It's Fall, Wonderful Fall

Ena learns to drive

This weekend we traveled to Terrace. It was a lovely trip. We met up with an old friend, visited family, and enjoyed the beautiful fall foliage along the way. It really couldn't have been a better trip, unless, of course, we had had more time off and could have stayed longer.

Ena enjoyed herself, too. We had a nice visit at the Terrace Library. They have a fantastic kids area and Ena climbed all over the furniture and even crawled through a long play-tube. We went to the Farmer's Market and Ena got handmade mittens and a wooden hippo toy.

The downside of our trip was the time spent in the car. Ena's not too keen on being restrained and so hours spent in a car-seat are not well received by her. We had to resort to some cunning plans to keep her happy, and E even went so far as to teach her to drive our car. ;)

Our little climber

Ena is keeping us busy these days. She has become a lot more mobile, first with walking and now, nearly running. We’ve been chasing her around the house, trying to keep her out of harm’s way. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that we haven’t really baby-proofed our house. While some of our rooms have been made safe for her to play in most still contain bookshelves full of books and breakables, unguarded stairs, and other hazards. Now that she is zooming about we’ve found ourselves constantly having to run interference and every second word out of our mouths seems to be “no.”

As hard as her new mobility has been on us it has also been lovely to see her gain better control of her body and begin to explore her world more. She loves to climb and has been going up and down the stairs with great gusto. In fact, she seems to have found something to climb in each room of our house. In the kitchen, it’s the small stepladder; in her playroom, her table; in our bedroom, our bed (though she can’t yet get up onto it, she loves sliding off of it). I think she’s going to be a great tree climber when she gets older.

Her vocabulary has been improving, too. While she still only uses three words regularly (up, mama, and dada) she has been able to say a number of other words this past week, including: apple, banana, highchair, Ena, hi and bye. Of course, she understands much more than she can say. She seems to have taken a real interest in words lately and has had us reading (and re-reading) first word books to her.
Of course, her favourite book at the moment is Ten Minutes till Bedtime. She never seems to tire of it. We’ve both been reading it again and again. She likes to sit in our lap and flip the pages (we’re not always done reading the page before she turns!). Her favourite page used to be the one where the father calls “bedtime” and the boy (and all the hamsters) are caught out in the bathtub. Now I think her favourite is the one just after where they all “quick, quick, dry off,” use the toilet (which E makes great sound effects for), put your pj’s on, drink a glass of water (glug, glug, glug) and run to bed. Which is where I am going right now. Good night.

Walking, talking, reading and flashing

It has been awhile since I made a blog posting for Ena. I am back at work and haven’t had much time to update this page. Ena is growing so quickly. Everyday I feel as though she has changed in some new way. She seems much more the toddler no than a baby.

Going to daycare has made a big difference to her behaviour. I think she has learned how to play better. She is more independent now and seems to have her own ideas about playtime and what she should do with her toys. She has started playing with her mega-blocks (stacking them) and she has begun to take an interest in books.

E and I are book lovers. I started collecting children's books years ago when I worked in a bookstore and once we knew we were expecting my interest in kid’s books only increased. Ena has been surrounded by books since she was born but until last month her only interest in them seemed to be as chew toys. I haven’t asked S (her childcare provider) if she reads to Ena but I can only assume that she does and that that activity has brought about the change in Ena. Just after she started daycare in September she suddenly started to want us to read books to her. She started gesturing to the books on her shelf and saying ah, ah, ah (her sign that she wants something).

The first time I realized she wanted a book and took one off the shelf to read to her she communicated to me quite clearly that there was a specific way we were to do this. I was to sit cross-legged and she was to sit in my lap as I held the book in front of both of us and read. I say read, but she actually has little patience to hear the stories. What she wants are the words for the pictures in the books. I find myself saying again and again, here is a clock, a horse, a cow, a duck, a baby and so on.

Her favourite books are those with babies and with flaps that you can lift. One of her books features babies with silly faces and she has taken to sticking her tongue out like one of these babies and making her own ‘silly face.’

Reading and re-reading these books can be quite tedious but it is such a delight to see her excited and engaged. Her mind is always working and it gives us both such joy to see her discovering new things.

Here is a brief update on her other activities. She started walking a bit at the end of August. We were encouraging her to take steps (mostly because I couldn’t stand the thought of her taking her first steps without us while she was in daycare) and she would walk between E and I. Then she started taking little steps between pieces of furniture or her toys. This week she has finally begun to walk just for the sake of it. She is crawling less and less and is becoming steadier on her feet.

She is also talking more. She will copy us when we read to her, making pretty good approximations of the words. She often says hi and bye (though E & I are probably the only ones who understand her), and is fairly consistent in her use of mom and dad now. Up, of course, is still her favourite word and she uses it dozens of times a day.

She has started this new game we like to call the flashing game. It started last week when she was wearing her housecoat after her bath. She grabbed the housecoat in both hands and opened it up like a flasher in a trench coat. Of course E and I both laughed, which encouraged her to continue. Since then she has started doing it with any jacket-type garment. A few days after the first incident she began a similar activity with her pants, flashing her knee or her leg at us. It is too funny.

I'm a Lazy Blogger, But Ena is a Dynamic Gal!

...showing off her new lower tooth. That one on her left accounts for much drool and sleeplessness, but I can't help but admire it's pearly there-ness. There's a mate to it above.










Here Ena is walking, zombie fashion. The football in the background is showing where she's going with this new skill next.

Here she's wearing her new housecoat (another lovely hand-me-down with ears) after her bath and teaching Mommy "the silly face."