Lots of Little Wheels Turning in this Brain

A few of Baby E's most frequent and/or cute sayings these days:

"Hi there. Hi, Daddy!" (Or her rendition of another name--she says a lot of people's names now.)

"Where'd it go?"

"I dot it."

"What dat?"

"Ha-ter. Dat's Puff!" (Hamster. That's Puff.)

"Who dat? Dat's Zizuh!"

"No no no! Down!"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Potty. Poop inna potty. Ah dun! Yay!"

[Pointing to mine, then her own]: "Nose. Nose. Mouf. Mouf. Cheet. Cheet. Eye! Eye-yassis! Ehbow. Haih. Han."

Baby E is seeming less and less like a baby every day.

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Today was her first day using the potty almost exclusively. She has been throwing tantrums if we try to put a diaper on her when she needs to use the potty, so I finally just put a potty chair near the changing table and have been sitting her on it during each diaper change. Today she used it almost every time she sat on it. She did have a few wet diapers and one partial accident, but she did all her bowel movements in the potty. She didn't have a single dirty diaper today. That's exciting, and it makes the diaper laundering job more pleasant. :)

E is not particularly interested in walking, although she can take several steps without falling and could probably walk any time if she really wanted to. The one time she really wants to try walking is when she is carrying a large object to put somewhere or give to someone. Otherwise, she'd rather crawl or cruise around holding onto furniture.

She loves manipulating objects, and one of her favorite things to do right now is take things out of the cupboard and then put them all away again.

Baby E is climbing on everything these days. We have to be careful not to leave a dining room chair where she can get to it, because she will climb into it and then fall off and hit her head, only to get right up on it again. If she's in the playroom she wants to climb the slide and then turn around and slide down. She stacks and moves things to climb onto higher objects.

Honestly, sometimes I find this child a bit frightening. She's just a little too smart. I often wonder what she's going to be like when she's a little older. What 12-month-old who's not even walking yet pulls the potty chair over to climb up on the couch to get a book, and then when an adult says, "Hey! What are you doing, E? That's not for you," she looks guilty, puts it back and climbs down?

Tonight she wanted the remote control. DH put it on the coffee table and she demanded to get "up" and then "Daddy kiss" and gave him a big sloppy kiss. Once he was distracted, she tried to make a surreptitious grab for the remote. He said, "No, you can't have that" and she pulled her hand away and backed off. Then he leaned forward and she crawled behind his back, looking to see if he was watching as she inched toward the remote. He said, "No, E," and she looked at him like, "How did you know, Daddy?!" and backed away from it.

Later, he was working on a crossword puzzle. She watched him for a while, then started into a protracted battle to get the pen and paper. Finally DH decided to give her a turn. She held them and moved the pen on the paper for all the world like she was writing, copying DH's look of concentration. She loves to draw and color, whether on paper or on the magnadoodle.

E understands the spoken word so well. If I say, "Bring me the ball" she will. If I say, "Don't touch that, please. You can't have that pen," she throws herself on the floor and howls as if I've hurt her.

She uses the word "that" for things away from her and "this" for things in her hand or very close to her. She combines various words and hand signs to make phrases and sentences with suprisingly good syntax, though her pronunciation often obscures the meaning. She whispers when we do, tries to repeat much of what we say, and claps when she hears anyone say "good job."

We haven't made much of an effort to specifically teach her to respond to the word "no" and we haven't disciplined her or imposed consequences much if at all. So far we've just picked her up to move her away from things or moved them out of her reach if she wouldn't leave them alone. But somehow in the last week or two she's reached a point where she usually leaves things alone or puts them down if we say no. She may throw a tantrum about it, but she generally respects our "no" even if she's upset about it. I remember it being such hard work teaching that concept to babies this age in the past, but she just seems to have absorbed it.

It's not that Baby E is a particularly compliant personality--she is extremely opinionated, stubborn and persistent, and can get very loud and even violent when she's angry. She just really understands and respects the spoken word.

I'm no expert, and I'm sure I'm extremely biased, but I think she's unusually proficient for her age in both her understanding and her use of language. I find myself wondering if she'll be a writer or take some kind of speaking or drama role when she grows up. Whatever she ends up doing, I'm sure her appreciation for and command of language will be helpful to her throughout her life.