 | Here
is Brynn in one of her Halloween costumes. She was a bat during the
evening and The Flash at daycare. Both costumes had masks but she's not
really into hats and was strangling herself trying to get them off, so
we only had half the effect going.
If you’ve been checking the gallery regularly you have probably noticed
that there have been no new photos added lately. This is not due to
laziness. It is due to having a toddler who knows what a camera is and
covets it’s magical gadget qualities. As soon as it appears she heads
over and demands it. I can sometimes get off a single shot but usually
by the second shot she’s up in my face screaming for me to hand it over
so she can look at photos of herself, or walk around looking through
the view finder. All my photo sequences consist of one normal, blurry
photo. A close up of Brynn’s face as she grabs for the camera and then
five shots of her lying on the ground, crying, because I wouldn’t give
her the camera.
Her gadget prowess also extends to my cell phone. I was taking pictures
of her in the car a couple of weeks ago and I handed it over to her to
look at. By the time I got the camera back she had managed to take
about 5 photos, including a couple where she had managed to add fancy
borders to them. I’m not even sure how to do that. Of course, all
photos were of the back of my seat so, while her technical skills may
be advanced, her pictures are severely lacking in artistic merit.
She has also managed to call David on my cell phone a couple of times.
It’s not too difficult. I think if you hit “talk” twice then it calls
the last outgoing number and that’s always David. The first time she
didn’t realize she had called him, and was still playing with the
buttons when I noticed. The second time was at the park when she was
looking through my bag and trying to open my wallet, and pull things
out of the pockets. To keep her occupied I gave her the cell phone and
then went and sat on a bench. I watched her as she opened the phone and
held it up to her ear then wandered around having a “conversation” for
the next five minutes. I was mainly thinking that it was kind of
embarrassing to have a 17 month old that apparently sees enough of her
mother on a phone to know how to use one. (Not true by the way! I
hardly ever use my phone. Dave is the one setting that example!!)
It was only later when I called David that I found out she actually
called him, he answered and they proceeded to have a long conversation.
He was even asking her questions like “What sound does a coyote make?”
and she was making the animal sound. She also learned to say “Hello”
recently which is more hilarious than you could imagine. It’s usually
“Hellooooo” but sometimes her tongue gets stuck on the “lo” part so it
ends up being “Helololo”. She apparently spent a lot of time telling
him “Helloooo”.
Her language skills are taking off at the moment. Dave was out of town
for 5 days and when he came back he was amazed at all the new skills
she had – particularly in imitating words we say. She can now say “Mee”
which means Milk. She has Mama and Dada but Dada actually means David,
whereas Mama can mean me, or it can also mean Banana. She still says
Ball. She says “Buh Bye” and “Bye Bye”. She can point and name “eye”
and can point to the nose but usually says “No”. She also learned the
words for her favorite things: shoes & books. She loves books so
much that she will literally sit for an hour looking through these tiny
board books she has. She also loves shoes and will spend an hour trying
to get a shoe on her foot.
She recently learned how to apply No to real world situations which
leads to lots of arguments. Claire: Yes! Brynn: NO!! Also, when having
her diaper change, she lies there and sadly whimpers “no, no, no, no,
no” which amuses me greatly because the worst thing about the whole
process is that the wipes are kind of cold. She makes it seem so
dramatic.
Another interesting Brynn feature is her extreme pain tolerance
(unless you count combing out hair tangles which makes her scream). I
have witnessed several incidents that would make a lesser baby cry but
Brynn rarely hurts herself to the point where she cries, and I could
probably count on one hand the number of times she has injured herself
and cried long enough for me to go and comfort her. Case in point, a
few weeks ago I was sitting in the living room and she was playing at
my feet, no more than 6 feet away. After a while she came over to me
and I noticed a big gash across her cheek that was bleeding. Presumably
she cut herself on the corner of a box or other toy, but she had not
made any sound to indicate she was hurt.
Another
time she was playing with a little girl who was probably 6 years old.
The older girl was lying on a bench and Brynn was standing next to it.
The girl accidentally rolled off the bench on to Brynn (it was carpeted
floor at least!). The girl, whose fall had been cushioned by Brynn,
jumped up and started crying, then ran to her father for comfort. Brynn
jumped up and started laughing and chased after the girl, thinking it
was a game.
The final incident was when Brynn was
playing in the recycling. She lifted an empty beer bottle out and then
it slipped and fell on to her toe, from a height of about 2 feet. I
think if I had a bottle dropped on my toe from that height I would have
had a greater reaction than Brynn. She said “Umppph” and staggered back
a couple of steps, then sat down. She started to whimper but by the
time I walked over, she was already recovered and getting ready to grab
the bottle again.
Her high physical pain tolerance
is countered by her low emotional pain tolerance. This baby gets
frustrated more easily than anyone I’ve ever seen. She sees me with
grapes for her. In the couple of extra seconds it takes for me to wash
them and take them to her, she has started screaming and has real tears
rolling down her cheeks.
She recently moved up
to the two year old room at daycare. It’s a bit more like a school, in
that they spend time working on letters and numbers and have a fairly
structured day with lots of activities. She’s taking a little while to
adjust but I think she’s going to be very happy there because there’s a
lot more running around and dancing. It’s also a very noisy room and
Brynn should be right at home with all the mayhem.
Her teacher told us that Brynn is left-handed which we hadn’t
realized. I’d been paying attention when she started using utensils but
I decided she was right-handed. But at daycare she apparently colors
and eats with her left hand. I’ve been watching since then and she does
seem to be more dexterous with the left hand but she seems to use both
hands equally when holding a spoon or fork. The teacher said she’s the
first left-handed girl she’s ever had in that room and David is very
thrilled to have a lefty daughter. I am trying to decide if I need to
find our local “Leftorium”.
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8:53:32 PM 
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Sunday, November 05, 2006
