The Seattle Story: Milestones

Since turning the big 0-1, Maggie has been revealing some pretty impressive big-girl moves.

First, the girl I thought would never use her legs (though we knew she could) has now started to use them well and often! She’s apparently noticed that all the cool kids pull themselves up to a stand in order to get to things kept out of reach. And she’s begun to CRUISE! not quite doing laps around the room yet, but she makes pretty impressive runs along the playroom couch, along the table and along the toys. Even more recently, she’s made the daring leap of letting go of a prop to fall into my arms. We are mere…steps!…away from steps! Wow.

Along with the toes, her knees have been working hard, too. She’s started crawling? Who knew that she’d ever give it a go, but she has! I think it has to do a bit with her falling when reaching to grab hold of things as she pulls up or cruises along. When you’ve landed on all fours, you might as well use ‘em, eh? Now, she hasn’t retired her cute little scoot-hop, but it’s fun to see her agility blossom.

Less fun is her desire to climb. She’s now all about climbing up into (and over) her rocking chair and up into the playroom couch. And while she’s yet to successfully hike up her feet high enough to climb the big couch (the trying is too cute), I’m sure that’s just around the corner. So, we’ve gotten a bit busier following her around the house and have had the need to expand our sign language vocabulary: “No” and “sit” have come fast into the playroom lexicon.

Even lesser fun are the tumbles (check out the doozer of a boo-boo between the nose and upper lip! poor kiddo!)

The new signs have also come in handy with her work in the highchair. She’s had Os, more, banana and milk mastered for ages and now she’s mastered the sign for CHEESE which she takes any way we hand it to her: in sticks, on mac, on pizza, grilled, or in dillas (“dee-yas”). Eggs are also pretty reliable favorites, as well as apple sauce and yogurt…but only if she gets to work the spoon. She’s all but retired me from my feeding post. I get in a few bites if she’s especially hungry or distracted, but once she notices what’s going down (or rather, how it’s going in), she gives her head a big shake of “No, ma’am” and won’t take another bite unless I hand her the spoon and bowl. I also get lots of frustrated whines from her corner if I don’t at least offer her a bit of what’s on my plate. I think we have an eater. Yay for that.

Finally, I should throw into this little time capsule that she’s also got a bit of a drama streak in her. If she’s especially frustrated or repeatedly thwarted in an effort, she lets out a cute (for now) little yell. Kind of a cross between a “hey” and an “argh”. If you dare separate her from an enjoyed thing (exhibit A) or activity (exhibit B), the tears start streaming and the head is thrown back in full protest.

Exhibit A: