Quirks

One of the biggest joys of being a parent, I'm finding, is learning what your child is like. What does she enjoy? What does she hate? What does she imitate? However, I feel that this is also one of things that can easily got lost over the years. I thought it would be good to keep a bit of a chronicle of the things Adelaide has done which are incredibly cute.

For starters, she is definitely musical. She has always bobbed and danced to music, even while we're eating. She loves her little toy piano and ipod, especially now that she has figured out how they work a little better. We have been exposing her to all sorts of music - from artists such as the Beatles, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mozart, Queen, Yes, Gorillaz, Duran Duran, Faure, Tempest, Dream Theater, Bob Dylan, Geckt, Louis Armstrong, and Beethoven, among others. And she seems to like it all! When we watch recorded concerts on Netflix, she claps whenever the song ends. She'll clap all the time now, and has even learned how to make sound with it!

She also has learned to wave, which she does when she meets people, when people are leaving, or just because! She now says "kitty!" and squeals at the cat. She hasn't learned how to pet without hurting the cats yet, but she tries! She is definitely an animal lover, and squeals at every animal under the sun, even the squirrels, or things on TV.

We went to the Children's Museum a little while ago, where there is a market for kids to pretend they are shopping. She loved to push around the cart and put oranges and syrup into it over and over. I've caught her doing that many times with other things. She is definitely imitating us! Sometimes we can make a game of it, where she copies what we're doing.

I'm very glad she's become more independent than she was. Now she likes to play with other kids, and will even want to be left alone to play with others, while earlier it was a struggle to get her to take more than a few steps from us. Now she likes the bath tub, too! She loves to play with water, and will even go towards the "deep" end to stay in a little bit longer. :D

She's been walking since she was 9 months, and for a long time looked like a drunken sailor after a binge. But she always picks herself up and wants to go on her own. Getting her to hold our hands is a challenge! She loves to play "catch me if you can", which always ends in her being caught, falling over, and giggling! She also giggles when I give her a zerbert/raspberry on her belly, or even when I just act like I'm going to. Same with tickling; I don't even have to touch her to make her giggle. She gets it from me...

At the moment she is sleeping on me, so I will close this post before she wakes up and tries to add typing to her repertoire.