Friday, April 24, 2009

Eliza Smith and the Curious Case of the Missing Milestones

Sometimes the unraveling of the mysteries of babyhood can be a maddening task. It's not like I'm trying to locate Carmen Sandiego here. This shouldn't be rocket surgery. Still, I can't for the life of me figure out why Eliza learns to do things and then promptly forgets.

A couple of weeks ago, Eliza made a lot of progress in one week. She was holding her bottle when she drank, was attempting to crawl all over the living room by pushing with her feet and sliding on her face, saying the word "good" the entire time she ate, and even cooing "Dadadadadada" at Brian. Now she can and will do none of these things. She gets up on all fours in a more traditional crawling position, but she never really gets anywhere. In fact, she rarely makes an attempt to get on all fours by herself anymore. She refuses to hold her bottle while she's eating, she'll only grab it when it's empty, and forget the talking. Mum's the word. Suddenly she's Silent Bob. I'm hoping her vocal ability will return just in time to make the big, eloquent, plot pivoting speech at the end of the film.

What she does do is growl. She's doing this deep, throaty growl these days and it cracks me up. Also, she finds it hilarious when you make her stuffed animals bark. Even ones that wouldn't bark in nature, like one her her 67 stuffed Easter bunnies. She can stand by herself while holding a piece of furniture. She can do that for a couple of minutes, even. She suddenly likes to protest when you take something away from her. That was a milestone she never really reached and just mastered in the past couple of days. She tried to steal the grocery list at the store last night and threw a fit when I gave it to Brian. I'm actually relieved by this because it was the one thing from waaaay back in the baby book that she skipped entirely.

I'm trying to give her a little more table food at lunch. Yesterday we had meatloaf and mashed potatoes at lunch and she was 100% uninterested. The texture of mashed potatoes was new, and she made a horrible face with every bite. We'll certainly keep trying with that one. I don't want her to pick up that particular dislike (sorry, Aunt Taquita). Today I'm going to give her some leftover pizza and let her play with it.

Sorry, Grandparents. Still no pictures. I solemnly promise to try to do better with that. Just as sooon as I locate Eliza's milestones (and possibly Waldo and Carmen Sandiego).

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