Waiting for a Concept of "Soon"

Yesterday we got a call from Aunt Kathy telling us she was going to stop by to see us for dinner. After getting the message, I turned to Fiona and said "Aunt Kathy is coming over soon!"

Fiona shouted out "Kathy" and ran to the front door gate, shaking it excitedly. I tried to explain that Aunt Kathy wasn't here yet, that she'd be here soon, but Fiona was having none of it.

I'm reminded of the co-worker who once made the mistake of telling his kids he had tickets for them to go to Disney World and then spent the next six weeks fending off questions of "when are we going to Disney World, Dad?"

She's Been Listening

We have posters from the shows we've worked on lining the hallway between our kitchen and living room. Ever since she was born, whenever Fiona pointed to a poster we'd tell her "that's a show that Mommy worked on" or "that's something that Daddy wrote."

Yesterday, Andrea was carrying Fiona down the hallway and stopped in front of one of the posters. Fiona pointed to it and exclaimed "Mommy!" It was, in fact, one of Andrea's productions. She then tried Fiona out on each of the other posters, asking who had done each show. Fiona got all of them right.

Yet another reminder that there's no such thing as idle chatter before a baby.

Outside?

Fiona loves going outside, even if she usually winds up in a war with her parents who want to walk in a particular direction instead of just randomly back and forth or even out into the street (she usually gets one or two warnings before she's put into her stroller). This morning, after drinking her milk, Fiona found her sandals, brought them to Mommy and asked "outside?" And "walk?" (since, of course, she doesn't want to be put in the stroller).

At the time Fiona was in her pajamas, Mommy had just woken up, and Daddy was in his bathrobe ready to get into the shower. But apparently it was the perfect time for us all to take a stroll.

We'll see how it goes with the 90°+ temperatures expected this weekend.

Mommy's Girl

Andrea's been taking summer school classes 4 evenings a week this month. What this means for Fiona is that 4 days a week she only gets to see Mommy in the morning, before heading off to day care, and she's stuck with Daddy all evening.

She's been stuck with Daddy in the evenings before--about two evenings a week since Mommy went back to school last September. And she never really seemed to notice; with a child that young, the "out of sight, out of mind" rule applies.

Well, that rule applies no more.

On Monday, I picked Fiona up from day care and when we got to our block, I took her out of her stroller so she could walk the final leg (we do this on days when weather permits). That evening, Fiona found a gate that had been left open, swinging into the street. She became preoccupied with opening and closing the gate.

Curiously enough, Daddy imploring her to leave the gate behind and continuing walking in the direction Daddy wanted to go didn't prove particularly persuasive. What did eventually turn her interest away from the gate was a fall she took when she tried to reach for the swinging gate without looking. Daddy wound up carrying a crying child the rest of the way home.

Twenty minutes and about three mood shifts later, we found ourselves playing in the hall when I asked Fiona not to do something (grab the cat, probably). Fiona started crying, which wasn't unusual, but then she started shouting "Mommy!"

She ran to the gate that cuts her off from the office (computer wires and all that) and yelled for Mommy. I explained that Mommy wasn't going to be home until later and that she'd see Mommy in the morning.

No dice. Fiona then ran to the front gate that cuts her off from the power tools and random junk we store in our front room and cried out for Mommy. Eventually I was able to distract her, but it was the first time she'd really noticed that a parent was missing -- or, at least, that she'd expressed a desire to see the missing parent.

On subsequent evenings, Fiona has asked where Mommy was ("Mommy?"), and each time I've explained that she'd see Mommy in the morning.

The subtext to all of this, of course, is that Fiona firmly believes that the other parent would never have let her fall down, forbidden her from touching the cat, changed her diaper when she wanted to play, etc.

Words

Well, we counted recently, and Fiona has about 60 words she can say now, counting animal sounds as words. Pretty good, considering she didn't say any words until she was a day shy of her first birthday.

Some of them are more decipherable than others, but we're not talking about hearing the baby say "uggugrurgle" and deciding she's saying "antediluvian". In each case, she's definitely saying the word.

