Baby’s growth, month 17

At month 17, DD continued to constantly test her physical abilities. She could walk down stairs independently by holding onto the wall, though sometimes she preferred me to hold her hand. She could carry a ball upstairs one step at a time. Sometimes she could throw a ball overhand. She also tried climbing up onto any piece of furniture that was about her chest height and danced and laughed when standing on it. What a fearless baby!

As to language development, she seemed to understand every word out of our mouth, no matter it was English or Chinese. She was also eager to talk to us in words, although still gibberish, rather than by random pointing. We are waiting patiently for her first meaningful words.

Her growing independence is asserting itself in numerous ways: she took off her own socks or shoes, preferred to brush her own teeth (though “brushing” at this age pretty much meant chewing on the toothbrush), throwing a plate off the table when she was rejecting food, and occasionally but very deliberately disobeyed my orders.

A bilingual-baby-to-be
No doubt, at month 17, DD could understand both languages, English and Chinese. It seemed that she didn’t need time to translate English to Chinese or vice versa in her mind. She is acquiring both languages as her mother tongues.

The next step is to coordinate her lips, tongue and breath well enough to make herself understandable. This is also the biggest challenge and milestone in her language development. We are waiting patiently for her first meaningful words.

Messy is my middle name
Like a lot of parents, I couldn’t stand the mess DD made when she tried to feed herself. It was painful to watch her smearing, crushing, and flinging food between her fingers, in her mouth (with any luck), on her face, and all over her body.

Many times I had such an urge to grab the spoon and shovel the food into her mouth, speedily, efficiently and neatly.

But M told me to hold myself and give her the chance, since self-feeding, like other messy activities in a toddler’s life, is an important learning experience. He suggested me to give her smaller portions so she would have less material to experiment with. It helped!

Now she is abusing the signs
By the time DD could sign 20 words to us, she realized the power of communication and the convenience of being understood. She used this power more frequently and then… began to abuse it.

One night after giving her a warm bath, we intended to brush her teeth and put her to bed. DD twisted and turned on the bed, and tried to get away from us. Suddenly she drew the tips of her fingers and thumb together, brought her hand up her mouth and touched her fingertips on her lips. That is the sign for eat, I recognized it.

“Do you want to eat? Are you hungry?” I asked DD.

She nodded.

So I took her downstairs and fed her with little bit oatmeal. But she was not quite interested in the food. I wan confused.

“Now it is time for all the good babies to go to sleep.” I said, and approached her.

She formed her hand into a fist, opened and closed her fist demonstrating a squeezing motion. That is the sign for milk.

“Do you want to drink some milk?” I asked her.

She nodded.

So once again, I took her downstairs and fed her with some milk.

“Now you should go to bed.” I said.

This time she made a fist with both hands and tapped the thumbs sides of her hands together a few times. The sign for shoes!

“No, we are not going out at this time,” I began to suspect her intentions.

Then she curled up the fingers of both hands, thumbs pointing up, and brought them to her chest. She moved her fits up and downs her chest as if scrubbing her skin. It is the sign of bath.

“You are desperate, aren’t you?” I laughed, “You just finish the bath. Now it is time for you to go to bed.”

During the next few nights, DD tried the same tricks on M, trying to postpone her bedtime by abusing the signs. She finally gave up when her tricks failed to fool us. We won the battle of Tricking vs. anti-tricking this time (who knows who will win the next time…).

Ice for food
You may hear this phrase: land for peace. It is an interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which has formed the basis of subsequent Arab-Israeli peace making. (The name Land for Peace is derived from the wording of the resolution’s first operative paragraph which affirms that peace should include the application of two principles; Withdrawal of Israeli forces (Giving Up Land), and Termination of all claims or states of belligerency (Making Peace). Since the resolution stipulates that both principles should apply they can be viewed jointly as giving up land for peace, referred to more consisely as “land for peace”. For more details, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_for_peace).

In our house, we have a resolution: ice for food.

During the golden days of DD’s babyhood, feeding her and watching her eat like a hungry birdie was such a simple pleasure (I miss that time!). At present, rebellion at the dinner table was her daily accomplishment. Since I was not beating it anyway, I took M’s advice to give up without a fight.

M found out DD was particular in favor of crushed icecubes, probably caused by the pain from her grwoing teeth. He then lured DD food with crushed icecubes. Thus came our home-made resolution ice for food, one bite of food for one crushed icecube.

It turned out to be a happy ending for both parties. “I hope we can still play this rule when she wants a car at 16.” M said.

“You wish!” I laughed.