You experienced parents probably saw it coming. Infant turns to
toddler, parents have less time for things like email. Yes, Zelly is
officially a toddler. She started getting serious about walking late
in the week of February 19. During the earthquake she was standing in
the middle of the daycare playroom and suddenly found herself on her
diapered butt. She cried and looked around because she thought
someone had pushed her down.
She isn't quite running yet but she leans forward and walks so fast
sometimes that she falls down. Climbing is also a favorite pastime.
She loves climbing onto chairs and down again, over and over. She'll
climb right over you to get to a higher position so she can see out
the window. She's very much a toddler in the sense of testing
bounderies. The TV and remotes fascinate her and she loves the fact
that she can make things happen -- turning the TV off and on, changing
channels, turning the volume to concert levels. When we tell her not
to push the buttons on the TV anymore, she turns and smiles and
reaches for the buttons again. She's apparently of the belief that if
she smiles and turns those big eyes on, she'll get her way.
Zelly is also getting into the idea of dress-up. In the morning, when
we're getting ready for work, Zell will look for a bra to try on.
She'll look at it this way and that and finally get her arm through
one hole. She ends up with the cups draped across her shoulders and
she'll walk around the house proudly showing that she's a big girl
who knows how to get dressed. She'll also find hankies, towels and
other small articles of clothing which she'll drape around her neck
like a shawl. To top it all off, the other morning, with a bra across
her shoulders, she was trying to step into the red rubber garden
clogs.
People ask if she's talking yet. Yet? When did she not make
some kind of vocal noise? Seriously though, most of what she say is
in a language we don't quite understand. She experiments with a lot
of noises, most of which are not used in English. She does have noise
which sound a lot like Jordan and Harlow, our cats' names. She has no
problem understanding we're we're saying and will unearingly respond
to 'Where is Lamby? Where is your bottle?
Where is Jordan.' But ask her where Mommy or Mama is and
she'll draw a blank... apparently our names aren't yet in her
lexicon. She does go around the house asking 'O-um? O-um? O-
um?' And there are subtle variations that I think signify each of us.
I'm pretty sure that Zelly's first word will be a completely
grammatically correct paragraph about why she should be able to do
something we are preventing her from doing. You heard it here first.
On other developmental fronts, she's got two bottom teeth to show off
with her smile now. She enjoys using those teeth to tear apart pizza
crust, string cheese, large numbers of helpless crackers and other
small foods. Her favorites still include sweet potatoes and broccoli
and she's recently added scrambled eggs and breakfast bars to the
list.
She enjoys her daycare friends and is very popular there and
everywhere she goes. Our friends practically beg to babysit for us.
It helps that she's easy to have around, especially if she's not
teething.
Zelly will be 15 months old on 3/20 and she's still just somewhere
between 15 - 15.5 lbs. She's close to 29 inches tall and height seems
to be her growing priority instead of pudge. For her clothing that
means that a shirt or pair of pants might still fit her around the
waist or in the shoulders but her legs or tummy starts poking out
because they are too short.
Our big family project this year is selling our small house and
moving into a larger one. We all need more room and we need a
safer, slower road to live on. So I guess I'm apologizing ahead of
time for the delays in future updates. As always, I'll respond to
emails from you and hopefully it won't be another three months before
I send out the next report. Love to you all and happy spring time.