests from BC (including a nine-month-old second cousin) gather for lunch and time to admire her in a pretty dress and fancy (clunky) shoes. After the party ended, she woke from her nap and went to the livingroom and cried to see that everyone had gone home.
And today, a long autumn walk along the bay where her forebears lived, and another visit at Grandma Marjorie's, the Sunday afternoon visit that has come to be called "The Viewing." Anna will find the week at home with her dad quite a come-down after all the feteing.
Here is a snapshot of Anna at one: She has shifted to one nap a day, but has not yet quite adjusted to getting less sleep in the daytime and so can sometimes get a little wild. (We're in favour of lengthening the one nap, a strategy she hasn't hit upon for herself yet.)
At one, she loves accessories and checks the bangles, earrings, necklaces, shoes, and handbags of everyone who comes in the door. At the end of the day, when her mom gets home from work, it is often hard to tell if Anna is happier to see her mom or her mom's brooch, watch, and (occasional) necklace.
At one, Anna has lots of hugs and kisses for her family, immediate and extended, and she loves spending time with all her grandparents. She has special rituals with each of them and has broken at least one of each of their possessions.
At one, Anna loves to cuddle up with a book and someone to read it to her. She knows what will happen on the next page of her favourite books and makes particular sounds and gestures that anticipate the next page and show how well she remembers the story. She loves to look at paintings, pointing out one colour at a time and wanting it named; pointing out cats or birds or objects she knows in the pictures. (She also likes to explore paint textures with her fingernails, but don't tell her father.)
At one, Anna spends most of the rest of her time following the cat from room to room (and the cat spends her time walking from room to room trying to be followed). Peekaboo has expanded into hide and seek as Anna has become mobile and can sidle down the side of the couch. She is so mobile on her feet, she barely scoots on her bum at all.
At one, her word comprehension is still much better than her ability to speak, and "ga" (which also specifically means "cat" or "dog" when spoken with specific inflections) is her general word for almost all concrete nouns. "Mmm" is her sound for all animal noises.
At one, she carries around shoes and reorganizes her socks. She is a connoiseur of blackberries, raspberries, and varieties of cheese. She holds phones (and remote controls) to her ear and wanders the house babbling into them, but if the phone rings and gets held to her ear with a familiar voice on the other end, she just smiles and laughs. She is still very solemn when she is observing new places and people and very giggly with the people she knows and loves.
She's a lot of fun, though it takes some effort to say so after the ordeal of getting her settled this evening after a weekend of over-stimulation. Her party on Saturday saw all her local family members and some special guests from BC (including a nine-month-old second cousin) gather for lunch and time to admire her in a pretty dress and fancy (clunky) shoes. After the party ended, she woke from her nap and went to the livingroom and cried to see that everyone had gone home.
And today, a long autumn walk along the bay where her forebears lived, and another visit at Grandma Marjorie's, the Sunday afternoon visit that has come to be called "The Viewing." Anna will find the week at home with her dad quite a come-down after all the feteing.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Back to Work
Today, Anna Sophia's mom went back to work. We experimented with me going to work last week, when I attended a workshop for a couple of days and also spent some time in the office surveying the clutter I had left behind me when I went on leave a year ago.
I came home from a half-day reintroduction to the work world to a happy baby, well-fed, and a not-yet-too-tired-to-make-sentences parent. She had only fallen on her head once, with only a mild abrasion to the cheek and a minor bump on the head. She had enjoyed her lunch so much, I could tell what she ate by looking at her shirt and pants.
Since her first steps, Anna retreated into more tentative wall- and furniture-surfing, insisting on having her hand held for longer trajectories and higher speeds than she could manage solo. But the last few days, walls and furniture have been left behind. Today, she walked from the kitchen to the living room and back numerous times, including one particularly exciting naked romp (during which she was atypically staggery, having lost the ballast of three pounds of pee in her diaper to help her maintain her centre of gravity).
She is also very chatty. We haven't the foggiest what she's saying, but she asserts herself in every conversation, usually with some vigorous nods of the head.
A favourite game of Anna's is the tickle game. She sneaks up behind someone who is crouched down or bending over and tickles them, making a special high-pitched tickling noise so they know they are being tickled.
When she's not walking or talking or tickling these days, she's kissing. She now puckers up her whole face to come in for a big smooch. She still doesn't like to get prickled by her dad's beard and so spends extra time taking careful aim and lining up lips when she's giving him a kiss. (So do I!)
