Molly learned two things about Great Big Monkey Pal today. First, that he’s ticklish on his belly button, which she may never get tired of testing; and second, he likes being read to nearly as much as she does.
…It’s one of those “touch and feel” books, the most popular page being the “pet the dog’s tummy” one. She handles that the same way she does the real dogs: by grabbing a fistful of fur.
Molly has rather taken to the gate over the drop-off. She’ll get herself over there and spend a lot of time going back and forth, occasionally using it as a launch pad to somewhere else.
…And it seems silly to be talking about it, considering Molly’s walking around, but she’s getting better at crawling, too. Sometimes a combination of things is best to get where she’s headed.
Save for a brief jaunt out in the Beco to shovel a little snow, we were stuck inside. Which actually worked out well; after a couple of days of amazing advances in her walking, Molly took a slow one today. She went maybe a few dozen steps without holding dad’s hand, and seemed content to play, dance to music, read a book or two, walk around holding my hand, or just get carried around to talk about things as we came across. It was all great fun, and she was in fine form — a lot of smiling, a fair amount of babbling happily, and two good-sized naps.
She’s been adventurous in trying little tiny bites of new food lately — pancakes Sunday were a hit, if not the syrup, and she tasted her first bacon. Tonight teeny bits of roasted red bell pepper, mmm!!
I tried to get a picture that showed Molly’s top teeth coming in. My strategy was to make her laugh, which wasn’t hard today. She still finds it hilarious that I speak the same language as her little cow, for example.
…But as you can see, you can’t quite see the teeth.
Finally, I figured out a way. Plus it’s a cute video. So come, walk with Molly.
So yes, after yesterday’s excessively long description, I remembered this morning to take a picture of the new gate over the drop-off.
Just out of frame on the left is the front door; just out of frame on the right are the stairs leading up. Needless to say we’re quite happy this little hazard to navigation is Molly-proofed, just in the nick of time it seems, and Molly is pleased as well: the gate has become a welcome addition to her walking circuit. She finds great purchase along the metal poles.
Her walking takes up a lot of her day, and ours, although she’s needing us a little less every day. She still prefers a hand to hold when she wants to go full tilt, which makes for interesting exercise for mom and dad. And she’s sort of got a “crawl” she’ll use now if absolutely necessary, mostly a tripod of her arms and one leg, and pulling the other leg bent beneath her. Good enough to get her to the next thing she can stand up with, at any rate, which is all she’s after.
Today’s big outing was across town to get Molly a bookcase. Which isn’t to say the stack of books next to the wall wasn’t just dandy, but this is better.
…In addition to helping her find perennial favorite Ribbit Goes the Frog with greater expediency, she can also use it to walk along — and, it turns out, it’s perfect for standing back up with. Well worth the drive, and Molly slept for half of it.
In tooth news, both Molly’s front teeth have poked through. Hopefully that will help her feel a little more comfortable, at least until the next ones head to the surface. It’s tough being little sometimes.
Molly spent a lot of today bothered by the big tooth coming in. I spent most of the day trying to convince her to think about something else.
Fortunately, she has a number of interests.
We started off at the hardware store, where a bunch of the staff there pitched in to help us figure out how best to close off the drop-off between the main floor and the basement level. It’s been nice having it open, but now that Molly’s ambulatory, we need something. After much hemming and hawing and a plan to build a railing was scratched, we wound up with a good solution: a folding playpen thing that can be extended out and mounted to the wall. It fits the complicated space and even has a door right where we need it at the stairs, so that was the ticket. It’ll keep her from falling off the edge, anyhow, so I call it a success.
Out-of-town grandma sent a care package that arrived today, complete with some nifty new tights. Oh, boy!
Very glamorous indeed. At this point, Molly’s walking is cautious and limited on her own — maybe four or five steps, tops, before she needs to grab something. But if mom or I hold her hand she books. Seriously, she’s pretty much running and really doesn’t seem to need me except for the moral support.
