Lucy has had another big week. Here's another sample of her accomplishments.
She jumped into the pool without her life vest (I forgot to put it on her) and instead of bobbing just below the surface as she has in the past, she threw her head back and kept paddling until she reached the side of the pool. LUCY SWAM INDEPENDENTLY! She wasn't happy about it, and I put her in her vest right away, but she can do it.
That same day she counted out five pool rings. Today she kind of counted the ten pairs of socks she threw around her bedroom. She said five again instead of seven, but she continued on with eight as she should have. I was impressed. I let the sock throwing go in the interest of mathematical progress.
Lucy has started caring for one of her dolls, perhaps inspired by watching Daniel Tiger take care of his little sister on television. She pretended that the baby cried, and she comforted it. Then she decided that the baby was hungry. I suggested she get a bottle from her toy box, and she ran off. A few minutes later she came back with a knob of ginger root from the refrigerator. Apparently, that's what babies eat. Then she went to find the baby a drink and asked Matt for some orange juice for her baby. Later she had a tea party with Matt and her baby. She blew on the tea cup before giving it to the baby, but the baby's mouth got burned anyway. It happens. At dinner that night, she decided that baby should sit in her high chair. Then Lucy sat down on top of her and ate spaghetti and meatballs. Later that night she put baby to bed, pulled the blanket over her, and sat down in the recliner to read a book while baby fell asleep. That's how Matt and I do it. She also read baby Curious George in the Snow. The next day I got on of the bouncy seats from upstairs, and Lucy insisted on snapping her baby into it. Baby is there right now. Her record of caring for the baby is mixed, but at least she's interested.
Last night Lucy did bedtime without mama and didn't mind a bit. She knew I wasn't there, commented on it, but lay down and fell asleep anyway. I'm free! For the first time in about two and a half years I'm free! (Just in time to start over again with another one.) Sometime this week we'll try bedtime without either parent staying with her to see how she handles it. If she can do that, then the only hurdles left are sleeping in a bed other than her own and having absolutely no parental contact at bedtime. We'll work our way there by May so that she's OK staying with Shawn and Susie while I'm in the hospital.
She finally said her name when asked. It came out as Oo-sie, but she can do it. Motivation, as always with Lucy, is a bigger problem than ability.
She has started saying something that sounds like "yellow" but still refuses to say purple.
She still hides her face when Oscar, the janitor for the building with the swimming pool, talks to her, but this week she started talking about him: "O-car clean door." We saw him after swimming, and I told him that she had started talking about him. He got her a sucker. He's determined to win her over. Fortunately, he's a very nice man and a friendly acquaintance of mine.
Lucy is doing a better job of playing in the "baby cage" at church and not running around. We insist on having her in service so that she will get used to it and gradually integrate into it. She used to fuss if we made her stay in the baby cage, but now she plays with me and the toys fairly quietly for most of the service. The next step will be getting her to play quietly out of the baby cage. Eventually, she can work her way through Bible coloring books and simple participation in the service, such as saying "Amen" at the end of prayers. She's also started paying attention to how I participate in the service, watching me sing hymns and recite the creed. It's progress.
She is really into likes to write and draw, both are among her new words. Last week she drew a picture of a scribbled oval, and I asked her what it was. "A egg," she said. Sure enough, it looked like an egg. I asked her to draw a few more, and she did. Today she told Matt that her picture was of a book. It didn't look particularly bookish, but she's got the idea that pictures can represent objects and that she can create those representations.
She is also really into dancing recently. She requests music before bed some nights, and we let her dance off some of her excess energy to a classical music CD called "Quietude." Sometimes she twirls; sometimes she swings her elbows like she's at a hoedown. It was hilarious to see her hoedown dance to Bach's Toccata and Fugue.
Yesterday she did a couple of impressive somersaults, perfectly straight with chin tucked. She may have gotten some tips on that from watching The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That on PBS.
She's growing so quickly in so many ways. We regularly hit bumps along the way, but I always see a trajectory of progress.
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