The 15th month is what pediatricians consider a “milestone” period—a time that most babies walk right out of babyhood. This is absolutely true to DD. Since she was quite confident on her feet, she was very keen to experiment with different ways of moving: trotting, running and dancing.

I am just trying to help…
By month 15, DD was ready for a venture anytime. She wanted to climb onto the dinner table, push her own stroller, take dishes out of the dishwasher, anything she could do to “help” me. Whenever I rushed to stop her, she simply walked away and waited patiently for another opportunity.

One day I showed her how to flash the toilet. The next moment I found the whole roll of toilet paper was inside the toilet. And she tried to press the button to flash the toilet. But the button didn’t move as she wished. So she quickly put her hand into the toilet and created her own whirlpool.

Soon a roll of toilet paper was not enough to satisfy her curiosity. The next day DD’s alarm clock was found in the toilet, and whenever she got hold of some things, she would run to the bathroom and dump them into the toilet.

M and I were quite frustrated. The easiest solution for us to do was to lock the bathroom door. But our counterpart—small and cute though she is—would not give up easily.

One day DD was caught red-handed in playing with the toilet. M took her out of the bathroom and told her “go to get mommy”. Watching her climbing downstairs and heading towards the kitchen (yes, kitchen is mommy’s domain), he walked back to the computer room and continued working on his project.

Few minutes later, he head watering splashing from the bathroom. “Who is there?” He stepped into the bathroom. Aha, DD was there, testing her whirlpool.

M didn’t know what to say. What he did was to pick up DD, walk downstairs and hand her to me, while the perpetrator stayed cool and calm and looked at me innocently, like saying “I am just trying to help. I don’t understand why you guys get so upset…”

Yes, she was not intentionally trying to cause trouble — she was just putting her new physical skills to the test.

The renewable energy is right in front of you!
Talking about renewable energy? Yes, we know it, right in front of our eyes. It is amazing to find out there is so much energy contained in human being, even a small one.

Early September we went to Grandma’s house to celebrate the 50th marriage anniversary of Grandma and Grandpa. Besides us, Grandpa and Grandma, there were Auntie Dawn and Chris, and Uncle Kidney. It was a nice small-scale family gathering.

After the dinner, we all sat in living room, watching and talking to DD. At first DD felt little bit shy at so much attention paid to her. Soon she got used to it and began to enjoy being the center of the spotlight.

She showed off her “high feet” dance, which she just started to practice at home one day ago (I don’t know where she got the concept of this so-called “happy feet” dance. Probably she picked up from the TV two months ago when we watched the cartoon happy feet together. At that time she couldn’t walk yet). People clapped hand and cheered at her performance. She felt more encouraged and kept “dancing” with her two chubby legs and cute dumpling-shape feet.

Her bravery grew. She approached Auntie Dawn’s little puppy and patted the dog. But she flinched when the dog wanted to lick her fingers. After making sure the dog was friendly, she stepped forward and patted the dog again.

Since the little puppy was quite nice, she became bolder. She passed the dog and picked up the dog’s toy and run away. The dog remained calm (and puzzled at the same time probably). But we all burst into laughing. When M tried to get the toy off her hand, she came close to me and handed me the toy. Off course I gave the toy back to M and he threw the toy back to the poor puppy.

But our aggressive little one remained calm. She just waited for another opportunity to get the toy back and the whole process repeated.

During the entire two hours, DD remained in motion without a stop, either showing off “happy feet” dance, playing with the puppy, taking away its toy, or running around the living room. In the end, the puppy got tired and lied on Auntie Down’s lap and took a rest, while DD still had the energy to burn. That night she slept like a log.

The following weekend we took DD to a park in the center of the city. There was a big lake inside the park. We walked around the lake with DD. In case she felt tired we took the stroller with us.

Later we found out that was completely unnecessary. During the whole walking, she walked by herself, ahead of us most of the time. We were amazed by her strength and energy, since we even felt a little tired after we finished walking. It was a fairly big size lake and this little one measured its length with her little feet completely by herself. That night, of course, she slept like a log.

Baby sign language
Since last month, we began to teach DD sign language. Whenever we spoke the words (e.g., milk, eat, drink, bath, shoes, etc), we did the sign at the same (see Baby training, month 14 ).

To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical about whether DD could actually learn to sign. Neither M nor I learned sign language when we were little; neither did any of our friends’ babies. It was a complete new arena to us.

One day, I fed DD lunch. She gibbered something ET language that was beyond my comprehension. So I just ignored her and kept shuffling food into her mouth. She looked at me; suddenly she opened and closed her fist, demonstrating a squeezing motion.

That is the sign for MILK! She signed MILK to me!!

I immediately turned around and poured some milk to her sippy cup and handed her the cup. She took the cup and drank milk from it.

I was hooked!

So she demonstrated to us that the sign language did work!! She could understand the sign and learn to sign to communicate with us!!

That was one of the most amazing things I have experienced recently. It provides us a glimpse into the workings of her little mind and extra insights of her personality. It definitely reduces the frustration and tantrums provoked by DD’s inability to communicate, and further enhances parent-child bonding, facilitating a close relationship between us.

Scribbler or artist?
Sine her birth, I scrutinized DD’s actions, trying to identify every trace of her potential talent. When she kicked her legs like a little frog at month three, I supposed she might become a football player in the future; when she enjoyed splashing bath water everywhere, I thought about training her to be a professional swimmer; when she screeched to wake us at midnight, the first idea jumped into my mind was: strong lungs! She can become a singer!

How about this time?

One afternoon, by an accident, DD held her sippy cup upside up and saw drops of milk dribbling out of the sprout. She waved the sippy cup and happily found lines of milk forming all kinds of shapes on the carpet. Since then, an abstractionism artist was born and so was an aboriginal mother who disagreed with the conducts of the future Picasso.

Another afternoon, DD signed to me that she wanted milk. “Drink the milk, don’t play with it”, I warned DD and handed her the cup. Watching her gulping milk through the sprout, I turned around and began to prepare for the lunch.

The phone rang. I picked up the phone. It was my friend Karen. Soon I was engaged into the conversation and forgot to check the baby terminator in the house.

A big mistake…

After I hanged up with Karen, I suddenly remembered that DD had the sippy cup. Where is she? I rush into the living room and was stunned at the scene.

An abstractionism masterpiece, formed by beautiful arches and random dots, made of milk, was presented on the carpet. And our genius artist swiftly dropped her painting tool, the sippy cup, and run out of the room like a high-speed rat (yes, my baby is a rat), leaving me staring at her unfinished work, not knowing what to do.

Of course, I know exactly what to do—rushing into the kitchen and getting several wet towels to erase the milk from the carpet before it dries.

Related posts:
Baby’s growth, month 14
Baby’s growth, month 13
Baby’s growth, month 12
Baby’s growth, month 11
Baby’s growth, month 10
Baby’s growth, month 9
Baby’s growth, month 8
Baby’s growth, month 7
Baby’s growth, month 6
Baby’s growth, month 5
Baby’s growth, month 4
Baby’s growth, month 3
Baby’s growth, month 2
Baby’s growth, month 1

Tags: Baby's Growth | Baby's Growth, From Lina, Second Year | Lina | October 2, 2009 9:20 am | Comments (0)