cindy's world

My little baby-boo is 14 months old today. Whew.

My parents were over this weekend and remarked that she’s so quick with copying everything they do, such as gestures or making faces or working the computer mouse, EXCEPT for talking. They shrugged and said she’s just a very, very delayed talker. Dude! She’s on par with all the published expectations for her age group. I don’t think my parents remembered correctly when they claimed I was reciting Chinese poetry before I was 1. Allie uses single words only, but she’s got quite a few of them, and adding new ones every day. Mr. W recently taught her to call out “mama” when she needs me, so she does that now and I have to stop what I’m doing to respond so that I could encourage her to use her words. She still plays the “bayaya” game in her bedroom and attached bathroom. And she hums a lot, she hums along with music playing, she’ll sing “lalala” when she’s playing with her toys or hears the stepkidlet practicing singing and guitar. Sometimes when we’ve tuned music out, we’ll see Allie wiggling rhythmically in her high chair and we’ll realize there’s a perky song playing in another room.

Allie’s a little more fussy now than she used to be. She’ll whine if she’s put down before she wants to be, and turn and jump up and down with her arms around me until I pick her back up. She’ll frown and complain if you take something away from her before she’s done with it. She still resists and rolls to her stomach and tries to run away when we’re trying to change her diaper about 30% of the time. BUT, she’s still got the easy laughter, the sneaky playfulness, the curiosity. She loves to run to the windows or glass doors and look outside. She gives an excited gasp and looks at us and smiles or forms an “o” with her mouth when she hears Dodo yowl, or a siren roll by. When nursing, she sticks her free hand under my arm and tries to tickle me, giggling before I could even react. She still empties out her toy boxes and buckets and walks around with the container over her head. (This last item we took advantage of and have been putting hats on her when we go outside; she protests things on her head less now.)

Strange thing — she keeps choking when she drinks water. It doesn’t matter if we give it to her in a cup, in a sippy, in a straw. If it’s water, she’ll hack and cough as it goes down the wrong way. Milk, no problem. Her food is pretty much all chopped food and small bites now. We now feel safer handing her a large food item (such as a chunk of banana or a baby cookie stick) and letting her eat it in manageable bites, or she’ll dip it into yogurt or applesauce and eat it in small bites. Even weeks ago, she’d just stuff the entire thing into her mouth. She LOVES kumquats. Blech. And she loves the spiciness of ginger. Mr. W will juice ginger root and pour a bunch of that into her fruit smoothie and Allie will chug it.

2 or 3 molars are now out, and the teeth I had been most curious about are peeking out: her canines. I had learned decades ago that the oval pointed canines are a strictly Asian trait. Forensic people can tell an Asian skull immediately by looking at the canines. Mr. W calls my canines “sharp little cat teeth” since I used to bite him with them in play. My mom calls my dad’s pointed canines “tiger teeth.” Since Allie’s of mixed heritage, would her canines be flat like Mr. W’s, or pointed like mine? I was delighted the other day to see that her canines are like BABY VAMPIRE TEETH. They are SO cute.

In the past week, Allie has been mostly skipping her morning naps or dramatically shortening them (21 minutes over the weekend). Given that, I think Jayne has started deliberately keeping her busy and out in the mornings to do away with the morning nap altogether, and to encourage a long afternoon nap. We’ll now be getting more time to DO stuff. Yay!

Allie’s over her cold and is once again, healthy and strong.

And did I say active? Yes, quite active.