Sometime this summer G learned to be afraid of animals. She became afraid of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc. It was so bad at one point that just bringing her near my parent's inanimate camel would make her break out in tears. It isn't clear if she has gotten over all of this fear but she is certainly a lot better. We went down to Georgia for thanksgiving and decided to see if we could get her over her fears. She spent most of the week chasing the cat around the house. She wasn't very good at catching him as even her fastest crawl isn't all that fast. Once we had determined that her fear of small animals was gone we decided to press our luck and see how she fared against large animals.
We brought her out in the backyard and I held her while feeding a horse. This didn't seem to bother her but she refused to pet him. We took G over to her Great Aunt and Uncle's house and decided to give her some hands on horse experience. We put her near several horses until she became brave enough to pet them. Once she was actively petting horses we put her on the back of a small gentle pony. We started out side saddle and worked up to straddling. She never stayed on for more than a few seconds because she would start to cry. All in all she seemed to have a good time and we left with her smiling and waving at the horses. She didn't actually get a pony ride but maybe we can try for that next time.
Genevieve has learned the wonders of shoe laces. She spent about 10 minutes unlacing my boots before it was time for bed. It took her a little while to get started but once she got going she really got into it. The next day I spent a few minutes putting my laces back in and that evening she showed her prowess by beating her best and unlacing them in under 5 minutes.
There's not too much to write about Genevieve's eleven-month milestone. She's not walking and mainly speaks in a language that I do not understand, but am pretty sure contains a lot of profanity. Her stats are still pretty much the same:
Height: Big Weight: Large Head Circumference: Proportional
To celebrate Genevieve making it to the eleven month mark, I took her to the doctor for her first flu shot. Even this was uneventful; she didn't even cry.
Since I don't want to leave you with the impression that Genevieve is making no progress, here is what she's up to lately.
(1) Standing briefly without holding on to anything. She'll do this for a few seconds, freak out, and then lunge for the nearest steady object.
(2) Speed crawling. She can get from point A to point B very quickly. It looks kind of like a retarded lizard, the way she slams her hands down and scoots along at lightning speed.
(3) Destruction. Geneveive hates order. She goes through cabinets ripping out all of the contents and throwing them across the floor. She flings every toy out of her toy box and tries to rip the noses and ears off of every stuffed animal. Laundry is her biggest nemisis. Just seeing it piled up neatly angers her so much that she'll speed crawl over to it and throw everything over her head in a cotton blaze, all the while cackling like a mad woman.
Maybe I should loan Genevieve out to toy companies for use in their quality control departments.
You would think that by 11 months Genevieve would have learned that when it is time for a diaper change that she should lay still. You might think that when we tried to dress her she would potentially help us put her arms or legs through the appropriate holes. You would be sorely mistaken. Genevieve is actually less helpful now than when she was younger.
As a younger infant she barely moved. The only difficulty was to overpower her little arms or legs and shove them into the appropriate sleeve or pant. No longer is this the case. Now I have to chase her across the floor or changing table as I struggle to put even one limb through the appropriate opening. Once one pant leg is on she will inevitably turn a flip and scamper away. This does more than just pull her leg out. It inverts the pant leg. Now I've got one leg inside out and the other flailing wildly.
I've tried putting her on the floor and bracing her with my knee to hold her in place. Oddly enough, this doesn't work. I've taken to just trying to change her in mid-stride. I'll wait until she is crawling somewhere and sneak up behind her. Then when she is occupied with a toy, I'll attack. I quickly shove one leg through and then another. If I'm particularly lucky I can get both feet in before she takes off. Now I've got both legs through but her pants are around her ankles. It is pretty funny to watch her crawl with her pants down but if I let her do this too long I'll have two inverted pant legs and that isn't funny at all. If I quickly scoop her off the ground I can usually bounce the pants up to her waist.
The shirt is the same story. One arm in, one arm out. One arm in, one arm inside out. One frustrated scream (from me), One taunting cackle (from her).
Which reminds me. Genevieve has learned about laughter. She knows that when something is funny everyone laughs. When she laughs we usually laugh so she tries the same when everyone else is laughing. If we are laughing and she doesn't see the humor she'll fake a laugh. She sounds sort of like The Count from Sesame Street. "One! ah! ah! ah! Two! ah! ah! ah!"
We've also been teaching her to say certain stock phrases. If we ask her, "What does a cow say?" she will often reply, "moo." Sometimes it takes some warming up and you need to prompt her but once she gets going she'll moo for the next 10 minutes. Perhaps we should have started with something more useful like "juice" or "mama" but "moo" just seemed right with her animal like traits.
Though she doesn't know how to walk yet, Genevieve has started wearing shoes. On cold days we have started keeping her feet warmer by putting shoes over her socks. Unfortunately this means that when she kicks you it hurts a lot more.
