48. Happy Birthday to Me!

47. Apples

Bea is a pretty adventurous eater: mahi-mahi, broccoli rabe, wood... She likes things that are toothy (she has four tremendous teeth, after all). Today at lunch she was beavering away at an apple and I felt I had to record the proceedings for posterity. The movie took an unexpexted turn and also displays the distractions we face at mealtimes due to the local fauna. (Don't worry about Bea taking too big a bite. She only manages little bits. And if ever a too-large piece of food makes it in, she has an adorable, nonchalant method of spitting it out like a ratty old bill from a change machine.)

46. Sunday morning

It is strange to think we have entered the month in which Beatrice was born!

This past week was a big one for her. She began Music Together classes as well as a playgroup at a Waldorf School. Oh my she loves the other kids.

She also loves to watch whatever her Daddy is watching out the window (birds).

I like to call this little movie, "Beef: It's What's for Dinner." It has nothing to do with playgroups or birds. (Unless the creepy plastic chicken face toy from my youth counts as "birds.")

45. Hands!

While Beatrice has been waving "hello" and "goodbye" for some time now, over the past week she has really nailed communicating with her hands.

Her first trick was pointing. I recently saw a TV program on primate communication. Apparently, one way primates differ from humans is that they aren't able to read (or use) physical cues such as pointing, which makes working together more difficult. So Bea's new-found skill feels like a big leap.

Pointing was closely followed by her signing "all done" at the dinner table. (A pretty complicated sign involving wrist swivelling.) I have been really lazy with all of the sign language aside from "all done" so I feel I should renew my efforts, now that she is getting the hang of these things. (Grandpa Griff is the only person who has been really consistent with signing--using the "grandpa" sign whenever he first sees her.)

And her most recent trick, the one that seems to make her the happiest, is clapping. (Apologies for the sideways movie--Grandma Fox is a little too artsy with her filmmaking.)

Here she is earlier today, working on her balance:

44. Look, (Grand) Ma--No hands!

43. Standing

Shortly after our last post Bea began pulling herself up to standing. It was like a switch turned on and she suddenly had a new favorite pastime. Today she twice stood for a second or two without support. One time she did so completely on her own--meaning we didn't support her and then let go, she just stood up! (We haven't documented that quite yet.)

This movie also catches her newest animal sound--the elephant. (!) We have a book of baby animal sounds and last night she began imitating Grandma Fox when she did the elephant. The book writes out the word as "braloo!" Bea says "broo." In this movie she is speaking with her elephant voice while playing with a lion.

In other news, she also likes to wave "bye bye" and "hello."

42. Dance Dance Revolution

This isn't her best work, but it'll do... (Yes, she is in a cage-type apparatus, and no, I can't really explain the pulsating music thing.)