Austen & Gage

After Austen’s attempt to knock over the heavy-metal floor lamp was thwarted by a quick-reflexed mommy during a playdate here at home, she had to think up another way to do herself some damage.

A few days later, without any help from the folks on Jack*ss, she came up with a plan to fall down the steps and see what happens. She waited for her opportunity and pounced: as we opened the stair gate at the top of the steps, she slid down the first step as she normally does and then, ingeniously, leaned forward and tumbled down three steps, landing on her back.

As a reward, she got this shiner. She even got to go visit the pediatric ER since her worry-wart first-time parents didn’t want to take any chances.

The morals of the story: Watch Borat’s movie, persistence eventually yields results, and cats don’t like to bathe.

When Dada arrives home from work, Austen welcomes him at the door with a resounding “Hi!” — spoken with the perky enthusiasm of the Legally Blond character. Her greeting is loud and clear and decipherable in any room of the house.

Austen will wave and say “Hi!” to anyone, including perfect strangers she passes on the street. Her waving sessions go on for a while as she waits for reciprocation and often elicits smiles and exclamations.

Austen loves her bath, particularly playing with and chewing on her bath toys. Dada reports that she gets excited just seeing the tub filling with water.

She also gets excited when Elmo’s World comes on Sesame Street. She walks around holding her large, life-size Elmo doll.

There’s even more hugging these day. People, not just stuffed animals, get short hugs. Mama and Dada love this reward for all their care and devotion to Austen.

Austen signs sporadically (signing ‘more’ even though it’s only been shown to her a half dozen times) but mostly she points and says “Dis dat?” meaning “What’s that?”

If you ask Austen whether she’s sleepy, she confirms that she is by waving bye-bye and walking toward her bedroom. Her realization that she’s tired is a great step forward for Austen, who’s always had trouble with both falling asleep and staying asleep.

When Austen throws or drops something, when she falls down or someone else stumbles, Austen always says, “Uh oh!” She knows exactly what the phrase means and uses it everyday.

This months, Austen enjoyed her first taste of chocolate: a chocolate graham cracker given to her at a MOMS Club of Edison playdate. Her favorite foods include banana, apple, grapes, cantalope, string cheese, ham, chicken, lentils, rice, pasta, string beans, and corn. She snacks on cheese crackers, cheese puffs, sweet pea puffs, freeze dried apples, and freeze dried corn.

Cleaning up! Now Austen doesn’t just dump things and knock things down. She puts them together and puts them away.

Austen can now do some preliminary shape sorting. This really impresses Mama. Austen is such a fast learner. She learns things (like kicking a ball or putting a circle into the shape sorter) within a few tries.

Gymboree is still Austen’s favorite class, although Music Together on Saturdays with Mama AND Dada is a close second. At Gymboree, Austen loves being under the parachute and slapping the air log. She impresses all with her ability to crawl up slides and ladders. At Music Together Class, she enjoys running around in circles, stomping her feet and running to get a musical instrument when the toy bin comes out. Sometimes she has a hard time giving the instruments back during cleanup but she’s improving with each class.

Austen now loves to push things around, including her heavy stationary toys, which she slides from room to room.

This is Austen’s reaction to not getting what she wants. Mama and Dada have decided that it may be time to start 30-second time outs. When you hold Austen’s hand and try to get her to walk away from something she shouldn’t be into, she goes limp and sinks to the floor, forcing you to pick her up and carry her away, which causes much complaining.