Genevieve gives up way too easily. Whenever anything isn't in plain sight it is gone for good. This isn't a case of object persistence. She knows the object exists she just doesn't know where it is or care to look for it.
Here is a standard conversation:
G: "baby doll?" D: "I don't know where your doll is. Have you looked for it?" G: "doll gone. gone. doll gone. find it!!" D: "Did you look in your playpen?" G plaintively pleading: "No! Gone! Gone!" D: "Let's look in your playpen. Here it is!" G: "baby doll" D: "Where is the baby's bottle?" G: "gone gone"
It has been getting harder and harder to baby proof the house. When G started to crawl we had to pad all the table corners and cover the outlets. When she started pulling up on things, we had to move all the dangerous items to higher shelves. When she started to walk, we had to lock all the cabinets. It's gotten to the point where she can pretty much do anything she wants, but doesn't have sense enough not to hurt herself.
Rather than continue this escalating battle, we've come up with an ingenious approach. Instead of baby proofing the house, we'll baby proof the baby.
Here is Genevieve posing in our new line of baby proofing chic. I doubt she'll get hurt in this number.
Recently we went to Georgia to visit Carrie's family and G had a great time. We took her hiking, to the aquarium and to see farm animals. Genevieve is addicted to excitement. She likes the fly by the seat of your diaper feeling as she tempts fear and danger. G is both amazed and terrified of farm animals.
Every day she demanded to see the cows and horses. Every day we would bring her down to the fence to see the cows and horses. And every day she whimpered, "back-up! back-up! back-up!" as she tried to leap from my arms and flee in terror from these monstrous beasts. But without fail when I would walk away I could get no farther than 20 feet from the fence before she would demand to see the cows once more. I, being a good helper monkey, would dutifully turn around and walk back to the fence where the cycle would repeat.
We took G hiking in North Georgia. She loved most of it until she feel asleep. Here are some pictures of the adrenaline junkie asleep on my back.
I put Geneveive in her crib this morning so I could take a shower. Here is the conversation I heard over the monitor:
"Count the cows! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, six, seven, TEN!!!! YEAH G-vieve!!!!" Seems she misses counting the cows in Georgia and tries to make up for it by pretending to do it.
She is capable of counting to ten accurately, but not consistently. You've got about a 50-50 shot of her repeating the number seven a few times. Maybe it is more fun to say, since she likes to give it extra emphasis ("suh-VUHN!"). She also says her name a lot now, but mostly to repeat conversations that's she's heard. She spent her lunch hour repeating, "How big G-vieve? SOOOO BIG!"
At least we know she's listening. If only I could get her to obey.
Genevieve has recently learned the joys of dancing. She loves the concept of it. When driving in the car she'll take anything handy and shake it around violently and proudly declare "DANCING!!!" This could be her bunny, shoes or even a pair of sunglasses.
She doesn't just make inanimate objects dance. She'll also dance herself though she only seems to know the Mexican hat dance as all her dances involve stamping her feet quickly in place. I guess she marches to the beat of a different drummer because she doesn't care what music is playing, if any.
She also understands that others can dance and demands it often. "Dance!" she'll shout. After a quick little jig she'll either say, "Again!" or repeat "Dance!" Like most things she doesn't seem to tire of this but if you are the one dancing it grows old pretty quickly. Carrie watched as my mother was forced to wiggle for about 15 minutes.
G also seems to have passed some new developmental milestone. She no longer just remembers nouns; she also remembers actions. Before she only remembered things like swing, chair or ball, or that was all she could say, but now seems to remember an actual event. The other day a girl waved at her from another car. For several hours she told us how the girl had waved at her. "Girl. Waved. Car." She even mentioned it the next day at breakfast. Yesterday we put her on a swing that looked like an airplane and she loved it. After her bath that evening with no prompting from us she said, "Plane swing. Fun. Liked it."
This is all well and good but it is just a matter of time before she starts remembering things at inopportune times. Like when she'll decide to tell airport security that daddy has a hole in his underwear, that daddy stepped in cow poop in the field or even worse that Genevieve has weapons of mass destruction in her diaper. Hmm....I guess it is time to stop making jokes like that around her.
