Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

Maeve’s mental progress has proceeded a pace these last few weeks and she is definitely pushing the boundaries to find out what is right and gets a good response and what gets her scolded. For a while now she has developed this knack of saying the appropriate “yes” or “no” answer to simple questions we ask; You know the kind of question “are you hungry”, “do you want to go to bed”, “Was George Bush a good president” (no was her answer). But we never really knew if she understood the question – or understand the English language at all!!!

This weekend she did a couple of things that prove that her mind is associating words with concepts and actions and also being proactive in show us slow parents what she needs. The first illustration is from my wife who said on Saturday “did you know I was sitting on the sofa when Maeve came into the room with a nappy bag in one hand (to contain soiled nappies) and a nappy in the other!! I said ‘do you want your nappy changed’ and Maeve said ‘yes’ and went and lied down on the changing mat” – Maeve has never carried shown us before she needs her nappy changing other than by crying or becoming grumpy before. But she has often seen us get a nappy and a nappy bag from the changing kit before undertaking a nappy change.

The other story is my own. I was getting some food for breakfast for Maeve consisting of a pot of Yogurt after she had polished off half my bowl of Rice-Crispies. I gave her the spoon and off we went to the sofa. Along the way Maeve got distracted and started playing with some of her toys. Five minutes latter she comes up to me a says “mmmmmmm” by which she means “feed me”; But by this point she has lost the spoon. Showing Maeve the pot I said “Maeve get me the spoon” – upon which she promptly turned around and went over to the area where she was playing and retrieved the discarded spoon.

They say a babies mind is a sponge for new knowledge – that I think is an understatement.

Went food shopping in the local supermarket in Donabate and I took along my 16 month old daughter Maeve. When we arrived at the carpark I took Maeve out of her baby saftey seat grabbed the shopping bag (a heavy canvas looking plastic bag); At this point Maeve grabbed the bag wanting to carry it – dispite the fact the bag is almost as tall as she is. So there we were walking around the supermarket – me a step in front, Maeve trailing a couple of steps behing dragging tge shopping bag garning “isn’t she cute” comments from people as we went around.

When we got to the tills at the end, unprompted she handed my the bag and then put out her arms which her way of saying “pick me up”. I picked her up and placed her sitting on the area when the good collect after they have been scanned along with the plastic bag. You can imaging my surprise to see Maeve get up and drop (rather than put) the various food items in the bag; Good girl, and she is obviously a quick learner.
The funny thing was once I paid and put the bag and the baby on the ground Maeve would not allow me to pick up the bag (which was quite heavy); Instead, trying to drag it along  herself. I was amazed that she managed to drag the heavy bag some 6 feet before finally allowing me to carry it for her.

Good girl likes helping daddy.