Little Things She Does

This last weekend we took a trip to LA to visit Grandma. While we were there Zoe took five steps, her first(s?). I missed this monumental event (I was busy rifling through kitchen cabinets looking for goodies) and we could not convince her to repeat her feat for the running camera. It’s been a week since our return and she has not walked again. The only obvious conclusion is that she can only walk in carpeted hallways in LA.

Since my last post Zoe has attended two Music Together classes. Music Together is a “program that develops every child’s birthright of basic music competence,” blah, blah, blah. Music Together is supposed to make your child smarter, more confident, have better balance, leap tall buildings in less than three bounds, and sap your wallet, all in eight short weeks. Shoes get left at the door, everyone sits around a big drum, all conversation has to be sung, and regardless of what I think about it Zoe seems to have fun, although she spends most of the class with a quizzical look while every one else makes strange noises while wiggling and dancing.

I should have mentioned that while in LA Zoe might have said Dada. I say ‘might’ because no matter how often I try to get her to repeat it I only get Mama, which is frequent and very clear. I’m beginning to think that I imagined she said Dada, or she said Dada but really said dada (the difference is cognitive recognition of what is being said as opposed to random babbling).

This week I joined the Oakland Zoo. I used to belong to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately Zoe would rather look at elephants and monkeys than urinals. The problem with the Zoo is that is that if the animals are not standing right by the fence or moving in some discernible way Zoe doesn’t know what she should be looking at. Try to point out a Hamadryas Baboon to her and I might as well be pointing at a tree.

One of the cute things Zoe does (and there are hundreds) is that she will lean up against me. I will be cooking or simply standing in a room and she will sidle up and rest her body against my leg. If I move she will fall—thump—onto the floor. The other day we were at the video store and she sidled up to some strange man, sat on his foot, and then reclined against his leg. She was looking right at me and he really didn’t look much like Alison, so I don’t think she was confused. I think she just wanted to recline and one leg was as good as another. Everyone in line thought it was very cute, except for the guy she was leaning against. He seemed unsure what he was supposed to do, so he just stepped away. She teetered a bit but managed to stay upright.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034