Year: 2006

On Sunday we were entertaining Leilani by reading a book. Since, we don’t believe in cramming babies’ heads with numbers and colors, we just show her the pictures and read the words to say something before flipping the page—no repetition. The images and moving the pages captivate her more than the spoken words. We were reading the book that shows grandmothers doing things with their grandkids, for example walking, brushing, hugging, etc.

Imagine our surprise when we read the word “clapping” and she immediately started clapping her hands. She was looking at the picture in the book, but it actually looks more like praying, so I don’t think she was cued visually. We were both focused on the book, not her, so we weren’t encouraging her, and we definitely didn’t clap with our hands. We knew she could clap and she actually does it often, and we say “clap” in both English and German, so she knows the word. What’s surprising is that this time she clapped in response to the word that was not directed at her.

Interestingly, Leilani has another trick with clapping. For over a month I tried to show her how to clap. She didn’t like me moving her hands for her, so we started out with her clapping my hand, and later she could do it by herself. Maybe I’m just inventing motivations for her, but it does seem like she now claps specfically to get our attention. She knows it is an action we value, and we encourage the behavior by turning our attention to her when she does it. Actually, we prefer that type of call for attention much more than screaming or shrieking.

We’ve mentioned several times that Leilani has been “crawling” by pulling and pushing herself forward on her stomach. She got fairly good at it, and except for certains surfaces she got relatively quick at it. I was even afraid she wouldn’t learn to crawl on her hands and knees if she learns to walk soon, as she’s showing signs of doing.

But two days ago, on Saturday, she did the first real crawling that I’ve seen. We had fed her and put her on the floor to play while we were eating. She practiced being on hands and knees, and instead of falling on her stomach as usual, she moved the arms and knees in the right order to move forward. It was only a few “steps” but defintiely regular baby crawling. Showing the usual quick progression of babies, my wife witnessed her go half-way across a room earlier today, and I saw it too for myself this afternoon.

Actually, just minutes before the crawling, we looked over at her on the floor and saw her sitting. We stared at each other for a second and realized we’d both been at the table, so she must’ve gone from belly-crawling to sitting by herself. That was kind of a surprise because I’d never seen her practice that or do a similar motion. Her friend Ian is really good at it, going forward and back to sitting repeatedly, and maybe she learned from watching him. She did it again on Sunday when I was filming her, so I’ll try to get the evidence posted here.

Update: Here’s the video:

Leilanai’s never been very curious about things, but I think that’s normal for a baby still so young. So it’s also normal now that she’s moving by herself (still belly crawling) for her to start exploring things she can reach. But I sure didn’t expect her to go so quickly.

Today, she found the cats’ water bowl and reached for it. Oddly, she had been sitting not far from it for several minutes without showing any interest, and then one second when I wasn’t watching, she lunged and tipped it over, spilling some of the water. Lessons learned: always watch the baby (but how can we?), and get a new water bowl that doesn’t tip.

Barely 5 minutes later, she reached a kitchen cabinet for the first time, and seeing the door slightly ajar, pulled to open it. She has sat in the kitchen and watched us open cabinets dozens of times, so that’s no surprise. And we were well prepared for this moment, all bottom cabinets have safety catches that I installed 2 months ago. Unfortunately the plastic latch didn’t work, and Leilani got the cabinet all the way open—she really enjoyed that. There’s nothing dangerous in the food pantry, but we just don’t want her to get into the habit of getting into things (yes, we’re planning on giving her one cabinet for her to play in but we haven’t gotten around to it yet …)

So I had to stand there and hold the cabinet door closed. She kept trying 5 or 6 times to pull on it again, got slightly frustrated because her new skill didn’t work anymore, and I felt bad depriving her of the fun. She lost interest, but about a minute later, she crawled to the other edge of the door and tried pulling on that edge. It didn’t open because that was the hinge-side, but she demonstrated a certain amount of reasoning I hadn’t seen before.

And speaking of reasoning, Mommy taught her how to get down from the bed. Several times she has scooted to the edge of the bed and rolled off. We always watch and catch her just over the edge, so she has that feeling of being in danger without hurting herself. Mommy started putting her back on the bed with her feet over the edge, so she slides down and lands on her feet. She can now do this by herself, going from playing on the bed to standing on the floor. Later today, she was crawling across the hard dining room to the sill of the patio door. There is no step there, just a slightly raised sill, but she turned herself around and backed out the door!

Thanks to Leilani, we have new shelves in our rearranged living room:

Actually, they were made by Don, our current tenant in the boat garage. But with Leilani starting to stand by pulling and leaning on furniture, we needed more high shelves to put books and bobbles. The high bookshelves in her playroom were full**, so we needed new ones in the living room.

** full because Andy went to the Library’s book sale. And the boxes in the storage closet were full of these books too….

Andy found a pink sit-on-top truck (or car?) for Leilani at a thrift store. I tried some weak objections, but was overruled by his enthusiasm. A few weeks before that I had gone off against battery operated toys on the blog – but of course the truck’s main purpose was as a riding toy. And Leilani was only 6 months then. Waaaayyyy too young. I figured she’d be a year or so, but last week she discovered it next to the clothesline and wanted to know what it was. I sat her on top, and she immediately found all the levers and buttons, so I cleaned it and brought it upstairs. She needs to be watched all the time when on the truck, because she can’t get off (tried, fallen, but not cried).

A little crash course in German baby talk: