Unh Unh Unh!
Margaret is to a stage now where she just points at things and says "Unh unh unh!" repeatedly until we give her what she's asking for. Liz and I don't want this stage to last any longer than necessary, so we're teaching her to say or sign "please", "more", or the word for what she's asking for if she knows it, like "water" or "milk", etc. She seems to understand, yet sometimes she's stubborn and resists for a good minute or two before finally breaking down and saying/signing her request. Watching her sign, though, is the cutest thing I can imagine at this stage of my life.
A 15 Month Old’s Understanding of Technology
Margaret has always been interested in technology. Why not. Liz and I love it. She sees it all the time. It's amazing how well she understands it, though. I'm sure you've already seen her unlock the iPhone, which she's been doing since about 12 months.
So we have an Xbox that we originally got watch Netflix streaming content on our TV. Once we got it, we accidentally got hooked on Call of Duty 4. So Margaret sees us playing games on occasion, as well as watching some kid shows on netflix. The one she likes the most has a CG dog on the cover, which she refers to by saying "puppy". She'll say it either as a request, or just as a statement of fact.
So the other day, she walked into the living room while I was playing CoD. She immediately, and cheerfully blurts out "Puppy!" I'm 100% sure that this means she recognizes that both CoD and puppy are housed on the same device. Maybe because she recognizes the main xbox menu, and knows it can lead to either CoD or puppy, or maybe because we have the controller in our hand for both. Either way, it's just impressive to me that she's about to connect all the little dots and know that CoD means puppy, where a Little Einstein dvd would not.
A Kiss to Remember
Margaret doesn't kiss me very often. Probably because I shave so rarely. When she does kiss me, it's usually because I've asked her at least 20 times, and am holding her so that she can't get away from me.
She was pretty restless when I was putting her to sleep last night. She talked, tossed and turned, and wrestled our pillows for close to an hour before she started to wear down. It was pleasant, though. So I layed on my back and just waited. After a while, she layed on her back beside me, and was still and quiet for several minutes.
After a few minutes of quietness, she sat up. She looked at me, and pursed her lips. Then, very very slowly, she starts leaning towards me. She leaned forward and gave me a soft peck, directly on the lips. She almost always kisses me on the cheek, so this was a bit out of the blue. After her quick peck, she pulled back and looked at me for a second or two. Then she leaned in a second time, and gave me a proper kiss on the lips. Then she laid back down again.
I've been thinking about that all morning, and it makes me about as happy as I can imagine a dad has ever been.
Fly Before You Walk
Margaret, a few weeks shy of a year old, is just starting to take a few steps but is already flying her Air Hog Havoc heli like a pro.
Blade 400 Hovering – 10th Flight
Just a little driveway hovering on my lunch break. It was a little gusty, so it probably doesn't look like I'm doing too well at holding her still.
A lot of time has passed between these two videos without many flights. I had a crash, and it took me a while to get everything back together and squared away. Since the first video, I've added a Castle Creations BEC and some Curtis Youngblood head dampeners. I also had to replace the main and tail blades, and the feathering shaft.
Rituals, Telephony, Wordsmithing and Sliding
So lately Margaret has been picking up on little rituals and patterns in our daily lives. For example, she knows that if I kick off my slippers and take off my glasses while holding her, that I'm about to put her to sleep, and she'll immediately start crying. Luckily, she's almost always done within a minute or two of us actually laying down.
She surprised me during bath time the other day. Typically she just hops in the bath with Liz, and I'll come get her when they're done so that Liz is free to take care of herself. Usually I just grab a towel and reach out for her and Liz will hand her to me. This week, when I grabbed the towel, Margaret stood right up and came over to the edge of the tub before Liz even had a chance to grab her.
Margaret has always been fascinated with our cell phones. She now has 3 of her own, two of which are toys and one is just an old cell phone sans battery. This week she's actually started holding them up to her mouth and ear and saying things into them. One of the common sounds she makes into her phone sounds a lot like "yeah?"
Margaret's musical side is developing now also. When we watch any of her Little Einstein videos, or play with any of her toys that make music, she'll dance along with it most of the time. She's really only got about 3 different "moves" at the moment, but they're all cute. We keep trying to get some of it on video, but as soon as we grab the camera, she gets more interested in that than dancing, so we don't have anything to show so far. She weaves her head back and forth or twists her torso from side to side, but the best is when she shakes her little butt back and forth. That's cute for now, but I don't even want to think about my feelings on that in 12 years or so.
Vocabulary wise we haven't made a lot of progress since the last post. She's still saying mostly the same words. She does "talk" a lot more now. When she's playing by herself, or when we're riding in the car, she'll just babble on and on for 10 or 20 minutes non-stop. Liz and I suspect that she's invented her own word. We've noticed that she regularly says "nana" just before she's ready to nurse. This doesn't remotely resemble anything that we say in reference to nursing, so we're wondering if she just decided it was OK to call it that.
One final thing. Although she has shown that she is able to take a few steps on her own, she really doesn't show any interest in walking on her own right now. If we're holding her hands, she'll walk all day, but any time we try to let go, she'll quickly drop to the ground and revert to crawling. We know that as soon as she decides she wants to, she'll just take off. She'll stand or walk when we trick her into it (like convincing her to clap when she's standing next to the couch). It's only a matter of her deciding that she wants to. She can and does, however, climb the steps to her new slide.
Slide Before You Walk
Although Margaret shows signs of being able to free stand and walk, she doesn't really want to. Every time we try to let her stand or walk on her own, she'll almost immediately drop back to the floor and crawl instead. When it comes to sliding, however, she'll climb a ladder without hesitation.
Peek-a-Bah!
Margaret is just learning to play peek-a-boo. Her boos are really more like "bah", and are often fairly delayed. When empty-handed, she usually just points to her cheeks and/or eyes, but since she had a baby in hand, she just used that to cover her face.
New Tricks
Margaret has picked up a few new tricks since the last time I wrote. She now has a 5 word vocabulary:
- mama - of course
- daddy - said about 10% as often as she says mama. I think it's because daddy is a super special word that she doesn't use lightly.
- kitty (pronounced "kee") - used in reference to our cat Ping Pong, or the leopards at the zoo
- duck - refers to her tiny rubber ducky that we play with in the bath
- bye bye - what she says to babysitters about 5 seconds after laying eyes on mama
She's getting pretty good at understanding things. If I ask her "Where's the kitty?" She'll look right at Ping Pong, or at least where she thinks Ping Pong should be. In the bath, if I show her the frog and the duck, toss them into the tub, and ask her to show me the duck, she gets it right most of the time.
As of today, she's done several 5-15 second free-stands, and has taken up to 3 steps at a time to get from me to mommy or from mommy to me. It's all happening pretty fast. It's easiest to realize how quickly it's happening when you see someone that you haven't seen in a few weeks and run through the list of what's changed in that amount of time. I'm really excited about the standing and walking. We're making a point to do that for a few minutes a few times a day, but are trying not to push it too hard. I'm excited about it, though. That, and the talking. I can't wait to start teaching her words.
Margaret’s Pink Lamborghini
This toy has baffled her for a while now. Today she figured it out. You basically have to shake it to rev it up, then put it on the ground and it will go. The more you rev it, the farther it goes. She's got it all figured out now.