She sat on the kitchen floor banging some plastic cups together while I cooked up a sausage for a pasta sauce, giggling wildly as I sang classical music to her with the single lyric “moo.” Beethoven? “Moo moo moo moo moo moo moooooo….” etc. It started off as me just mooing when she grabbed a little fuzzy cow she likes, and evolved from there. Ode to Joy is still her favorite, whether mooed at her or on the concertina or banjo. And at dinner she’s for some reason fascinated with the word “lycopene.” We can say it a thousand times and she still finds it hilarious.
She konked out on the sheepskin in the middle of the living room again tonight, with her little friend. What a cutie.
Well, at least Molly is. And mom. Dad’s still stuffed up to beat the band.
Fearful of sticking too long with skills she’s mastered, Molly is working on new ones. Such as above, reaching down and grabbing things in a squat, then standing back up with them, or not, as the case may be. Lots of these maneuvers end in a crash of some kind, but she mostly isn’t bothered. She’s gotten good at catching herself, on the floor, or some furniture, or whatever’s available. Say, dad’s legs.
Oh, yeah, she’s walking. Needs a launch pad and landing zone, but she’s walking.
Her only trouble at the moment is a big front tooth just starting to poke out. It’s a big one, in her little mouth. And it clearly bugs her a lot. But she’s enduring it, and as long as dad changes her bib every hour so she doesn’t get cold from being soaking wet, she’s in relatively good shape.
I keep telling her it’s going to get better. She seems to believe me.
We’re down and out for a bit. Molly, mom and dad all seem have a cold — and Molly’s faring the worst, not knowing how to make herself more comfortable while it runs its course. Runny noses all around. Sleep comes hard, and short, and often best curled up in mom’s arms or passed out on dad’s chest, like when she was very very little.
Hopefully we’ll be back on track tomorrow. In the meantime, lots of fluids and lots of rest.
I used to think it just sort of happened, but lately I’ve become convinced Molly is quite deliberately putting the pink boa around her neck before toddling off from mom’s office.
…And yes, a few steps later she will tread upon it, and it will slide off. But by then, well, she’s on to bigger and better things.
After the pet store we were able to hit the park only briefly, as it’s still quite cold. The sun had warmed the littlest slide, so we gave that another try. This time, I set Molly at the top, and held her under her armpits as she slid the whole way down. She looked up and beamed and gave me the “more!!” sign a bunch of times, so back up it was.
The second time, I sat her up there and took a step back. She wiggled until she slid, and went the whole way down on her own! Same big smile at the bottom, so back up she went.
The third time, I had the camera out. She of course gave me a little surprise.
Yes, that is our 8 month-old daughter launching herself off the top, in a bid to go down head-first. Which worked, I should add. Fortunately she caught herself mostly with her elbows and I caught the rest of her — and she gave me the same grin at the bottom. We did it a few more times, with dad stressing the importance of sitting normally.
To be fair, this is kind of how she approaches everything. For example: we’ve got this little Sesame Street toy, with Oscar and Ernie and what-not. You press a button in front of each character and they pop up and sing their respective trademark song. It’s supposed to teach you how pressing buttons and flipping switches sometimes makes things happen.
Molly, of course, has decided this is not the lesson for her.
Molly has decided her method of getting the guys out is best. She figured out she can brute-force about half of them open, and the rest will fly open if she flings the entire apparatus a few feet or bangs it against something.
Molly took mom and dad to the city’s children’s museum today. Which has nothing to do with the history of children, turns out.
…It’s this sort of barely-contained educational madhouse. The lowest floor was set up for tiny ones like Molly, and it got progressively more advanced as you went up to higher floors — including workshops, costumes, play scenarios and endless opportunities to make children learn something. We of course stayed down — lots of things to touch, grab, open, fiddle with, walk around. Big soft pillows, lots of primary colors. And of course, other kiddos.
