Wonder months

Violet is changing so much. When Jack was a baby, I read a book called "Wonder Weeks" that posited that babies and toddlers go through weeks (or months) when they are going through tremendous developmental milestones. I really feel that February was a wonder month for her and March continues to be one as well.

She has started walking down the stairs. She went through maybe a couple of days when she would crawl down the stairs backwards, but now she wants to walk down them. She holds the banister with one hand and my hand with the other. As she walks, she is usually giving a play-by-play commentary: "Violet. Walking. Stairs. Foot. Hand. Violet. Walking." At some point in the sojourn, she will usually stop and say, "No jumping," shake her head, and simulate bouncing up and down. Obviously, I have told her that we do not jump down the stairs. I have said that she can jump off the bottom step if she wants. Usually, she'll step off the last step and then start jumping up and down on the living room floor.

Honestly, this newest trick is not my favorite. She can scamper up the stairs in nothing flat, because she still semi-crawls up. But this entire downstairs journey takes several minutes every time.

More significantly, I think at least from a developmental standpoint, is that she can also walk UP stairs while alternating her legs on each step. For some reason, this was a big deal when we were going through all those tests with Jack. He didn't do it until much later than his peers.

She is also doing this thing where she will yell something repeatedly until she is acknowledged. I am not going to lie, it is supremely irritating. It's really bad when we are in the car. It usually goes something like this:

Violet: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!

Me: What, Violet?!

Violet: Eat! Hongee! Bito [burrito in Violet-ese]!

Me: I don't have a burrito here. Wait until we get home.

Violet: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!

Me: What, Violet?!

Violet: Shirt! Shirt! Mommy! Shirt!

Me: What? You're wearing a shirt?

Violet: Yeah!

Violet: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!

Me: What, Violet?!

Violet: Jack-Jack! Mommy! Violet! Elmo!

Me: Yes, Jack-Jack, Mommy, Violet, and Elmo.

Violet: Yeah! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!

Me: What, Violet?!

Violet: Building! Building! Building!

Me: You see a building?

Violet: Yeah! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!

... and on and on. And imagine this at an extremely loud volume with constant frequency. It's a wonder that I haven't driven off the road with all the distraction she provides.

She is really starting to talk a lot more in multi-word sentences. I love when I ask her to do something, and says, "Ok. I will." The other day, I was admonishing Jack to be more gentle with her, and she said, "Be careful, Jack!"

One of Jack's favorite games is to get her to repeat words. As I mentioned, he has been really interested in lions and other wild cats. The other day, he was listing all the wild cats he could think of and trying to get her to repeat each one after him. Whenever she successfully said one of the more unusual ones, he would get this look of impressed astonishment on his face. It was so sweet and funny.

We haven't made any more progress with the potty training. Now, if Violet tells me, "Poop! Potty!" I know that it means that she has just pooped in her diaper. She usually tells me "no" if I ask her if she wants to sit on the toilet. The few times that she does agree, she will usually tell me, "Poop! Potty! I did it!" but she hasn't. I sort of think she is still referring to the first (and so far only) time she actually did poop on the potty.

We recently (and temporarily) switched to diapers that have Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch on them. I told her that she should try to poop on the toilet because she wouldn't want to poop on Elmo, would she? Apparently she would.

"Yes," she said. "Poop on Elmo."

I think that is a sentiment with which many parents have agreed at one time or another.

Every time Violet wears anything with pockets, she says, "Pocket! Money!" I don't know where she got the idea that she needs to have money in her pockets, but the last time she said it, I brought her over to Jack's old cash register that came with paper money. She started playing with the fake bills and then started counting: "1, 2, 3, 4."

She stopped for a bit to play some more, and I thought, "Ok, she can count to 4. That was pretty good for a one-year-old. Jack must have taught her."

Then she continued: "6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15!" (Full disclosure, she did skip 5.)

This morning, she was asking to watch one of the Signing Time videos. Tom and I were trying to decide which video to put in. I nixed a bunch of suggestions, because they feature junk food, which then makes Violet want them. Tom asked if he should put the birthday one in. I said, "No, because there is C-A-K-E," which I spelled out, just like that. And Violet said, "Yes! Cake!" I don't know if she heard "birthday" and associated it with "cake" or if the "K" in "C-A-K-E" sounded sufficiently like the word to bring it to mind. I have a hard time believing that she actually knows that C-A-K-E means "cake," but I will let certain grandmas make that judgment call for themselves.

We've actually been taking a little break from the Signing Time videos, because Violet has discovered how much she loves "Elmo TV," as she calls it, much to Jack's irritation. Although I do think he secretly enjoys them, up to a point. I remind him the reason that we have so many Elmo DVDs in the first place is that he was crazy about Elmo when he was little. Violet is similarly enamored of him now. Throughout the day, we hear her singing songs from the various videos. I love hearing her sing. I actually try to encourage her to do that in the car instead of constantly pointing out every single observation to me.

We started a Mommy and Me class last month for children 12-23 months of age, so Violet is definitely one of the older babies in the class. She looks like such a big girl compared to some of the smaller children. You can also tell the difference developmentally. She is one of the few children who can follow the directions in the "Turn Around" song. It took her awhile to feel comfortable in the class, but she is now very hip to the program. She engages with the teacher's puppets, loves to sing and dance along to the songs, and she will sit attentively during story time. The teacher always reads "Brown Bear" by Eric Carle, and last week, the teacher told me that Violet was saying the words along with her.

It's such a far cry from how Jack was at these classes. There is one song called "Hop Little Bunnies" that has the kids laying down on the floor pretending to be asleep for the first part of a verse and then has them popping up and jumping up and down for the second part. It repeats three times. Jack could never get up and down quickly enough to really get the point of the song, and he would never lie down to anything anyway. But Violet loves it. In general, these classes were more stressful for me with Jack because there were always so many transitions, which were difficult for him. But with Violet, historically challenging activities like making crafts, cleaning up afterward, putting away toys, and switching from one activity to the next are no big deal. Her main complaint is that sometimes snack time is a little too long in coming.

People tell me all the time how smart Jack is, even (or maybe especially) if they've just met him. While I don't disagree, I think they would be wrong to discount Violet too. Maybe her stunning good looks are distracting people from noticing her brains, says her completely unbiased mother. :)