Gardening

Marisca helped us with some gardening last weekend. Here she is with Daddy's gloves, and then later once we'd changed out of church clothes, looking much more the part.

Dogs

We had a free afternoon and wandered down to our local woods for a bit of a run around. Marisca wasn't entirely convinced - she didn't like falling over onto the twigs, and she did quite a lot of falling - she seems to have lost her land legs a bit recently.

We had a difficult dog incident while there. We were sitting together on a fallen branch having a bit of a rest, when an exuberant Staffordshire Terrier came bounding over. As usual it stopped a little distance away so we did our usual pointing at the dog, saying dog, patting our legs in the baby sign for dog, and watching Marisca do the same. Unfortunately it decided to be even friendlier, and came running over and bounced up onto Marisca's chest, pushing her backwards off the log. I'm not entirely sure what happened next. I was on my feet and shouting and running at the dog, must have been enough to confuse it long enough to back off a pace or two, and Elspeth picked a wailing Risky up. It took a while to calm her but she was fine physically, and when a couple of older and slower dogs came running along a little later she was still happy to point them out, although didn't like it when the wolfier one came up close, even in the safety of my arms.

I was really shaken by it. In retrospect, I'd clocked that the dog had a muzzle, and don't recall any growling, so I'm sure it was playfulness from the dog rather than aggression. But there were certainly a few seconds when I didn't know that and just had to protect my daughter. We're also a bit worried about potentially making her scared of dogs as she grows up. We're trying to avoid that happening, but an incident like this could set her off. Certainly if a dog the size of me ran over and knocked me over backwards, I'd be nervous of them in the future. Anyway, dogs aside, here are a few of the photos from earlier in the walk, including one mid-trip.

Gathering

I'm posting this picture because I like it. It does show up the fluff and nonsense on our living room floor (subsequently hoovered!) but I like how it shows Marisca in one of her moments of concentration as she tries to pick up two blocks and an egg cup. She succeeded and was very proud of herself.

Sixteen months

I forgot to post about fifteen months, and by the time we remembered we couldn't remember what new skills Marisca had learnt then!  So here's a bumper sixteen months post.

Walking is easy-peasy now, but Marisca seems to have forgotten how to go up and down stairs.  This is fine in some respects, as I can let her toddle around without worrying she'll climb upstairs or fall down the other ones, but not so good when you're trying to wrangle a toddler up/down stairs when you have hands full of toys/washing/books.  And we live in a town house so there are a lot of stairs.  I'm sure she'll remember soon enough, and then we'll have to use the stair gates again!

This month we have words.  I wouldn't say we have talking yet, but Marisca has certainly got words, or sounds.  The list so far goes:

Baaaaaa (for sheep)
Keeeeeee (for key)
oooooo (for cow - moo)
deddle (for teddy)
dee (for tea, either the meal or any mug which she assumes contains the drink)
eeedle eeedle eeedle (tickle tickle tickle whenever she tries to tickle us)
oooom (boom, for thunder.  It's in a current favourite book, before you go accusing us of teaching her all about weather already)
bibi (baby, applied to babies in books and sometimes in real life)
buuuw (ball)
and Tim's personal favourite:
daddy! (daddy, accompanied by pointing at her father)

At the same timne, Risky's signing has also taken off.  She now signs for dog, horse, frog, butterfly, eat, bear, duck and bird.  We're loving the level of communication this gives us: Risky can point so many things out when we're out on a walk, or in her books.  I'm thinking of taking her to a signing class to build on this, as it's such a great skill to have to communicate with her.

In fact, this month has been all about communication.  It's so lovely watching Marisca grow and suddenly realising she understands what we're saying to her.  When we say it's tea time she heads for the door to go to the kitchen and once there heads for her high chair.  She'll poddle off and find her shoes if you ask her.  She certainly understands no, even if she doesn't like it! And she is very clear when she wants a snack and will point at the relevant cupboard/fruit bowl until you provide said snack.  She's getting her own mind about things now.  We will see what sort of personality grows!

Visiting the grandparents

Last weekend, for the first time since we moved closer, we visited my parents (aka Gran and Grandad).  They have visited us several times, so it was only fair that we returned the favour.  And Mum made roast dinner so were were all happy!

Marisca has her own toy basket at Gran and Grandad's: the beads were particularly popular:

In the afternoon we went to the park and played on the rotating-metal-bucket-thing:

On the swings:

 And with the abacus:

It was a rather chilly day though, so we were glad to get back in the warm afterwards.  Thank you Gran and Grandad for your hospitality.  We will be back...