It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these entries summarizing StarGirl’s development and my own thoughts on Dadhood. Much has changed since the last one (back when StarGirl was 9 months old), but I’m going to focus on the more recent developments.
No More Medicine: Every day for the last year, since that fateful day in May when StarGirl’s heart sped out of control, we’ve had to give her a dose of medicine at 6 a.m., 2 p.m., and 10 p.m. Every single day, no breaks, no reprieves. It didn’t matter if she’d finally gone down for a nap at 1:55 p.m., or if she really needed to sleep past 6 a.m. — she had to have every dose. Well, she hasn’t had an incident since the first one, and last week she got a clean bill of health from the pediatric cardiologist. She still can’t have caffeine (and thus, no chocolate of any kind) but she no longer needs to get her thrice daily dose of medicine. It’s a glorious thing.
Hi! StarGirl’s favorite word, to the exclusion of all others, is “Hi!”: She babbles quite a lot, but while she once said words like “Daddy”, she’s decided that “Hi” is what really works for her. And with good reason. When we go out to eat, she’ll look at everyone at the tables around us, and then say “Hi!” to each of them in turn. This usually yields her smiles and “ah, how cute!” utterings from our neighbors. Still, while she’s a one-word baby right now, we suspect that she’ll be talking in earnest in the not-to-distant future. Whenever she does anything, she needs to come and tell you about it, and she babbles enthusiastically and frequently.
Dancing! StarGirl likes to dance. When one of her toys plays music (particularly “Old Mac Donald Had a Farm”) she’ll start bouncing up and down and “dancing”. Too freaking cute…
Retrieving Hats: The other night, StarGirl took my baseball hat off my head and ran away with it. When she was done playing with it, she came back. I asked her where my hat was … and she actually began looking for it! Sue found it dropped on the far side of the room, and moved it to a place where it was easier to find (though StarGirl didn’t see her do it). StarGirl then went looking for the hat, found it, and brought it back. I was pretty amazed — after six years, I still can’t get Mad Dog to do that …
Upstairs, Downstairs: StarGirl’s been climbing the stairs since New Year’s Eve (when she figured out how to do it at my friend Lance’s house, whose stairs aren’t as steep as ours). This week, she figured out how to go down them via the old “Belly Slide” technique in which she lays on her belly and lowers herself down one stair at a time. As with everything else, now that StarGirl knows how to do it, she tries to go down the stairs as fast as she can (always supervised of course).
Yum … game pieces! My fellow gamers and I were playing Settlers of Catan (an excellent game that is long overdue for a review by Nuketown) and Sue gave me StarGirl to watch for a moment. I sat her on my lap, and put the small wooden game pieces out of her reach … or at least, what I thought was her reach. Turns out that she was within range, and before I could do much more than blink (actually, I think it was while I was blinking) she snagged a road and put it in her mouth. Fortunately I was able to get it back out again, but man, I was scared for a second there.
Walking Everywhere: Once StarGirl figured out how to walk, crawling was no longer an option (well, it’s a very rarely used option).
Road Trip Tolerance: 9.5 hours. That’s how long it took StarGirl to lose it on our way back from my sister’s place in Richmond, Virginia. On the way down for the Easter Weekend, the trip took 6.5 hours, with plenty of stops for StarGirl to stretch her legs. On the way back, we hit traffic jam after traffic jam. StarGirl was great for the vast majority of the trip (thanks in part to more stops) but when we hit the outskirts of the Lehigh Valley, she started crying, and wouldn’t stop. Sue eventually got in the backseat with her, which helped, but she was still completely and utterly done with the car.
Yeah … water dishes! Our dogs have two large metal water dishes that we keep in the kitchen. StarGirl absolutely loves ’em, and always beelines for the kitchen in order to pick them up and dump water everywhere. It’s great fun for her, not so great for us.