Now the winter surf is really up, but 2 weeks ago it was an exceptionally calm day, and we let Leilani sit on the board and I paddled around with it just for exercise.
Year: 2006
I was so happy about Leilani’s rapid speech development… but… a week ago she added “mine” or “mein” (g) to her vocabulary and uses it gramatically corectly (opposed to “Me”), often, and on items that are definitly not hers. Yesterday on our walk I wanted her to turn around and go home again – she replied “No”! Today we met her friend Joseph again, seems he is the one of the main teachers of new words, I heard him say yes a few times, hopefully that will follow now. And “Please” which he also uses would be nice, she is ordering us around pretty harshly now, very rarely does she say a sentence, just shouts what she wants (Up!, Out!, NamNam!, WaWa!) and keeps repeating until we fulfill her need (or throws tantrum if we don’t). New words include Wal (whale), turtle, fish, hike, apple, cheerios and cheese. Out she pronounces pretty badly, outa or ata, and her favorite food, dried peas she still often calls “Puffs” – maybe because their consistency is similar to puffed cereal. Some words where she is totaly off are Bunny – she calls them “Bmammmm”, maybe because Andy keeps telling her they go boing boing (while hopping around) and Hairbrush – Haba. Bye bye – Baba in german got a cute mix – she now says Ba-bye adding some singing sound to it. She uses Hi and Bye (or Ba-bye) correctly now, when she’d like to go (for a walk, or away) or has enough of something (or somebody) she waves and says Ba-bye too.
I can’t remember if we’ve touched on the vegetarian issue on this blog yet. If you don’t know, Mommy was practically vegan when I met her, having grown up next door to a slaughter house, she is sensitive to the suffering of animals. I would call myself an aware omnivore. It has proven to be a delicate subject, but I feel that we have reached a solid win-win solution that I dub the “fish compromise.”
I explain it all in detail as a comment to the SFgate.com “parenting” blog (aka The Poop, linked at right), in response to their post titled Pass the Tofurkey. Actually, I should just copy it here:
Fish was the answer in our family. I’m an omnivore and my wife was practically vegan before getting pregnant, but she recognized the need for “convenient” protein (I know, it was “convenient” to the fish as well) and cod liver oil (I’m sure the cod liked it better). Since it was the last animal meat she had given up, it was the easiest for her to “accept.”
In order to maintain harmony in our household, we don’t keep or cook non-fish meat. And out of respect, I don’t order it when eating out. My wife is from a fishitarian family, and my parents, after some initial suspicion, have become accepting–though eating fish really helps them cook for us. So that’s how we reached the fish compromise. We all eat fish and I won’t introduce other meats to the baby until she’s old enough for Mommy to explain where it comes from (and for me to afford free-range meats).
Most fats in two-or-four legged meat are not the healthiest (please note I did not say unhealthy) even for babies, though the proteins are definitely needed. Fish has both the protein and the healthier fats, so with respect to Mommy’s feelings, that’s the only meat we give our baby. For the fat, we also feed her tons of avocado, it was practically her first solid, and she continues to love it. Now we’re adding all the milk-fat products and ground flax, which I think are also healthier than animal fats.
But even with fish, the baby is smart enough (thanks to the avocados :-) to realize that we’ve been calling the colorful swimming animals by the same name as one of the dishes we eat. Her word for fish (the alive ones) is the silent opening and closing of the mouth, and I saw her mime that with a puzzled look when we said “fish” at the table (since we name all the foods we feed to her). I think the best we can do is teach healthy eating habits now and let her act according to her conscience as it develops.
We had a Thanksgiving Tofurkey just the three of us, since we didn’t visit family this year. It’s fine as long as you’re not craving real turkey (and I improved their basting recipe with a cup of red wine), though I did prefer the other brand of vegetarian turkey we had last year (can’t remember the name of it now). But my parents in Texas will make us a Christmas salmon this year–planning the food ahead of time reassures my wife.
In ten short days, Leilani has really progressed with her walking.
These past days, we could tell when she became tired because her walking became very unstable, with falls and frustration for her. Tonight, despite being somewhat tired, she was walking more confidently than ever. She walked from one room to the other on purpose, looking for one of us or something to play with. She really can “steer” to go where she wants, when she wants. She was even getting excited and almost running short distances, without any disatrous falls.
And the past two days, she has been carrying things while walking. I actually think it is a big motivator for her to walk, and I would believe it was a big reason that humans learned to walk upright. She loves to grab toys, and then she wants to take them with her, but when crawling, they would get in her way. As soon as she walked confidently, she tried to stand with objects or grab them along the way, and now she can do it consistently. She can even play with the objects while she walks, devoting attention to the toy instead of to the walking.
I think both of these abilities show that Leilani has begun to master the walking, meaning she can do it unconsciously instead of needing to focus on the act. And that will open up a whole new world of experience for her (and we’d better get ready).
First Leilani took a few steps between us, then she learned how to stand up, and today she did both, meaning that she walked all by herself.
After breakfast, she was playing on the dining room floor, practicing her standing. We were watching her because she was getting good at it, and then without warning, she just started walking across the whole kitchen. I ran after her because she was leaning from side to side, but I actually didn’t catch up with her because she was going so fast. She reached the refrigerator and sat down and we cheered her. I measured later and she went 15 feet (5 meters). I think she walks fast to keep from falling: since she doesn’t have the muscle control yet, she moves the other leg quickly forward before she has time to fall outward.
Later today, we filmed her doing it again: