Our biggest challenge right now is being consistent with discipline when we can see that she can barely control herself. Some rules she learns quickly and will comply with - like don’t bang toys on the wall, don’t bang on the paintings or speakers, and things like that. But other things we try over and over to teach her and she just can’t help herself. Her misbehavior of choice is to climb up on Walter’s couch and then shimmy over on top of the coffee table and push buttons on the front of the TV. No matter how many times we consistently say no and remove her, or give her timeout in her playpen or in her crib, she just can’t resist the lure of the on-off button. We may have to reconfigure the living room (again) to combat the problem. It is so cute to see her back down really quickly and sit so nicely with her hands in her lap and legs crossed, smiling at you knowing she just got caught!
Darci clearly understands most of what we ask her to do, and will bring you a specific item, look around for something you name, and kick or throw the ball, although getting the ball to go in a specific direction is still difficult. She jabbers away all the time but still doesn’t say many words. Daddy is her best, clearest word, followed by Kitty (sounds like “key”) and Fish (just the “sh” part so far). All living things fall into one of those categories – people are all Daddy (including Mommy), furred animals or birds are all Kitties, and anything in the water (and maybe the water itself) are all Fish. She likes watching fishing shows with Daddy and will say fish over and over as soon as she sees the water or fish.
She can point to her own ears, your nose, or Elmo’s eyes, but can’t do ears, nose and eyes on anyone else. Just this week she learned how to stack her giant lego blocks, so now she can make a little tower and then throw it across the room in frustration. She can easily play with push or pull toys, although we had to put her popper away, it was causing so much frustration, she would start whining and crying before she even started pushing the thing. We’ll try that one again soon.
Darci loves bath time and herds her ducks or her little sea creatures around her during the bath. We tried giving her a cup to play with but she just wanted to drink the bathwater. When she gets her diaper off in her room she knows it’s time for her bath. She runs down the hallway and tries to hike her leg over the side of the tub, grinning and shaking with anticipation!
Mealtime is not much fun right now. We seem to be in a transition where she wants to be in charge of the bites but she can’t work the spoon. She also won’t allow you to help, which doesn’t work very well. This morning I got her to eat her oatmeal by giving her her own spoon and letting her bang it on the tray and the bowl while I snuck bites past it into her mouth. She’s a little picky right now, although she seems more concerned with texture and temperature than taste. She’ll eat a spicy sausage if it’s warm, but won’t touch cold turkey. The only things she will eat cold are oranges and yogurt. She loves yogurt. I think most of our issues right now are about autonomy more than food. Hopefully she will morph back into her sweet, compliant dinner behavior sometime soon!
Darci is very affectionate and funny and loves to give hugs, snuggle, and make you laugh. She loves roughhousing and thinks it’s hilarious to put her face super close to yours. One of her newest games with Daddy is to hold her nose and talk funny and then break out in giggles. Here she is playing “nose talk” with Daddy and Elmo last night:
