Not In Kansas Anymore (NIKA)

New Tricks at 10+ Months

[Note: This entry was written by both Tom and Elizabeth, starting almost two weeks ago. So it's not completely up to date, but we're too busy with a sick baby to get this entry perfect.]

Moving across country has distracted us from posting regular updates on Dorothy's development, but holy cow has she been advancing. When she hasn't been coughing or vomiting, she's been crawling up a storm, standing and sitting, and generally being a whirlwind of activity. Here's a breakdown on what's been happening lately.

Since she started crawling back in early December, Dorothy has quickly progressed to a speed demon on knees. She can't quite catch the cats, but she's really working on it. One afternoon a week or so ago, she crawled after Cobalt in the kitchen, around the island in the middle of the floor. She'd go after him, he'd walk away and lay down. She'd catch up to him (with an occasional break to sit and watch him), and he'd walk away. They went around the island (which is probably 10 feet or more long, and maybe 3 wide) at least two or three complete circuits. Once she can maintain an even higher speed, she'll be a true cursorial hunter (which also explains her persistence; see below for more).

I don't know if the time spent in the hotels and then in the big open spaces of the new house had anything to do with it, or if it's just the passage of time, but she's really got the whole "I can go get something I see" thing down pat.

Another skill that's improved by leaps and bounds is her ability to pull herself to standing, and then sitting back down. At first she required something solid to pull up with, such as a low table, or jeans on a person's leg. But she can now stand up by pulling on my very stretchy pajama legs, or just by leaning against a wall. Or by leaning against the windows (yes, we'll have to clean the windows regularly, or just accept complete hand-print coverage). She also loves to use the edge of the tub to stand up in (or out of) the bathtub, and rarely slips on the bottom, even if she's not standing on the nonskid mat.

As before, she loves to walk by holding onto someone's hands. Over the last week, she's started to take at least a few steps holding on with only one hand. She's also quite good at stopping, squatting to pick up a toy, and standing back up, all holding on with only one hand. (Usually once she's got it, the toy is then clenched in the teeth so she can hold on with both hands to continue walking.) As of Friday, she will also take a couple of "falling steps" with no hands at all to get from one person to another. (Unfortunately, she slipped and gave herself a bloody nose doing this the first time, so she's a little more cautious about it now. We were passing the time in the pediatrician's office while waiting for the doctor to come in - we said that if she was going to hurt herself, at least she picked a good place.)

She also can sit in her little chair (and think's she's just the cat's pajamas when she does), although she hasn't mastered actually sitting down on it for herself - she still has to be set on it.

In addition, she's really trying to vocalize and communicate more. We've been working on teaching her sign language, and she has one very reliable word, "ball." She will use it correctly both verbally and signing, although neither is "pronounced" exactly correctly: the verbal sounds more like "bah," and the sign doesn't quite have the cupped hands of the adult version. Once she gets excited about us understanding her, she also starts applying both the word and the sign to everything in sight. She's also starting to make the sign for "more," although it's not clear what she thinks it means.

We can also really see all kinds of learning of more specific stuff going on. For instance, before we got our furniture, we were sleeping on an inflatable mattress on the floor. Dorothy has always tried to crawl off the edge of the bed with no seeming understanding of caution, and we let her do it when the bed was only six inches high. The first time, she picked exactly the wrong spot to exit and banged her head on the leg of her playpen - lots of screams and tears. The next time, she sort of slithered forward with her hands in front of her, landing on her face, but gently enough that it didn't hurt. By a few more tries, she was turning sideways, extending a leg to the floor, and easing herself down. Climbing up onto low places followed shortly thereafter. The bed was a little too squishy to climb onto, but she's quite good at climbing onto the ledge of the fireplace, which is about six inches off the floor.

She also has started playing with toys in a slightly more sophisticated way than just banging them together to hear a noise. She has a toy birdhouse with stuffed birds, and she loves to take the birds in and out (and will do so on command, usually). She's starting to put her geometric shaped blocks (her very first toy - thanks, Uncle Tom!) into the correct "sorter" holes (at least the circle). So she can stick a round peg into a round hole. I'm sure the nonconformist tendencies will reemerge, though.

Not only does 'D' stand for 'Dorothy,' but 'D' is also for 'determination.' Dorothy has developed a very strong sense of determination and persistence, and is generally capable of being very strong-willed. If she wants something (let's call it the "Object of Desire"), it is no longer so easy to distract her by waving some new toy in her face. She may pause in her crawling towards the Object of Desire, but she'll pause just long enough to remember that she's not interested in this distraction. She'll then continue on towards the Object of Desire. The bathtub is another obsession with her. There's a bathroom across the hall from her room, so when changing her, we often have to chase her across the hall as she goes to see if she can climb into the tub. And if she's just finished a bath, she'll definitely try to go back and see if there's still water. And if not, or if we've been smart and closed the bathroom door, she knows there's another tub in Mommy & Daddy's room! So she'll truck on down the hallway and try to make her way to the big tub in the master bathroom.

Mealtime is getting a little trickier, as she is often not content to just open her mouth and let us spoon in food. I think we've encountered a combination of reduced appetite due to her getting older plus being sick, along with a decreased interest in being spoon-fed. Many meals recently have consisted mostly of Mommy or Daddy waving some food near Dorothy's face while she waves her head back and forth "no!" and/or thrashes around like some head-banger. She'll also try to grab the spoon.

Even before she was sick, she loved her sippy cup, although she also loves shaking it to fling water everywhere. She's usually very good at picking up Cheerios, pear chunks, crackers, bits of bread, and most anything else that she can fit in her mouth. But if it's something she doesn't want to eat, she will pick it up and drop it off the side of the high chair. And being sick, she does that a lot. She also wants to hold a spoon and try to dip it in the food, but often gets excited and waves it around instead of sticking it in her mouth, flinging her sweet potatoes everywhere. Giving her a spoon for each hand and using a third to feed her will sometimes work, but she's been getting wise to that trick.

Posted by Tom Nugent at February 12, 2005 07:44 PM