What She's Doing

Brooke has a host of new "tricks" that I guess I should mention (since I have yet to do so).

She is into peek-a-boo, putting items of clothing on her head. But it doesnt stop there. She also puts toys, books, and food on her head. Anything and everything goes on the head. Here she is in a restaurant, putting the menu on her head.

We have a new word: "Bye". The interesting thing about Brooke is that she picks up a new word and says it for about a week. Then she just drops it. We dont know for sure if she is storing words in her vocabulary or not, since she only uses them for a week. The only word she consistently uses/repeats is "more". And she sure says that an awful lot.

She also has become very firm about what she does and does not want to eat. If she doesnt want to eat something, it is promptly thrown onto the floor. While the dog truly appreaciates this, its it becoming a bit frustrating. Especially because she changes the items she is willing to eat on a meal-by-meal basis. She has a few true favorites that have yet to change: asparagus and cheese. Everything else is unknown until we put it down on her tray to find out what she will do!

Brooke is doing a lot of standing, and a lot of cruising, but only a little bit of walking. The most she will take is about 3 steps, but she is definitely on her way!

Table Manners Lesson = FAIL

As Brooke approaches her 1st birthday, we are aware that we need to start working on moving her from "baby" to "toddler". Some of this naturally occurs on its own, but there are other things that we need to actually teach her. One of these things I gave a shot at this morning - table manners. As a baby Brooke can eat off her high chair with her hands, but eventually she needs to use dishes and silverware. We give her a spoon every-once-in-a-while so that she can get the feel of it. She can occasionally put food (that we put on the spoon for her) into her mouth, but more often it ends up on the walls or back in our faces. Still, its good practice.

We decided the other day that she needed some practice at eating out of a bowl (or off of a plate). I have a few bowls with suction cup bottoms, a great starter for a baby that likes to throw things. So this morning I put all of her fruit into the bowl, and then stuck it to her high chair. Things started off great!

Unfortunately (and this was mostly my fault) things went down hill from there. Brooke's high chair has a nice feature - a double layer tray. The tray has two parts so that you can remove one and use the one underneath it. So when the top one is dirty, there is still another surface to eat from. The problem is that this top layer just sort of rests on the bottom layer. It comes off quite easy, which has not been a problem ... until now.

I then removed the top layer and stuck the bowl onto the bottom part ...
the actual high-chair tray that is firmly attached to the high-chair seat.
Problem solved, right?
Well ... it appears that no silly little suction cup can deter my little muscle girl.
After a little bit of work she simply pulled the bowl right off the tray,
and proceeded to dump all of its contents on the tray and the floor.

After making her mommy look like an idiot, Brooke removed her bib
and clearly indicated that breakfast was over.

If Brooke Is Going To Be An Internet Sensation...

She has got to work on her moves. There are a lot of babies out there shaking it on YouTube ;) Whats up with none of these kids having any clothes on? Maybe it frees up their dances moves? We are going to have to try that method...

Hard At Play

I took Brooke back to the Family Grounds Cafe yesterday and snapped some cute pics. Thought I would share :)

Spent some time playing with trucks and the train set again

But this time she spent a lot of time in a play house ... equipped with baby dolls, dress up clothes and a kitchen!

Brooke even made a new little friend, who was just as excited about all of the fun girly stuff as she was ;)