Pick up stick

The rate at which our little baby develops and the sheer capacity of her little mind's ability to absorb and learn about the world around her never ceases to amaze me. After all, I've been with her every single day of her life and have watched her grow from a wee little thing who started out in life sleeping, eating and pooping on a 24 hour basis to (what seems suddenly) a budding toddler that is ready to take on the world.

Just like a brand new computer with high speed RAM and hard disk that efficiently uploads and downloads information, Faith's carefully watching all of us and learning so very quickly new skills every single day.

At the Little Gym last week, we only tried twice with her to lift her upper body and legs off the ground, letting her walk with her hands. Yesterday, as I was trying to practice those exercises and show my mom what she had learnt, Faith immediately started walking with her hands the moment I lifted her body and legs, like a little wheelbarrow.

In a separate incident, I had introduced a curved stick (like curved handles of umbrellas) to her and showed her how to use the curved end to hook out her toys some weeks ago. This was in a bid to reduce the number of times I have to retrieve her toys and balls from under our TV console :)

At that time, she made a half-hearted attempt to hook out one of her pin balls that rolled under. Just as quickly, she decided to abandon that mini project. Still grabbing the stick in one hand, she crawled and stood up on the other end of our TV console. Using the stick, she tried to hook and yank at some of the photo frames and pictures sitting atop the console instead! As much as I was bemused at her reaction, I had to applaud her for her quick thinking. Talk about improvisation.

Today, I was just sitting unobtrusively in one corner of the living room, watching her play with her toys. When one of the items slide under the TV console, Faith automatically turned around to look for the curved stick. Using it and wriggling her butt to lay flat on her belly, she tried to prod the item out with her stick. Looking at her, I can't help feeling a little proud that my little baby is taking teeny-weeny baby steps towards gaining independence and confidence in herself.

No longer does she first look to us, pointing and grunting in the direction of the toy, waiting for us to retrieve it for her. Well... technically, she still does. But only when she still can't pull out the toy despite her impatient yanking and hooking, which is quite often cos her control of the stick isn't good yet. Hence, she mostly ends up pushing the item further inside than outside :)

Almost on a daily basis, I'm surprised by the things that she picks up and learn. But she's really so adorable now... so full of fun and surprises :)