Many kisses -- air kisses mostly -- are directed at the cat. Moon loves being chased as much as Anna loves chasing her, tho' we'll see how Moon responds when Anna is actually able to do some catching. Most mornings, Moon tears around the house, comes to a rest somewhere semi-accessible within Anna's line of vision, and waits to be noticed and followed -- then she tears away as soon as the baby is near. Both Moon and Anna especially enjoy the sofa. Moon goes back and forth behind it and Anna goes back in forth in front of it, and rarely the twain do meet until one or the other is too tired to resist any longer.
Today, she also figured out how to make a sound on the tin whistle, though the piano and the pots-and-pans orchestra remain her instruments of choice. She's been trying for days to get the damn thing to whistle for her. We've shown her how to exhale into it, but she would just grab it and hum a slobbery tune into it and hope for the best. Accidental exhalations, followed by flutey noises, followed by praise and applause from her audience let her know she was on the right track today. So she started alternating humming into it with making it whistle. The slobber remains the consistent element.
She's teething, and we have absolutely no idea what we're doing when it comes to putting her to bed or keeping her in bed at night, but the fact is that she is way, way ahead of us and when we're groggy, we lose even more ground to her nefarious strategies. Here's her logic: If I cry until I throw up, Mom and Dad will have to lift me out of my crib and change all the sheets and by that time I'll have done all the playing I want. Or: If I cry hard enough, Mom and Dad will worry that I'm going to throw up and will lift me out of my crib to avoid the extra laundry. Either way, she gets lifted out of her crib, which was her goal all along.
We suspect that if we come up with a counter-strategy, Anna will prove to already have a new tactic in reserve. When I asked my mother -- ever ready to provide advice when asked -- for ideas, she made several helpful suggestions, but when I said, "But don't you think she'll just try something new to get us to lift her up?" even mom faltered. "Yeah, you're right," she said, "you were like that when you were a baby." Any behaviours Anna exhibits that I exhibited first are cause for Stephen to label our darling chickadee "grandma's revenge."
I came home from a half-day reintroduction to the work world to a happy baby, well-fed, and a not-yet-too-tired-to-make-sentences parent. She had only fallen on her head once, with only a mild abrasion to the cheek and a minor bump on the head. She had enjoyed her lunch so much, I could tell what she ate by looking at her shirt and pants.
Since her first steps, Anna retreated into more tentative wall- and furniture-surfing, insisting on having her hand held for longer trajectories and higher speeds than she could manage solo. But the last few days, walls and furniture have been left behind. Today, she walked from the kitchen to the living room and back numerous times, including one particularly exciting naked romp (during which she was atypically staggery, having lost the ballast of three pounds of pee in her diaper to help her maintain her centre of gravity).
She is also very chatty. We haven't the foggiest what she's saying, but she asserts herself in every conversation, usually with some vigorous nods of the head.
A favourite game of Anna's is the tickle game. She sneaks up behind someone who is crouched down or bending over and tickles them, making a special high-pitched tickling noise so they know they are being tickled.
When she's not walking or talking or tickling these days, she's kissing. She now puckers up her whole face to come in for a big smooch. She still doesn't like to get prickled by her dad's beard and so spends extra time taking careful aim and lining up lips when she's giving him a kiss. (So do I!)
Many kisses -- air kisses mostly -- are directed at the cat. Moon loves being chased as much as Anna loves chasing her, tho' we'll see how Moon responds when Anna is actually able to do some catching. Most mornings, Moon tears around the house, comes to a rest somewhere semi-accessible within Anna's line of vision, and waits to be noticed and followed -- then she tears away as soon as the baby is near. Both Moon and Anna especially enjoy the sofa. Moon goes back and forth behind it and Anna goes back in forth in front of it, and rarely the twain do meet until one or the other is too tired to resist any longer.
Today, she also figured out how to make a sound on the tin whistle, though the piano and the pots-and-pans orchestra remain her instruments of choice. She's been trying for days to get the damn thing to whistle for her. We've shown her how to exhale into it, but she would just grab it and hum a slobbery tune into it and hope for the best. Accidental exhalations, followed by flutey noises, followed by praise and applause from her audience let her know she was on the right track today. So she started alternating humming into it with making it whistle. The slobber remains the consistent element.
