Curiosity and the Wonderland

Little Veda is extremely curious, she keeps watching what we are hiding from her, how we eat and drink. She loves to keep her mouth at the edge of a glass or a cup and pretend to drink. I have offered her sips of milk shakes and tomato juice, my husband offers her buttermilk and tea. Often she picks up an empty glass and just gnaws at the edge. My daughter is extremely independent at meal time, she doesn't like to be fed, she likes to nibble on foods that she eats on her own. More recently we discovered a strong liking for grilled cheese sandwich on wheat toast. I could be wrong but she has enjoyed this on 4 different days.

Yesterday at daycare the kid next to her was eating black beans and Veda grabbed some of them and ate it. I guess she liked the taste and decided she wanted more.. and more. Her teachers tried to distract her, but the only way they could avoid an uncontrollable situation was by moving Veda to a different place. As Veda's mom I am happy that she found something she liked to eat.

The kitchen is a wonderland for my daughter. Till Saturday 3/20/2010, Veda wasn't allowed to crawl in the kitchen. I was out Saturday morning and I return to find my little princess in the kitchen. She even crawled out of the kitchen with a big smile on her face to greet me when I entered our apartment. Almost as if she was saying, "haha what will you do now mom, I can come inside the kitchen". She had taken out her baby spoons the ice cream scoop and some more things and was happily playing on the floor. My husband was making breakfast and supervising her. Since Saturday she has been in the kitchen everyday. Yesterday (03/23/2010) she tried to climb into the dishwasher, after she realized she couldn't do that she took out some dirty spoons and tried to put a clean pan, which she took from a shelf, in! Before that she lifted and/or dragged the pressure cooker with its lid out from the shelf and stared hard into the cooker. Maybe she was wondering why it wasn't whistling away. Between Saturday and Tuesday she has also managed to look into the shelves of the refrigerator, stand up against the cooking range at stare at the oven. On the upside she hasn't figured out how to ( or bothered to) open the cabinets or the refrigerator.

The main attraction in my kitchen remains the microwave. My daughter cheers for the microwave, she will clap her hands when the light is on in the microwave. If she cannot see the microwave, but she hears the microwave go on, she will try to come to a location where she can have a good view of the microwave in action. Sometimes when she cries my husband runs the microwave for a minute just to calm her ( I prefer showing her a mirror)!!

Veda and her friends

Veda was and is an active baby, she burns the calories very fast. She crawls all over the place and cruises around holding onto furniture. Her partner in crime at her daycare is a little boy named Mike. Mike is older than Veda, bigger than Veda and as active as Veda. It is a common sight to see Veda and Mike crawling in circles or Veda Mike and Teddy standing together balancing themselves and jabbering away.

Veda taught Mike her fake laugh. One day Mike's mommy tells me they sync it up and keep laughing. I wasn't sure if she was happy with the fake laugh that Veda had taught Mike or not.

Mid February Katherine, Mike, Teddy and Gracie moved on to the crawler room and Veda was left behind :(. Poor Veda she had two girls for company, Olivia and Madison. They were nice but not as active as the bunch that had moved on. They liked to sit and watch the world go by. Veda continued to crawl around class and amuse herself, picking up her friend's pacifiers when they fell etc. Veda even made friends with a petite girl like herself, but a few months younger. The petite girl's name is Adelaine. Veda offered her friendship by feeding the baby a cheerio. Adelaine is a small baby, two or three months younger than Veda, and she could have choked on the Cheerio. Veda missed her old friends a lot. To make her feel better I started playing crawling and catching with her at home. She even started crying when we left her at daycare. This never happened when her buddies were around.

Finally in the first week of March the day came and Veda was taken to the crawler's room. Her older friends were happy to see her. Katherine said Hi to Veda. Teddy crawled to her, and Mike smothered her with wet sloppy kisses. Things were looking up in Veda's world. She was going to be back with her buddies and they would have good times together, playing crawling and catching, jamming oh what the heck she would even eat if all the kids were going to.

... on a different note maybe Adelaine will miss Veda and look towards joining her in the new class.