..At one point we found this frog:
It seemed to know Molly’s name:
…She figured it out. Mommy all the time!
It was a lot for Molly to figure out. She spent a lot of time watching, frankly. But it was a big safe place to stand and “cruise” on stuff.
In one corner was this big resonating chamber with strings on it for plucking.
Good stuff.
There was even a playground out front. Molly was a little tired, so we didn’t linger — but we had to let her ride the little ATV-on-a-spring thing. Like a horsey, only better.
Another good day today. Started Molly off with some toast, since that was what I was having. She liked it well enough, although it was the bottle she really wanted. But it was fun to break apart and shove into her mouth.
Did some good playing with her rubber “blocks” this morning. Stacking and knocking over. Me stacking, her knocking.
The really fun part about these things is they each have a little hole in the end. When you squeeze ‘em, they sort of squeak and blow air.
The sun was back out, so we went to the playground park again today. Molly held my hand and walked all the way from the parking lot to the swings. Did a spot of swinging, good stuff. And since there were no big kids on it at that moment, we climbed up onto the BIG play structure.
Molly. Loved. It.
It’s hard to describe the thing, it’s maybe 40 feet of elevated platform of different heights, from about a foot off the ground to a good story. All around it are these bars and railings, interrupted by nothing in some places where a fire pole or cargo net kind of thing leads back to the ground — or, as above, a slide of some kind, in this case an enclosed tube. That’s the one we went down; I picked it because it was the only one that didn’t end in a snowy puddle, and dad didn’t want to get his rear end wet if he didn’t have to.
Molly was completely fearless on this thing. She walked all around it holding my hand or hands, and let go when she got to a railing she knew she could keep herself upright with. No fear of heights, that I could tell. Her only moment of apprehension was a flicker of doubt as we sat down to go down the slide — big dark place. She turned around to hug me, I assured her it would be OK and put her back on my lap. A second of “wheeee!” later, and we were at the bottom sitting in the sunlight. She was smiling.
After the slide we walked around a bit. I put Molly up on my shoulders and wandered down the walking trail; she smiled and giggled and waved at everybody coming the other way. They of course loved it.
Before we headed home we stopped and watched the geese. They had semi-settled nearby, and Molly was really interested, so we sat down and just enjoyed them for a few minutes.
I’m suffering from new-daddy-itis, clearly. I’m unable to choose between pictures. So I wind up posting a lot of them.
I don’t expect complaints. It’s not like the writing lately is exactly Hemmingway.
Big couple of days for Molly. Grew into some “new” jeans…
Hit the pool again in her “new” swimsuit…
…Discovered a new place to play…
Actually, that’s funny enough of a scene to include a video:
We played in “her” cabinet. Specially outfitted with non-breakables…
It’s fantastic. When we’re walking around, I can suggest we go play in her cabinet, and she changes course and goes straight for it. Good place to learn about “open” and “closed” too… and today she even closed the cabinet when prompted.
The walking is progressing nicely, she’s getting more sure of herself. Still wants to hold dad’s hand, though. I’ve got no problem with that.
Today she finally noticed the dog waiting patiently under her high chair. And obliged him.
…I’m going to have to start punishing that behavior. In him, not her.
Actually I’m rather enjoying her generosity of spirit. Today she picked up Rojo’s favorite red ball, and tried offering it to Krishna.
…Of course, she was sleeping and didn’t really notice. So I said “Molly, I bet Rojo would appreciate his ball. Do you want to give it to him?”
So she toddled over to Rojo (with dad’s help on the free hand) and dropped the ball into his basket.
…That dog has such a pal in Molly.
Finally, I decided to let Molly touch the guitar. I’d been keeping it just out of reach until I’d seen her understand how to touch things gently — more for her fingers than the guitar, really, I expect the tight strings could hurt when grabbed roughly.
Anyhow, she enjoyed it, and I got a little of it on video.
