If Jade ever runs up to you waving a toy (or other object) and says, “Wock? Wock? Wock?” you should know that it’s your cue to cuddle the toy (or other object) in your arms, and rock it tenderly while singing it a lullaby. Sometimes it’s a doll and sometimes it’s a stuffed animal, but I’ve also been asked to rock telephones, milk bottles, and drinking vessels, although I generally refuse to show affection for these more mundane objects. This has actually been a game of Jade’s for a few months, but I keep forgetting to mention it. It grew out of a routine we had for a short time, rocking Jade to “Rock-a-Bye Baby”, with requisite “falls” at the appropriate time, before putting her to bed for the night.
Sometimes she’ll give me something to sing to and keep something for herself so that we’ll both be rocking someone at the same time. And I’ve even found her, once or twice, simply doing it herself.
I always curse our digital camera richness at these times. In the “old days” of film cameras, we might not have taken as many pictures, but at least Jade would have been more likely to maintain a particular position long enough to photograph it. With the digital camera, she instantly wants to come look at pictures on the wrong side of the lens. In the last month or so she’s gotten a bit better at staying put when asked, but it’s still impossible to capture these spontaneous moments where my heart is down in my toes because it’s melted into a puddle.
Jade still isn’t into naming her colours yet, but I know she’s not colour blind because of her innate sorting instincts. She has a stacking toy made up of 8 nesting blocks that she plays with many mornings when she’s having a shower with Michael. Instead of stacking them up or nesting them together, she always matches each of the two pieces that are of the same colour and puts the smaller one inside the larger one. It makes me laugh every time I go to tidy up the shower, and is a small relief; I never actually worried about it, but there is some colour-blindness in the family.
On the other hand, Jade loves to name shapes, and will gleefully point out squares, triangles, circles, and flowers (didn’t you know that’s a standard shape?) . Everything has to have a label these days (“Whassat?” still being a favourite word) and once she knows what an object is, it’s important to her to specify whose it is. “Jade’s seat. Mummy’s seat. Papa’s seat. Jade’s p’ate. Mummy’s hat. Papa’s ‘puter.” (Yes, she calls our ever-present laptops ‘puters.)
Speaking of labels, I think I have lost the battle to be a Mama. I don’t know if it’s because of daycare or because everyone around us seems to say, “Mummy”, but whatever the reason, Jade says “Mummy” and doesn’t even pay attention anymore when I try to suggest Mama instead. Ah well, the original idea was that I’d actually speak to her in French or German or Chinese once in a while, which sadly I don’t, so I suppose it doesn’t matter much to have an anglophone title. *sigh*
Jade’s favourite physical activities these days are kicksledding (check out Michael’s post and pictures on this) and jumping. She loves it when Michael holds her under her arms and helps her leap high into the air, but even without the boost she loves to jump up and say “hop” after each jump. I always cringe a bit because she lands on flat feet and my mom always said it’s bad for the spine to come down too hard on one’s heels. At least she’s still light for now, so I don’t think she’ll shock her brain too much.
Jade enjoyed Easter out at Lake Laberge and had fun hunting for Easter eggs (with some help). Am I the only one who really doesn’t like to let her toddler eat chocolate? It still seems like a lot of sugar and caffeine to me for such a little body, so Jade’s had chocolate literally a handful of times. Well, maybe two hands-full, if you count chocolate-chip cookies. I don’t think Jade even knows those eggs have chocolate inside them. I wonder if she notices that a few of them disappear each evening…
We haven’t had a lot of opportunities to visit with babies lately, but when we do, I’ve found that Jade seems a bit less jealous of them than she was before. She doesn’t seem to mind quite as much if I have a baby or another child on my lap. The day after I found out I was pregnant, I was cuddling her on the couch and told her, “It looks like we’re going to have a new baby here in about 8 or 9 months. What do you think of having a new baby?” She looked at me with her big, blue eyes, pointed to herself and shouted happily, “Baby!” Despite being more than two now, well, I guess it’s true that she’s still my baby.
