Video Viernes

Oh, and I forgot to mention one teensy detail.

Peanut is walking...

Ode to a Fork

A FORK. How did it take me this long to think of A FORK?

Peanut is a great eater. She only has four teeth, but they do a looooot of work. (She has actually given me quite a lot of hope for the culinary delights I can still experience in my older years when my teeth mostly fall out.) She eats all types of fruits and has chowed down recently on portobello mushrooms with vegetable filling, rice and beans with peppers and corn, and open faced tuna fish and pineapple sandwiches. I am shoving in everything I can while it is still easily accepted so that when we enter the chicken fingers and french fries era (translated perhaps to the fried plantains (patacones) and empanada phase), she will have a strong base of green veggies on which to pile said mounds of oil and fats.

Anyway, she eats well, but is often very invested in active participation in the eating endeavor. For months we have given her a spoon and tried to avoid overt cringing as food poured down her front or flipped down onto the floor to the delight of ant scouts sent to camp at the foot of her high chair. She has been able to get the spoon to her mouth for a while, but rarely did it manage to actually have food on it when it arrived. Until...voila!...the fork.

We actually only got a fork recently as one of her birthday presents, so there is some excuse for our not considering it as an option, but ah these past days have been magical. It is in this heart-warming, enchanting spirit that I offer you:

Ode to a Fork

Oh thou gift to me dear fork -

Food, once speared, to my mouth arrives!

Though my mother feared faint punctures to my sweet skin,

Thy pleasant tickle on my cheek merely encourages me anew.

Your zest in that dish of watermelon,

The funny way you turn my avocado into guacamole,

It brings a smile to my face to see you at work.

Grace is sometimes lacking in our efforts,

My excitement never wanes.

To you I will always turn.

What mere spoon could compete with your form and function?

On to the veggie pancakes.

Let us conquer together those grains of rice.

Yogurt may be hard,

But in the end we will triumph.

2 - New Skills

Though she may say four words, Peanut understands many more, and it is incredibly cool to see her catch on to something new.

For a while we have tried to guide the Nutter as she was getting down off of the sofa, the bed, the ceiling (oh wait, no, that was me...), and our phrase is always "colita primero" or "bottom first." For whatever reason, while we were in Bogotá, it seemed the message finally sunk in. I don't know if it was because we slept in a bed that was very low to the ground so that the whole getting down from the bed process did not seem quite so daunting, or if it was just time. Whatever the case, "colita primero" is now where it is at. As noted in the photo, she will start to slide her colita over to the edge of the bed when she is still dead center. It is a helpful give away at the moment when we are still getting used to the fact that our daughter has a mind of her own and even though we just put her up on the bed, down may look a lot better.

And, though we don't have a photo of it, the second phrase she has learned is "a la boca" - to your mouth! Magically this is one we only have to pull out when there is actual food in front of her. Other times things pop right into her mouth without having to ask or remind even once... Peanut is still not master of the spoon, so it is kind of funny to yell "a la boca"  when she has a spoon in her hand because it goes very quickly to her face...just not always to her mouth. The ants, let me tell you, are equally pleased.

Come on Baby, Do the Locomotion

I have heard that some children sit quietly. Legend has it that there are children who sit in your lap and snuggle. I evidently did not order that model.

Peanut is a woman on the go. Even if she is not actually moving from one place to another, she is moving her hands or kicking her feet, or making her chair bounce, or something. If she is taking a bottle, she is swinging her legs at the same time. If she is on our bed she is examining the thread count and seeing if our sheets are scratch and sniff. And now that she can throw things down on the floor? Let's just say that Jillian Michaels and her workout routine "The Shred" have nothing on Peanut's dedication to rebuilding my abs.

Come on Pooh, there's always room for one more!

A few months back we bought the Nutter a caminador so she could "walk off" some of that energy. It took her about 6 seconds to figure it out, and though it started a little jerkily, pretty soon she could maneuver herself through the space between our trunk and our couch, get under the dining table, and even do a wicked ninja spin move I think you have to see to believe. (Why do you never have the camera when you need it??) She has loved the mobility and the freedom to go where she wants to go without having to rely on those dreadfully slow padres to figure out where she wants to be. Of course two months later I just read that the American Association of Pediatrics does not recommend walkers. Actually, to be more accurate, in bold type and italics it said, "the AAP strongly urges parents not to use baby walkers." Oops. Too late now. In theory these walkers actively rob your child of her will to walk. My thoughts on that at the moment? Praise.be.to.God.

In reality the following video does not do justice to her moves, but it has other fine qualities I think you will appreciate...

Caminador from Richard Williams on Vimeo.

Tag to the front, like all the cool kids do.

Then, when our friend Joann Lee came down with a delegation earlier this year she brought Peanut a Jenny Jump-Up (yes, they do now make them gender specific...as with everything it seems). The bad news is that we have no door frames. The good news is that Papi is an engineer and rigged up something that I am sure is also not approved by the AAP, but it works and we like it. (Remind of all this very kindly please when I am fretting later that Peanut takes our rules more like guidelines...). The funniest thing about the Jenny Jump-Up has been to see the various ways Peanut makes use of it. She prefers to sit in it backwards so she can grab and eat the tag. She uses it as a way to practice her ice-skating moves since we don't have much ice on hand around here. She does the standard jumping, but she also does this sort of jump/walk forward thing that quite honestly makes me think of the contraption Dolly, Jane and Lily put on Dabney Coleman in the movie "9 to 5". Unfortunately every video I have gets posted sideways...have to figure out how to change that.

And finally (for now), Peanut is officially crawling. She started out with ranitas (little froggies) - forceful hops in which she would push off with her legs and then throw her arms back landing, essentially, on her chest and face. We tended to keep her on the bed in that stage (for fairly obvious reasons), but that girl could make some serious progress in fairly short order. It took her a while to figure out how to move her arms along with her legs (rather than just getting them the heck out of the way), but now she has it mastered. What I love is that if I go to the kitchen to get something, and she is not interested in being alone in the living room (there is a peek through so I can see her...no hyperventilating please...), she does not cry but rather shuffles her way around the corner to come see me. Think you can get rid of me that easily mom? I don't think so...

So now we are on to full-out exploring, pulling up, and generally upping the workout intensity. Maybe we'll snuggle next year. :)