More milestones
pamelamyers | August 19, 2010
Lately I have been lamenting about Sam’s lack of desire for actual food. I swear, I was starting to think she was going to be on baby food, or a bottle, for the rest of her life. Every bit of actual table food we give her, she has no desire for except for her Cheerios and her veggie sticks, which are these puffed potato things the consistency of a cheese curl, but with no cheese on them. At any rate, it is very frustrating. Last night, we ordered pizza for dinner and I was sitting on the couch eating my two slices. Sam came crawling over, and stood up holding on to my legs peering over at my plate to see what I had. In and of itself, this is a pretty big deal, because she usually could care less what we are eating. So, I gave her a tiny piece of pizza crust. She ate it. So I gave her another one. She ate that too. The next thing I know, she grabbed my half-eaten slice of pizza right off of my plate! She looked at it kind of funny, ripped the cheese off and chucked it on the floor, then proceeded to chomp away with her four tiny little teeth. Very quickly I realized this was going to be a huge mess, so I took off all her clothes and let her sit on the floor in her diaper. It’s a good thing too — by the time she had enough, she had sauce on her face, her hands, her chest, and a little on her leg. She looked so cute. I thought about taking her picture but I was frankly more concerned about not getting tomato sauce on my rug than snapping any photos. It was a very big deal, believe me, that she ate table food on her own accord without us having to shovel it into her unsuspecting mouth. Hopefully, it is a sign of things to come. Tonight we made pasta and I gave her one dry rigatoni and she picked it right up and started munching away. She did pretty good, she ate about half, and was smiling most of the time.
One other big thing is that she sort of is figuring out how steps work. Sam is always standing holding onto our steps staring up looking like she wonders how in the world she is supposed to get up there. One of her big things is that she sits on the edge of our living room, at the edge of the single step that leads onto the porch, and she cannot for the life of her figure out how to get down. I usually go out onto the porch myself just in case she starts to fall but then she gets mad when I won’t take her and help her down. I always tell her I am not helping her because she needs to learn. Yesterday, she was sitting there in crawl position, again trying to figure out what to do. She finally sat up and extended one leg, then the other. I dragged her over so that her butt was on the edge of the step and she was basically sitting on the step with her feet on the porch. I kept trying to help her understand that she needed to put her hands down but she wasn’t getting it. I finally took her hands in mine and lowered them, then she was able to get all the way down. So far so good. In about 3.5 seconds, she was bored, and wanted back in. Of course, she couldn’t figure out how to go UP the step now. DOWN was bad enough. She kept looking at me, but I didn’t want to help her. Mark walked by in the house and I told him to talk to her, to encourage her to come to him, but it wasn’t really working. Well, he then grabbed a cat collar with a tag that we have had hanging on our porch door forever and started jingling it. Sam went into the house so fast, I don’t even think she had time to realize she pulled her little knees up onto the step. Hopefully, she will be able to do it again. I plan on practicing tomorrow.
Keep up the good work, Sam!