Wonderful "Ones"

Hi Shira,

You are in a fun period of your life. For us grown ups, at least. Your personality is emerging, you're picking up new tricks all the time, yet you're still a baby in many ways.

You are very cute with the way you enjoy watching the sign language videos. You are more prolific at giving signs than your big sister was so that's fun for us. I think we might be getting a little more out of you than we did her at the same stage. Today while I was watching the end of the Super Bowl you were trying to get at a couple of the Signing DVDs which you knew were on the cabinet. That's why they were there, so you wouldn't be able to reach them. Soon, you were bringing me a DVD from the other shelf which was a Signing DVD and you were giving me the sign you make when you asking to watch it (your sign is more like 'hello', it isn't really the sign for 'sign.')

You use your voice a lot, too. But you aren't quite making words yet. You express a lot with tone and volume also. One of the coolest things is how you and your sister greet each other when neither of you is concerned about about turf. Sidra says your name with a high lilt and you return the greeting in kind. I hope it's just the beginning and you two will greet each other with the same tenderness in 15 years. I want you to get along like the Cohen sisters and the Mallon sisters.

You really like reading or looking at books. We keep a healthy selection available for you as you can see in the videos. You like to have several open at once, I guess your version of multitasking. Your favorite book is the Baby Body Book. It has a lot of pictures of babies and calls attention to body parts and babies in action. It's one of the first books you looked at and you've gone back to it often. One morning right after breakfast you went to your position at the coffee table where all your books are. I kept an eye on you and you went through the body book three times from cover to cover before trying something else.

You're still more likely to look at a book on your own than sit on our lap and be read to. We don't seem to be able to go fast enough for you. I was reading you a book called ten little fingers and ten little toes and I had to go fast enough so that I was constantly turning the pages otherwise you weren't interested.

You are in the midst of your second ear infection in as many months. We hope that it isn't the beginning of a string of ear infections. You can be pretty ornery when you aren't feeling good. However, you are really good at taking medicine. You'll suck that stuff right down. Tooth brushing is another story. You oppose that with vehemence. We got you your own electric toothbrush and that seems to help you enjoy the process. You're pretty happy to 'do your own brushing' but you're a ways from being able do a decent job of it and don't like having an adult take over. I think you'd like to turn the tables and brush our teeth.

Video captions: 1) Just like mom! 2) The audio does a pretty good job narrating. 3) Hard for a parent not to like the scene. A quiet morning reading books.










Love, aba.