The way you are right now

I find it hard to believe that my baby is one and a half already, but I won’t go on and on about it even though I could.  I will go on and on about the way she is right now.

K is such good company at this age.  She explores the world and soaks in each new adventure with such focused intensity, it’s amazing to see.  She knows exactly what she wants, and she also knows exactly when I understand her and when I’m pretending not to, in which case she will shoot me a look that says “mom, I know you know I want that phone/remote/cookie/etc, give it here.”

She isn’t talking a ton yet, but she has a few key phrases and is getting good at communicating what she wants through body language, emphatic expression and books (which works well because we have tons of books).  Last week she was signing she was hungry, but she wouldn’t take any of the food I offered.  Then she went and searched through her books, found one, brought it to me and sat in my lap, but when I started to read to her she pushed my hand away and turned the pages quickly until she found the page with strawberries on it.  She pointed enthusiastically to the strawberries while excitedly babbling.  I asked if she wanted strawberries and the jumped up, nodded yes, and ran to the fridge.  Thankfully we actually had some.  She ate them all.  

She stopped signing for “all done” a few months ago and now mostly yells with frustration when she’s done with something, but still signs for milk and for hungry/eat. 

She says: Bird (baod), mama, mum, mom, nana, dada, what’s that (wha da), I did it (I dih ih), all gone (ah gah), all done (ah dah – only when she isn’t frustrated, like when she wants out of the highchair and that’s a small crisis, so she doesn’t have time to articulate “ah dah”), yeah, duck, bubbles, again.  She also nods yes or no pretty well, but gets them mixed up sometimes.  Generally if the nodding is very enthusiastic it means yes, regardless of direction. 

She loves to help out, throwing things out, wiping up water on the floor (that she poured out of course), and putting things away.  She’s also an accomplished destroyer of all things within reach and has recently learned how to pull chairs away from the table so she can use them to climb onto the table, which is decently impressive since the chairs are heavy and are on carpet.

When she wants something and I figure out what it is she will give me a little pat on the arm for getting it right.  It’s the sweetest thing – like “yes, good mommy, I wanted milk and you got it right.”

She loves to go outside – this is still the silver bullet for the worst meltdown or even when she’s sick with a cold and miserable about it.  She also loves to brush her teeth herself, be read to, play with scraps of fabric, climb into boxes, have ice chips, play with water and pour from cup to cup.  Favorite things include Curious George, the moon (real and in books), monkeys, and birds in all shapes forms and context. 

Baths (hair washing especially), vegetables, and car trips when she isn’t in the mood are especially unpopular.

She has an impressive temper, and I’m feeling like we are firmly in the “terrible twos” already.  Friends have helpfully assured me that starting this phase early does not mean it will end early, so that’s exciting. 

They say that kids understand everything you say by one year old, and while that seemed to be true for everything we said that was pertinent to her, she now clearly really does understand everything we say.  I’ve tested her by dropping small things into conversation with adults when she seems to be ignoring us and without changing tone, like “oh, how was the dinner you did last week?  I wanted to try a recipe like that that I found, the remote is behind the pillow on the couch, did you see the preview for that new movie coming out?” and she will go pull pillows off the couch until she finds said contraband.  

Well, that’s a lot of words.  If you’re still reading  you’re probably either my own mom or a friend close enough to already know all of these things, but it helps to write it down because I will remember every feeling of this time but most of the detail will blur and bleed into the time before and after, or just be forgotten, if I don’t write it down.  Even only 18 months in, I look back at old posts and find I remember everything but the timeline – I know that day, place, smell, feeling, but was she really pulling up already at 6 months?  I’d be skeptical of myself without the record.   

Listening to: Damien Jurado – Kola