scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

3.11.08

thirteen months

You were a tiny cheetah cub for your first proper Halloween: last year i don't think i even remembered which day it was. And at Fasching you were an alligator, for being so bitey. But now, everybody at baby group says so, and even the tagesmutter has commented on it - you are the fastest thing on four legs. So, cheetah, with a little furry hat and a black nose and a weird little animal-print outfit that i'm not sure if it was supposed to be a costume or not, originally, but it worked quite well. (Some of the other babies were a fairy and two pumpkins and a pirate, but you were the cutest.) You aren't really walking yet, or not to get places, or not deliberately - and if you didn't do the same thing in socks or barefoot or in nonskiddy shoes, well, we've tried everything - you don't like to let go. And that's fine. Caution. Nobody likes falling over. It's clear to look at you that you could walk if you felt like it, you've started walking anyway, and we dressed you as a four-legged critter on the last possible day because on Saturday (the day after Halloween) you walked six or seven steps, more than a yard, all the way over to Daddy. You can stand up unassisted, you can stand and eat, stand and drink, stand and point and yell, but then you sit down and crawl to get where you are going.

You have at least one molar - it's hard to tell, you don't like us sticking our fingers in your mouth so much - but you're getting much better at tooth brushing. Some nights, at least.

And you have many words: Mommy and Daddy and Doggie and Apple and Night-night, and at the tagesmutter's you have learned Woof-woof and Baby (both the same in English and German), and you can point and wave and have signs for Water and Milk and More and Bed and Up-Out. The signs are kind of sloppy but i'm not sure they are sloppier than the words: Water is pointing at your mouth with one finger, not three, for Milk you always reach towards me, and for More you point with one finger at your closed fist instead of bringing fingers together, but it kinda works. Communication is communication, i guess. Words you have said once: Kiwi, Kitchen, Noodle, Bear, Duck, Tiger, Bottle, Doll, and others i'm forgetting.

When we say to make the music box go or to cuddle the teddy or dance you do it. And you can nest the nesty-stacky cups, trying them each to see which fits in which, all five, and you can get all six rings on the ring pyramid. You know the ring-tone for Skype and look expectantly at the computer when it happens. When i say i am going in the kitchen or the bathroom or the big room you know where to find me. You had a big jingly bell and we took it away from you because you would not stop putting it in your mouth and it just fit so exactly we were afraid it would get stuck or you'd cut yourself on it somehow, and you saw where we put it and kept coming back, and then you saw that i took it and left the room and then you stopped looking for it there. When i say no, you look at me and shake your head. You like putting the alarm clock in the drawer on the nightstand, taking it out, putting it back, opening and closing the drawer over and over. Reading books over and over, turning the pages, pointing at all the pictures. You like to be tickled and danced with and turned upside-down. You like cuddling the dog and the stuffed animals and dolls and even the pictures of animals in your books. You like pushing your cart and the chairs and the toy bins, and sitting in the toy bins and the cart, and putting things in and out. You can roll the ball (albeit with very little direction) and when we roll it back to you, you fall on it like a star goalie. You like climbing stairs upwards and have, finally, under very close supervision, successfully come back down one flight of stairs feet-first. By now you are a champion at always climbing off the bed and the couch and the futon feet-first.

You have also started to understand no (see above, where you're shaking your head). And you've started having tiny wailing tantrums, you throw yourself on the floor and cry because i said you couldn't play with the knives in the dishwasher basket. Honey, that's not a reasonable thing to want. Sorry. When you want a pretzel, you can have a pretzel, we can read a book, sure, i'll pick you up, but when you want the laser-mouse to look at the pretty red light, not so much.

Labels: milestones, toddler

scrawled @ 10:00