She's teething, and we have absolutely no idea what we're doing when it comes to putting her to bed or keeping her in bed at night, but the fact is that she is way, way ahead of us and when we're groggy, we lose even more ground to her nefarious strategies. Here's her logic: If I cry until I throw up, Mom and Dad will have to lift me out of my crib and change all the sheets and by that time I'll have done all the playing I want. Or: If I cry hard enough, Mom and Dad will worry that I'm going to throw up and will lift me out of my crib to avoid the extra laundry. Either way, she gets lifted out of her crib, which was her goal all along.
We suspect that if we come up with a counter-strategy, Anna will prove to already have a new tactic in reserve. When I asked my mother -- ever ready to provide advice when asked -- for ideas, she made several helpful suggestions, but when I said, "But don't you think she'll just try something new to get us to lift her up?" even mom faltered. "Yeah, you're right," she said, "you were like that when you were a baby." Any behaviours Anna exhibits that I exhibited first are cause for Stephen to label our darling chickadee "grandma's revenge."
Monday, August 20, 2007
Baby Steps
Anna Sophia took her first steps yesterday. She is ten-and-a-half months old. It seems amazing what she has learned in the last two months, in the time since I had to take a break from documenting her life due to the busy-ness of living life. If I can, I will return to this blog and fill in some blanks, but for today I'll stick with the present.
For a week or two, Anna has been at the Wile-E-Coyote-over-the-edge-of-the-cliff stage of standing independently. In other words, she has been able to stand up until she notices that she is not holding on to anything, then she reaches for the nearest support or gently lowers her bum to the ground. The cliff edge of standing unsupported has been getting less scary for her, it's true, and sometimes she has waved her arms in the air and wiggled her butt before realizing she wasn't holding onto anything.
But yesterday morning, we noticed that she was standing around unsupported and aware that she was unsupported and was relatively unperturbed. She tested her balance and tested her weight. She rarely wanted to plop to her bottom and scoot on her bum, and instead spent her time scooting along the edges of furniture, along walls, and around corners. She eyed the cat as though she might be able to catch her this time.
At her Grandma Marjorie's in the afternoon, after yelling at her Aunt Andrea's cat for being hissy and ducking around the edges of the coffeetable, she was well-settled in to the environment. When Andrea came home and sat on the floor with hair and earrings dangling like temptation itself, Anna let go of her mother and walked three or four steps to Andrea. This little march was witnessed by both Anna's parents and by her grandmother and Aunt Cathy and Uncle Frank. Anna was delighted with their response to her accomplishment and knew she had a hit dance move. (Aunt Mary Jane took in a "rerun" later in the afternoon, when Anna went for another little walk to try to snatch her camera from her.)
Today, Anna clearly understands what we mean when we ask her about "walking" and has put on a few more demonstrations of her new skill -- when she doesn't have to get anywhere far away or get there in a hurry. She has also spent a good part of the day just standing around, dancing in place, lifting or lunging heavy objects one would expect to put her off-balance.
In addition to walking, Anna is up to so much these days. She will not eat anything pureed and wants only food she can pick up with her fingers -- preferably bits of whatever her parents are eating. She is lamenting the end of raspberry season, since she has been a little raspberry fiend for weeks, sitting in her high chair imperiously, waiting for us to raid the bushes at her command. She adores potatoes and will eat almost as much potato as her dad at supper. She loves cheese and peaches and rice cakes and toast. She will eat almost anything that has been laced with trace amounts of her beloved yogurt. While she loved vegetables only a few weeks ago, she finds them a challenge to chew and won't eat them pureed, so they tend to sit on her plate and then get thrown to the floor, but we expect this is temporary, since she still likes the taste of them.
Anna loves books and especially loves books with pictures of animals and words that include animal noises. She met a number of farm animals for the first time at the provincial exhibition and was astounded by them. She made special friends with an uninhibited goat who tried to eat her father's t-shirt. Anna sorts through her books constantly, picking up her favourites and carting them to her parents' laps, where she asks us to read them three, or four, or eighteen times. And she thinks about books even when she isn't reading them. We can tell, because she practises her animal noises as though she is telling herself a little story. She tries to "moo" and "meow" and "woof" and "baa," but they all come out as a very cute "ma-a" like the bleat of a little kid. (The goat kind of kid, I mean.) Today, she managed a "mew" for Moonlight and was so excited, she fell over.
