Friday, August 21, 2009

Audrey's first road trip

So we have finally taken the plunge and gone on a long-overdue trip to San Diego. This is a seven-hour drive for us, pretty easy and boring. BUT Audrey has never been in the car for longer than it takes to drive to Oracle (or thereabouts, for Jessica and Sean's wedding) We tried to be cunning and leave just in time for her morning nap, but she saw right through us. She refused to sleep, trying to figure out what we were doing and where we could possibly be going that took more than an hour.

After the first hour I moved to the back seat but still couldn't convince her to go to sleep. Finally as we approached Yuma (and lunch at Subway) a little after noon, she fell asleep. But as soon as we carried her into the restaurant, she woke up. This enabled her to fully participate in the ritual eating-of-food-that-is-not-good-for-you of road trips.

By my estimation, here is what Audrey ate yesterday, in addition to some milk...

  • about 10 french fries

  • a sandwich bag of grapes

  • a small container of "dry snacks" - graham crackers, goldfish, cheerios and yogurt melts

  • chocolate milk and bites of chocolate chip and white chocolate macadamia cookies

  • bites of turkey, bread, black olives and apple

  • bites of hamburger, veggie burger, more french fries and an onion ring

  • bites of ice cream from a root beer float



After lunch Audrey stayed awake the whole time until we got to San Diego around 5 pm, and then through dinner and playing at the park after dinner. She was tired but didn't want to go to sleep by herself in a strange pack and play in a strange room, so she stayed up until 9:30 before finally falling asleep!

Friday, August 7, 2009

Memorandum of Understanding


I am amazed at what Audrey understands. She is 13 months and one week old and I talk to her a lot, but still. Just today she was able to come down ten stairs at my friend Jenne's house by herself because I reminded her to sit down and then put her feet down on the lower step. No physical guidance, just talking her through it. And tonight she spit out some cheese on the floor, then continued on with her activities. I said "Where's your cheese? Can you give it to me?" and she stopped doing what she was doing, went over and picked up the cheese and handed it to me. Also today, she was heading toward the above-mentioned stairs for the tenth time, and I was able to distract her by asking her to pick up a toy and bring it to me. Which she did, and by then she had forgotten that she was going to try to go up the stairs.

On a related note, if asked, she can point out her belly, her nose, and sometimes her toes. I don't know when kids are supposed to know these things, but I like to think she's advanced for her age. She also uses the word "lights" (this is probably her fourth consistently-used word after mama, dad, and ah-da (Audrey)) and also has a word that sounds suspiciously like "mine!" when something is taken away from her.

Sometimes I ask her to do something or find something, and I can tell I've used too many dependent clauses (or something) because she sort of stops and looks at me blankly. But most of the time she understands. Amazing!