Spooning

Last night, Alison finally mastered the art of feeding herself with a spoon. We gave her some mashed sweet potatoes and she managed to get 75% of the serving into her mouth using a spoon (5% fingers, 20% on jammies/face/Sam). This is the first time she's been able to successfully work a spoon more than once and the first time she did her own "spoon loading" (as opposed to Jeff or I preparing the mouthful for her). I think it helped that Jeff and I were eating chili and she could watch us use our own spoons as a reference. We made sure to make a big fuss every time she did it right, and she was very proud of herself.

(We'll wait a while before we try forks or knives, though!)

Photo Shoot

It was a lot easier to take her Christmas card photo last year. This year, she has her own...ideas.

Enjoy some rejected outtakes. I'm ordering the pictures today and you should get the card early next week!

A Puzzlement

Alison is starting to figure out how her wooden puzzles work. In the past she'd just load the pieces into her bag and go prancing, but now she actually can match the pieces to their spots on the board (even if the actual fitting-in is still a bit dicey) and she knows which pieces belong on which boards (she has two: the deep-sea animals one and the land-based animals one that Randy and Ashley bought her).

She's a sorter. I've started putting her small toys into separate bins (rather than throwing them all together into random bins) and she knows where the appropriate items go. For example, Navada's magnetic train set goes into a small basket, whereas her Peek-A-Blocks go into a metal bin-- she will sit there on the floor and put the train cars in the basket and the blocks into the bin. For fun.

My God, I believe I have given birth to an accountant. (Grampa will be proud!)

"Ah-son!"

The other day, she said her name. We think. Twice. She hasn't done it since.

Telebone-- er, -phone

Hi all-- sorry for the lag in posts. We've all been sick as dogs for the past week or so!

Anyway, Boo has started using her toy telephones as phones (as opposed to remotes or calculators). We were downstairs in her playroom last week and I was reading a book while she played, and all of a sudden I heard this very animated chattering (not English, just Boo-speak, but quite effusive). I looked up and she had her phone in the crook of her neck, shoulder up and head bent down, this very pensive look on her face with eyes turned upward, and she was having a very nice chat with-- well, somebody. Herself. It was hilarious.

She's started doing that now when she picks up her phones, the whole tucked-in-neck, hands-free pose. I haven't seen her start gesturing with her hands while she talks, but that'll come.

The funniest bit was when she picked up one of Sam's bones-- one that was a little shorter and wider than his usual variety-- and without missing a beat, put it to her ear and waited for instructions from the beef-flavored filling. Hey, there are worse people she could be talking to.