Aydin has begun to show signs that she is entering the exciting "world of programs." Yesterday she astonished me by placing her Big Bird toy into his/her nest (does anyone know BB's gender?). This was exciting not only because it showed that she understood that "Big Bird" went with "nest," she also figured out how to put the little round base of the figurine into the round hole of the nest. Great hand-eye coordination, Aydin! Today, she saw some socks of hers in the clean laundry I was folding, grabbed one, took off the sock she had on, then tried to put it on her foot. She worked on the "Putting On A Sock" program for a good twenty minutes. Amazing!
The next super-cool program she has learned is "Putting A Lid On A Jar." She eats best when distracted -- this little one doesn't want to waste a second; she's got a lot to learn — so I let her play with a jar lid, always sure to occupy a few minutes of her time. Well, she pitched such a fit about wanted the jar itself I gave it to her. Well, what can I say, the girl knew what she wanted: she put the lid right onto the jar. It blew my mind! I guess it blew hers too because she spent all lunch today sizing up two empty jars, each a different size, putting lids on and off. (I made it more interesting by putting a few pieces of cereal into the jars too.)
One other big thing Aydin is into is SORTING. She loves to take things and put them into containers. For instance: I put together her own "purse," containing a wallet with old ID cards, some sunglasses, etc., that she loves to get into and pull everything out of. Now she likes to take the cards out of the wallet then put them, one by one, into something else, like the laundry hamper. I thought it might be fun to explore this a little more so I gave her a deck of cards. That was a good 30 minutes of pure sorting genious! What really got me was when I put a few into a plastic cup — then she set about figuring out just how to fit the rectangular cards into the circular opening of the orange cup to get them to lay just right.
Such developmental milestones don't come without their fair share of emotional growing pains, however. We're seeing lots of crankiness, especially when it comes to riding in the stroller. It is almost impossible to go more than a few blocks without a major "demonstration." It's taxing to witness what can only be described as pre-temper tantrums, over something seemingly so inocuous. We really don't have any idea what has prompted this "stroller strike." Maybe it's this month's form of stranger anxiety, or maybe she's just about to start walking and can't abide physical constraints of any sort. If I had to guess, though, I'd say she's just a little bored with the whole "stroller thing;" she knows there isn't anything more to it than just sitting back and looking at the world going by. This little one is in learning overdrive and like I said before, doesn't want to waste a second!
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