My mom came for a visit last week. She and Mallory had some great bonding time. Because Johnathan works near the airport, he retains the dubious honor of picking mom up at the airport. In the spirit of “dividing and conquering”, I asked them to pick Mallory up from daycare, while I ran a couple of errands. So mom got to see toddlers in their natural environment. Gotta tell ya – that is a fun sight. Then, I worked from home one day. Mom got to chase Mallory around while I attended conference calls. It was all she could do to keep little hands from banging on the office doors.
On Saturday, Kylie’s band had a mini-camp at the school. They take a break from 12:00 to 1:30. Parents come and set up tables of food so the kids walk around just taking whatever they want. It’s like one big tailgating event where everyone shares. It’s great. Mom was glad to be here for that. And Mallory had a blast. We have video of her running all over the place and playing with LaLa (a.k.a. “Kylie”). Those two had so much fun playing with the wagon and walking on the track.
Mallory is starting to pick up words now, slowly but surely. Good thing, because we go to the doctor tomorrow morning. She can say “hi”, “duck” and “dog”. I think she is trying to say “shoes” but it sounds nothing like “shoes”. (By the way, she is totally my daughter; she loves her shoes. Daddy is already starting a shoe fund for the teenage years.) She says some goobly gook sometimes and looks at you like, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” The word she uses most though is “up”. There’s no “p” sound at the end, but you absolutely know what she means because she stands at your feet, reaches her little arms up, opens her mouth wide and says, “U..U..U..U..U”¦” until you pick her up. Also, she is really starting to come along with her sign language. She can do “eat”, “more”, “milk””¦and “I want”, which is really just reaching out and squeezing her hands at everything”¦and saying “that”. ;) But the most fun one is something that mom taught her this weekend ““ “uh oh”. Now, when she drops something she says, “uh oh”. Last night, she dropped her fork. Of course, as usual, we just said, “You dropped it, you don’t get it back.” But then she said, “Uh oh.” Fun stuff. Johnathan relented and handed her the fork. But then she gave him the funniest look; my kingdom for a video camera that captures all. She cut her eyes at him as if to say “eat stuff”. I think she already knows that she has her daddy wrapped.
She can now show you her nose, ears, eyes and mouth. She can brush her hair and do her “frog face” for you. She can blow you kisses, give you kisses (with lots of slobber) and wave bye. Last night, she found her belly button while she was in the tub. I started teaching her “toes” and pointing out the difference between “nose”and “toes”. That one might take a little longer”¦but she kept pointing her toes at me to play with them. Who could resist that? We did “Little Piggies”. She would squeal with delight until we got to the little piggy that had roast beef”. . .maybe she’ll be a vegetarian.
There are so many things I am learning. I knew that Mallory would be a little person and have her own personality”¦but I was totally not expecting it at 14 months. She has the most impish little grin when she is about to do something that she knows you don’t want her to do. She tests me when I tell her not to do something”¦but she can already tell when I’m really serious. Johnathan got on to her last night for doing something”¦all it really took was a couple of words and a stern look. She cried. Hopefully, that means that punishment will be less necessary when she gets older. (Yes, I’ll hold on to that hope, thank you very much.) When he picked her up at daycare yesterday, her actions said, “Hey, dad. I’m really happy to see you, but I have these Goldfish crackers over here that I would like to finish before we leave. Thanks.” I don’t think it hurt his feelings too badly that she was having trouble prioritizing him over food”¦see, I told you she’s my daughter. ;)