Here's the more or less complete list, which will no doubt be out of date by the time you read it:

English words:
apple
baby
ball
bath
belly
book
bowl
Buddy
bye
chair
cheek
couch
daddy
Dinah
door
down
eye
flower
Gigi
juice
Kathy
knee
Mickey
milk
mine
mommy
mouse
nice
night-night
no
nose
owl
Papa
picture
Pooh
poop
Pop
shoes
socks
spoon
teeth
toes
up
wall
water
yogurt

Spanish Words:
agua
mas

Animal Sounds and Onomatopoeia:
baa (sheep)
beep beep (car)
buzz (bee)
coo (Daisy, a duck in one of her books)
eek (mouse)
honk (elephant yell)
meow (cat)
moo (cow)
neigh (horse)
quack (duck)
roar (lion)
whoosh (fan)
woof (dog)

Twinkle Twinkle

Fiona can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

I didn't think we were singing it to her enough for her to pick it up (though perhaps they sing it at day care everyday), but she's very clearly singing the words to the music. If you sing the opening phrase to her, she'll respond by singing "how I wonder what you are."

OK, she sounds a little bit (OK, a lot) like the monster from Young Frankenstein, but the sounds are definitely in the right ballpark. And, even more impressively, with a little prodding she sings some of the other phrases, too.

Misreading Body Language

While Andrea takes a evening summer school class this month, Aunt Kathy is helping out by picking Fiona up from day care twice a week. Yesterday I got home shortly before Kathy and Fiona arrived. Kathy visited for a little while, and then after half an hour or so started gathering her things to leave.

As I moved toward the front door, Fiona ran up to me and threw her arms around my legs saying "no no no!" Apparently, she'd picked up on the signals that somebody was getting ready to leave the apartment, knew Aunt Kathy was in the room, and figured that I must be getting ready to go out and leave Kathy behind to babysit.

Terrible Ones?

Andrea reports that today Fiona used the word "mine" correctly.

Looks like we're in for an early start to the terrible twos. The curse of the highly verbal baby.

Travels

No posting recently. Fiona had another asthma flare which required a round of antibiotics and prednisone. Her spirits were high throughout the whole ordeal, but the steroids tend to disrupt her sleep, which, of course, winds up disrupting Mom & Dad's sleep, which, of course, leaves Dad too tired to post.

Anyway, we're through the woods on the most recent flare and we're finally out of spring and into summer (weatherwise, even if the solstice is still to come), so, knock wood, here's hoping the asthma flares slow down.

The other reason posting has been slow is because we've been out of town. Over the weekend, we took a trip down to Tampa for Fiona's Gigi's birthday celebration. This was our first flight since Fiona learned how to walk, and we were dreading trying to contain a baby who loves to move, but Fiona wound up being terrific. She didn't leave the car seat at all during the flight down (as we'd hoped, figuring that once she got up she'd decide she ought to be up) and spent most of her time looking at the emergency card in her seat pocket and watching Animal Planet on the in-flight TV.

Down in Florida, Fiona had a great time meeting Gigi's dog Dinah. Dinah's about Fiona's size and has a name that's easy for a verbal baby to master. Fiona was so excited by all the new sights at her Tia's house that she didn't even have time to figure out what hadn't been childproofed (I wish we could leave our bathroom door open all the time without fearing for the toilet paper).

My favorite example of how far Fiona has progressed in recent months: on Sunday morning, a whole bunch of Gigi's friends descended on Tia's house for a birthday brunch. By then, Fiona had adjusted to the nine people who had been staying at the house on Friday and Saturday, but doubling the number of people to keep track of was an awful lot to ask of an infant. But instead of crying or clinging desperately to Mom and Dad, Fiona found a couple of toys and retreated down the hallway to a nook she'd found where she could play in peace and quiet. She stayed sane, and we stayed sane, and nobody wound up overwhelmed.

The flight back was a little rougher; takeoff was delayed first by a late arriving plane and then by a sick passenger (which meant we had to taxi back to the gate after already being on the runway). We were also dealing with a baby in the late afternoon instead of mid-morning. But if I said it was genuinely rough I'd be lying. Fiona didn't want to be in her seat, but she only made a big fuss once and that was only for about a minute; the worst I could say is that she wanted more attention from Mom & Dad on the way back than she did on the way down. So far, every time we've worried about how Fiona's behavior would respond to a new challenge she's come through with flying colors. We count ourselves lucky.