Yesterday I decided to do a little project with EB. I searched through several books for ideas, and settled on a cooking project. I decided on gingerbread cookies with gingerbread man cookie cutters. Let me preface this story by saying that I, the mommy and head chef in this situation have NEVER in my recollection cooked the kind of cookies that you roll out on the counter and use cookie cutters. My mom wasn’t exactly the cookie baking kind of mom. Don’t get me wrong - we always had a lot of fun and sang all of the time and did more than our share of art projects - we were just more a “roll of frozen cookie dough” kind of family.

While EB slept, I got out all of the ingredients and measuring spoons and bowls so that she could sit on the counter and assist in the cooking and I would not have to walk away from her. As soon as she woke up, I made a big deal about how much fun we would have cooking cookies (which prompted a series of requests for “gek gek” - see previous post) and took her to the kitchen and to the counter. I began adding ingredients and letting her stir - we even mixed most of it by crumbling the mixture in our hands, which by the way she loved. We were having a great time and making an innocently fun mess until EB decided to eat the batter by the fistful. At that point I began hurrying through the rest of the preparations to remove the temptation - but there still was the rolling phase (interrupted by a cute little fist) the cookie cutter phase (again, dart of the little fist) then more rolling and cutting (two more fistfuls of dough gone) and on until the last cookie in the pan was a perfect mold of her grubby little hand, which I pried away from the rather large last bite.

Once the cookies were in the oven, EB stood in front of it pointing and emphatically asking for a cookie until she lost interest waiting. I washed dishes, cleaned up the rather large mess, bathed my child, and resolved that my next project would be something that did not tempt my child to consume large uncooked portions of sugary dough.

Of course, had our project been one using clay and paint, would the fistfuls shoved in the mouth still have occurred but with more dire circumstances?

EB has become quite the conversationalist. While she has said and can say many words now, she basically sticks to five or six of them that she says over and over and over. Here is what a typical conversation with her sounds like.
EB - Ow?
Me - you have water. it is right here
EB - Ow?
Me - here is your water
EB - gek gek?
Me - you just had a snack and we are going to eat supper soon - you need to wait
EB - gek gek?
Me - EB, you need to be patient. You can have supper in ten minutes. Go find your stuffed dog.
EB - Ruff Ruff
Me - yes, go find ruff ruff
EB - Ruff Ruff
Me - I don’t know where ruff ruff is, go look in the living room.
EB - Ow?
Me - (ignoring the request for water because she has some) what about your frog? Can you go find your frog?
EB - Ahh Ahhh?
Me - Yes, go find Ahh Ahh.
EB - Ahh Ahh?
Me - Yes, maybe Ahh Ahh is with Ruff Ruff in the living room with Papa. Go find Papa, take your ow with you and maybe he will give you a gek gek.
EB - Papa (pointing to the spot where she last saw Papa)
EB - Ow

Lesson of the day:
Don’t try and reason with an 18 month old. It is frustrating beyond explanation, and her vocabulary just isn’t up to it.

Riding along in the taxi just singing away…

Walking through the mall in Jakarta was painstakingly slow - you can see why from this video.  EB spoke to real people, stuffed animals, mannequins…

Now, we don’t typically just hang out without any clothes on, but EB had had a bath and we were waiting until right before we walked out the door to put on her dress so she didn’t get it dirty.  For some reason, to my silly baby girl, dancing in her diaper is pretty much the funniest thing around…

EB really loves her stuffed animals, and she likes to “walk” them like she has seen people walk real dogs. 

 

EB, as you can see by the video, LOVED the beach!  She was a busy little girl in the sand, and a little fish in the ocean.