Verbal Upgrade

One of the joys of parenting is that you get to experience first hand the wonder of human development. It never ceases to amaze me how you can one day be overjoyed at the outcome of pee on a stick and the next thing you know you have this little person running around becoming more and more independent and growing into their very own distinct personality! It seems now that Sumayah has got the walking down she has turned her attention to talking. For a long time now she has been saying 'mama', 'dada', 'baba', 'ta' and 'up'. But then suddenly this week she decided to do a verbal upgrade. 'Dada' has now become 'da-ddi?' (yes always with an inflection at the end), she has said 'B-lal' a few times, and calls Abegail (her nanny) 'Abi'.

Tonight we were also astounded by how much she actually understands. After supper Yaasier said to Sumayah, 'go fetch the ball for dada' and just as I was getting up to show her where the ball was she walked over to the toy box, picked up the ball and brought it to Yaasier. Yaasier and I just looked at each other in proud amazement. She also tends to say 'up' whenever she wants to go out and will often lead us by the hand to the outside gate and say 'up, up'. But the thing that amazes me most is her level of problem solving. Whenever the sliding door to the garden is closed she would stand on her toes trying to reach up to the key hole with the housekeys. I simply put this down to role-modelling. But one day I witnessed with my own eyes how she pushed one of Bilaal's plastic Jolly chairs to the sliding door, house key in hand and proceeded to climb onto the chair so she could reach the key hole! I stood watching her, too dumbfounded to remove her from this clearly dangerous stunt for a 12 month old. Of course she fell off the chair and cried, but was soon trying to get back up again. We now leave the plastic chair outside... not that that stops her from climbing on the coffee table!

Wordless Wednesday 25

Walkies walkies

So Sumayah has decided to become vertically mobile! And like most experienced parents will tell you, now is when you really know the meaning of the word 'hectic'! She had been showing signs of walking for a while already... cruising along surfaces, getting from sit to stand without holding on to anything, standing on her own for long periods, etc. But whenever we tried to get her to walk she would laugh at us, get down onto the floor and crawl. So even though we knew walking was imminent she still took us by surprise. See with Sumayah it wasn't a gradual process. She took 4 steps one day and then refused to do it again, until last Friday when I visited a friend's house. When I arrived I put her down on the floor in standing, expecting her to sit down and start crawling around. Instead she just started walking toward my friend as though she'd been doing it all along! So there was no 2 steps then 4 steps then 10, then off we go... no it was no steps at all for almost a month and then suddenly off we go! The funniest part was when she was walking and patting herself on the chest and clapping her hands as though congratulating herself on her achievement. Guess that is rather characteristic of our little Sumayah even with the whole coming into the world thing... she will do it on her own terms thank you very much!

Impossible is Nothing

It's amazing how children's personalities develop at such a young age already.We have decided that Sumayah's slogan in Impossible is Nothing. She is one fearless, willful and super determined little girl. When we put her in her playpen, she has started trying to lift herself over. Of course this is not possible because the top of the playgym is at her eyebrow's height, but that won't stop her from trying. She has even managed on a few occasions to lift her body off the ground for a second, hanging only by her fingers! Yep! i am not exaggerating, that is how strong she is. When she's not in her playpen we try blocking her path to the t.v with objects such as the rocking chair and the playpen, but when next we look she is on the other side of the barrier! Somehow she always manages to wiggle her way through the smallest space to get to where she wants to be. Yesterday I had such a good laugh when I caught little miss prison break in action. We have one of those safety gates at the bottom of the stairs, because madam has figured out how to climb the stairs. Yes, at 8 months she thinks can do anything her brother can, so when he goes upstairs, she simply follows him! So anyway, the safety gate is up and while working yesterday she was playing around my feet, then she went to the gate which was behind me. Knowing that it was closed I didn't pay too much attention, but when I turned around to look at her... she actually managed to get her head through the little gap between the gate and the wall and was very expertly trying to manoeuvre her body through. Of course the minute I screeched "oh my word Sumayah! What are you doing?",  it was as if she knew she was doing something she wasn't supposed to and tried to pull her head out.... but it was stuck. So alas I couldn't get the camera to capture the moment because I had to help miss alcatraz get her head out of the bars. She hasn't tried it again, but not too long ago I caught her fiddling with the suction screws that holds the gate securely against the wall!

Oh, did I also mention that she loves eating paper and moving furniture around, particularly the dining chairs. And yes she actually does move them around the dining room! She also broke her play mobile (you know the one that stands on 4 legs that they supposed to lie under on the floor as babies?)... yes well she broke that in half! When we were in Cape Town we could take the one Bilaal had as a baby out of a box in almost mint condition. And I don't bother with expensive brand name bottles, because it's R100 down the drain when she cracks the bottom of the bottle because she is very fond of chucking it (with purpose and force I might add) onto the floor when she's had her fill!

Yep, that's our little Sumayah for you. Can you imagine how much fun we gonna have with her when she starts walking?!