Daddy's Friday Four

On Friday, I take time to think about interesting things or contemplate the good things in my life. This week, I'm recording some random memories of life with my thirteen month old daughter.

1.Daddy Fur! My baby girl apparently sees me as part cat, part stuffed animal.  For a few weeks, she has taken to cuddling with some of her furrier stuffed animals and our old, but very child-tolerant cat. She'll gently grab whatever she wants to cuddle with and hold it next to the side of her head or lay her head on it.

I usually wear long sleeves, but one weekend, when I was wearing a golf shirt, she noticed the "fur" on one of my arms and did the same thing! She's more prone to do this when she's tired, but she always smiles when she does it. One day, we were playing with her toys at home, and I momentarily bent over to look for a small figurine. Suddenly, I heard her "baby bark" (See Item 2.). She quickly crawled over and cuddled with the "fur" on top of my head!

2. Baby barks. This is my name for a kind of ach-ach sound  I have observed my daughter and lots of other babies make. At least in my daughter's case, the sound often comes when she seems to be making a mental connection of some kind. Perhaps "baby a-ha!" might be better, but it is harder to say and no more descriptive of the sound, which is mid-way between that and a bark. With my daughter working harder on speaking lately, she makes this sound less and less often. I'll miss it when she stops altogether.

3. Unabashed joy. Our baby has a positively radiant smile, and she's not afraid to use it. When she does something new or well, she often beams, and even claps her hands. (She recently mastered a stacking toy, and still claps when she gets all the rings onto its pole.)

In addition to this cute self-applause, she gives gratifying honest feedback. She claps when I set out scrambled eggs -- her current favorite -- for her to eat. When I offer her a ride in the Baby Bjorn, she also claps. While we were in Maine, I showed her Grandpa's arm -- which is much "furrier" than mine. Although she did cuddle, she cuddled more to my arm. I have to say I got a big kick out of that.

4. Curiosity. Our baby is currently fascinated by plants. One day, a few weeks ago, she used a riding toy as a sort of walker to get herself over to a drain cover in the park -- and then sat down and played with the dirt and the plants around its edges for something like twenty minutes. Sometimes, when we're out, she collects leaves, either fallen ones from the ground or that she has pulled off small plants. She also loves birds. I've caught her trying to say "bird" ("buh!") a couple of times now.

She's been pointing a lot lately, to indicate things she wants. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she enjoys smelling the spices from our spice rack: We'd done this a few times before, and one day, she pointed at the spice rack, as she has a few other times since. She now also looks at the spices very carefully. (I pour them into uniform glass jars that fit into a a hanging rack and a rotating one.)

-- CAV