She also applauds herself when she succeeds at anything, and she waves at anyone passing by.
Music is her other great joy. She's a big hummer and singer, and she walks up and down the length of the piano keyboard, picking out notes -- confidently, I guess you would call it. Certainly not "delicately." She also has figured out how to work the buttons on her CD player and knows that the centre button will turn off the god-forsaken CBC programming her mother is trying to listen to and will turn on, instead, one of her groovy kiddie CDs. She will then dance, bouncing her bum up and down, tapping her feet, and humming. Anna also thinks grandparents were invented just to sing to her to make her dance. And, who knows? Maybe they were.
For a week or two, Anna has been at the Wile-E-Coyote-over-the-edge-of-the-cliff stage of standing independently. In other words, she has been able to stand up until she notices that she is not holding on to anything, then she reaches for the nearest support or gently lowers her bum to the ground. The cliff edge of standing unsupported has been getting less scary for her, it's true, and sometimes she has waved her arms in the air and wiggled her butt before realizing she wasn't holding onto anything.
But yesterday morning, we noticed that she was standing around unsupported and aware that she was unsupported and was relatively unperturbed. She tested her balance and tested her weight. She rarely wanted to plop to her bottom and scoot on her bum, and instead spent her time scooting along the edges of furniture, along walls, and around corners. She eyed the cat as though she might be able to catch her this time.
At her Grandma Marjorie's in the afternoon, after yelling at her Aunt Andrea's cat for being hissy and ducking around the edges of the coffeetable, she was well-settled in to the environment. When Andrea came home and sat on the floor with hair and earrings dangling like temptation itself, Anna let go of her mother and walked three or four steps to Andrea. This little march was witnessed by both Anna's parents and by her grandmother and Aunt Cathy and Uncle Frank. Anna was delighted with their response to her accomplishment and knew she had a hit dance move. (Aunt Mary Jane took in a "rerun" later in the afternoon, when Anna went for another little walk to try to snatch her camera from her.)
Today, Anna clearly understands what we mean when we ask her about "walking" and has put on a few more demonstrations of her new skill -- when she doesn't have to get anywhere far away or get there in a hurry. She has also spent a good part of the day just standing around, dancing in place, lifting or lunging heavy objects one would expect to put her off-balance.
In addition to walking, Anna is up to so much these days. She will not eat anything pureed and wants only food she can pick up with her fingers -- preferably bits of whatever her parents are eating. She is lamenting the end of raspberry season, since she has been a little raspberry fiend for weeks, sitting in her high chair imperiously, waiting for us to raid the bushes at her command. She adores potatoes and will eat almost as much potato as her dad at supper. She loves cheese and peaches and rice cakes and toast. She will eat almost anything that has been laced with trace amounts of her beloved yogurt. While she loved vegetables only a few weeks ago, she finds them a challenge to chew and won't eat them pureed, so they tend to sit on her plate and then get thrown to the floor, but we expect this is temporary, since she still likes the taste of them.
Anna loves books and especially loves books with pictures of animals and words that include animal noises. She met a number of farm animals for the first time at the provincial exhibition and was astounded by them. She made special friends with an uninhibited goat who tried to eat her father's t-shirt. Anna sorts through her books constantly, picking up her favourites and carting them to her parents' laps, where she asks us to read them three, or four, or eighteen times. And she thinks about books even when she isn't reading them. We can tell, because she practises her animal noises as though she is telling herself a little story. She tries to "moo" and "meow" and "woof" and "baa," but they all come out as a very cute "ma-a" like the bleat of a little kid. (The goat kind of kid, I mean.) Today, she managed a "mew" for Moonlight and was so excited, she fell over.
She also applauds herself when she succeeds at anything, and she waves at anyone passing by.
Music is her other great joy. She's a big hummer and singer, and she walks up and down the length of the piano keyboard, picking out notes -- confidently, I guess you would call it. Certainly not "delicately." She also has figured out how to work the buttons on her CD player and knows that the centre button will turn off the god-forsaken CBC programming her mother is trying to listen to and will turn on, instead, one of her groovy kiddie CDs. She will then dance, bouncing her bum up and down, tapping her feet, and humming. Anna also thinks grandparents were invented just to sing to her to make her dance. And, who knows? Maybe they were.
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