Over the last few weeks, Mariah’s development seems to have
spiked with lots of new skills.
Her baby babble is slowly transforming into actual words, which includes
the following: no (of course),
mama, dada, doggy, uh-oh, out, off, this, there, shoes, and up. After a 6 week signing course, she did pick up one sign:
‘more’. And despite this limited
vocabulary, Mariah certainly understands a lot of what we say to her, and
manages to get her own point across with some creative non-verbal communication
skills. I guess she’s used to her
very pregnant mom groaning when she bends over to reach something, so Mariah
has begun to do the same. When she
wants something, she usually makes the cutest noise she can create and pulls
your hand in the direction of her desired goal. This usually leads you to the pantry where she has also
started to take matters into her own hands by climbing the shelves to reach
anything that looks appealing. My
favourite story yet is that apparently during clean-up time at the dayhome,
Mariah simply points to the toys she has pulled out and makes a sound…and her ‘boyfriend’ comes running over to put things away for her! (That’s my
girl!!!)
After a few different phases, Mariah has clearly become a
daddy’s girl once again. I would like
to chalk this up to the fact that mommy is too tired to carry or play with her
much these days. But it probably
also has a lot to do with the fact that Ivan is a pretty amazing dad who just
adores his little girl to pieces. Their
indoor pastimes include wrestling, cuddling, playing djembe drums together,
dancing, and colouring. If the sun
is out, you can bet they’re both in the backyard keeping busy. When Ivan did some landscaping recently, Mariah took breaks from her sandbox to ‘help’ by moving one
rock at a time from daddy’s pile to the wheelbarrow. And when mom prefers to stay home and nap, Ivan & Mariah
are often out doing errands together – mostly wandering aimlessly but happily
around garden centres.
Mariah retired her high chair to the basement since she didn’t like feeling
isolated, but has agreed to sit in a booster chair at the dining table where
she feels more like a big girl.
For a 17-month old, she has pretty amazing motor skills that she now
demonstrates by eating by herself…with cutlery! Every morning, we each sit down to a bowl of oatmeal – which
she carefully shovels into her mouth before asking to finish my bowl. Since she has
refused to wear a bib for the last several months, she usually gets a splatter
or two on herself, which inevitably ends up on my work clothes.
Her latest tricks are both musical. A few weeks ago she started trying to
‘whistle’ and sometimes she is even successful. If she’s not asleep during car-rides, you can sometimes hear
tiny amounts of air blowing through her lips, with some intermittent whistling
noises coming through, as she practices proudly. And the other day she spontaneously started moonwalking,
which might be in her blood since her aunt is a big MJ fan and a talented dancer!
With just a few weeks left of being an only child, I’m
working hard to try and train Mariah for her new role as a big sister. She’s finally taken some interest in a
couple of stuffies that I selected as her ‘babies’ – which she used to prefer
to throw or sit on. Now Mariah
attempts to nurture them a bit with hugs and kisses, bottle feeding, and
bringing them to mommy to help diaper & un-diaper repeatedly. At first I thought it was getting a bit much, but it’s
probably a good predictor of what life will be in a very short while.
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| Colouring on the table daddy built for her |
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| Enjoying a cold brewski after some hard labour! |
