No, not just yet

Sorry it's been so long since we've written. As usual, there's so much going on!


Walking. No, HG's not walking yet, but she's eagerly trying to learn. More and more often, she will stand hands-free for a couple of seconds at a time. A few times, she's even taken a hands-free step from the piece of furniture she was holding to another. She just loves walking across a room while pushing a chair or stool. She often prefers it to her much faster crawling. Since she's more stable, she doesn't get as many bumps as she used to when she first became mobile, so Abba and Ima have taken away the play mats and she just wanders around on the floor.


Playing. She's spending more time playing on her own without adult intervention (but not without adult supervision...). She explores the room, picking a couple of toys to examine for a while, then moving on to something else.

Naturally, she loves peekaboo. It often gets her laughing uproariously. When Abba or Ima hides behind a cloth, she loves reaching forward and pulling it off. The other day, she took the cloth herself and lifted it over her face. When asked, "Where is Hannah Geitel?", she moved the cloth away from her face and giggled and laughed.


Talking. No, she's not talking yet either. But she is increasingly imitating things we say. Ima read her a book about kittens and made mewing sounds; HG copied the cat sounds assiduously. When she was being fed some apple, and she was told it's an "apple", we could have sworn she repeated "apple".


Food. She's into finger foods now. She's not that interested in pureed mush, like applesauce. She wants things she can feed herself, or at least chew a lot before swallowing. Sometimes when we give her a spoonful of something mushy, she'll grab the food from the spoon and try to put it into her mouth by hands. (The result is often messy fingers and face!)

She eats more and more of our usual menu, including eggplant salad, grilled peppers, kiwi. She is especially fond of chicken, soft grilled onions and roasted garlic. We have to start factoring her into our chicken purchases. Yesterday she ate two wings and a drumstick at one sitting! She just kept wanting more.

She loves fresh strawberries, but sometimes gets fed up with the small chunks we give her. So we let her gnaw on a whole strawberry for a while, She'll also take some bites from Abba's apple or pear. Lately, she's been interested in bread or challah, but we've been advised to hold off on the wheat for now.


Reading. Okay, she doesn't read yet either. But one of her favorite activities is "reading" her books. Her books are on a shelf at her shoulder height. (At least those of materials that she can't chew through!) She loves to pull herself up to the shelf, carefully look over the books, pick one or two and pull them down to "read" while lying on the floor. She looks at the covers, then opens them and flips through some pages. She also likes being read to - books, magazines, newspapers - by her parents or other carers.


Music and dance. She's started noticing rhythms, and will sometimes bang along herself. She loves it when Ima sings her a song and taps out the beat on a piece of furniture.

Ima dances Flamenco and HG has started to take a keen interest. Ima has been playing Flamenco music to her and sometimes practicing in front of HG for a months, but until now HG didn't seem to be a showing any special interest.

The other day HG was getting kvetchy so Ima started clapping out a Flamenco compas (rhythm) to her and HG was rapt - Ima had to keep it up for over half an hour. Next Ima tried dancing some Flamenco for HG, without the music, as HG sat in Abba's lap. HG was spellbound, constantly waving her arms in her "more" sign, smiling, laughing and calling out her excited enthusiasm, kvetching each time Ima stopped.

The next day Ima played HG some Flamenco music, and HG stopped what she was doing, went over to the CD player and seemed to be listening intently. Ima tried clapping out some of the rhythms, HG smiled. Then Ima took out her castanets, which she hadn't played in front of HG for fear it would be too loud, and practiced for HG. HG crawled up to Ima's feet and sat down in front of her, playing close attention. Next she pulled herself to a stand on Ima's skirt, rested her hands on Ima's knees and gave a big smile as Ima played some more.

Ima now tries to practice some Flamenco or play castanets for HG every other day, and HG seems to be lapping it up.


Social skils HG has now thoroughly warmed up to her grandparents after taking a few days to get to know them again (she last met them when she was only a few weeks old!). She now occasionally indicates that she wants Bubbe or Zayde to hold her and play with her, and greatly enjoys playing peekabo with Zayde in particular.

She enjoys being carried around by both grandparents and loves it when they play with her on the floor.