Everything is mine to play with

We believe we have now officially joined the ranks of parents whose houses are pandemonium due to their young children. With Lexi being mobile now, she is finding all sorts of ways to entertain herself by walking around the various rooms of the house. Consequently, it is now hard to keep the house clean and tidy. We are constantly picking up toys and equal numbers of other items that are not toys but that Lexi considers toys. And we are finding things spread all over the place. Now all the time, items are taken from one room, brought to another room, and left there. Several days ago, fortunately I discovered our travel alarm clock in a garbage can before it was emptied. In the past couple of days, Lexi has taken to putting candles from our bedroom in my sock drawer in a built-in closet in another room. And we’ve had to keep the toothpaste in an unreachable spot in the bathroom because somehow Lexi got it open.

Hi! How are you?

If you meet Lexi these days, you just might be greeted with a “Hi” or “How are you?” or even a “Habari?” (KiSwahili for “How are you?”). We are fairly certain she is saying at least “Habari,” something she undoubtedly learned from Jane.

She loves to pretend she’s talking on the phone and will often hold up her hand to her ear like she’s taking a phone call. She’ll do this spontaneously and on her own and start with a “hi.” She thinks this is the thing to do with other, non-phone objects as well, or even a doll or stuffed animal that she’s playing with at the time. She will often hand us the doll or animal, and we’ll bring it to our face to talk to it or kiss it, which makes her think it’s a phone, so she’ll take it back and then try to talk “on” it by holding it to her ear. A preview of the teenage years.

Sarah has also taught Lexi to utter that breathy “ahh” one says after one takes a big drink of something. She needs to be prompted to do it most of the time, but when she does do it, it’s pretty funny. Lexi is doing quite well these days drinking from her sippy cups. She is fully on cow’s milk these days and enjoys drinking that and water with meals. We haven’t quite weaned her off her bedtime bottle yet (she still prefers milk then and milk in a bottle, as opposed to a sippy cup). But she’s not drinking very much milk at this time, and we need to start reducing it so we can end this habit all together.

In other news, I was gone for a few days last week as part of my work on the annual report for 2008 for Sarah’s organization. When I returned home, Jane told me that on the last day I was gone, Lexi came looking for me in our “office”/computer room, calling out “Papa” (or something similar – I don’t always rely on Jane’s memory or accuracy). If this is true, then it’s interesting that Lexi noticed I was gone and knew where to look for me, whereas she didn’t notice that Sarah was gone for a whole week last month nor did she ever look around the house for her. Lexi has taken to visiting me a few times each day when Jane brings her upstairs to get her diaper changed. Now that she can walk, I think she enjoys going around to the various rooms upstairs, and she knows where to find me and can come and say hi to me during the day.