No, this isn’t about a cliche pop song. Just documenting the latest news in babyland. Last week, Lennie started saying “bah bah” when looking at pictures of babies (including herself) and at herself in the mirror. She’s definitely attaching the word to babies. Her system’s not foolproof, however. As with Duh-dn-duh (kitty cat), she for a while attached the word to other things as well because she was being validated for saying it. That seems to have leveled off now, and she’s pretty consistent with the usage.

Sunday night, we stopped at Hardee’s while we were out, and she did something close to the “more” sign as we were feeding her little bits of food. To do the sign, you clump the fingers of each hand together and have the fingertips of each hand kiss the fingertips of the other. Her rendition of it is more like pointing into one cupped fist with the other hand, but it’s close enough. At first, she wasn’t very consistent about doing it, but she’s done it more and more since then, and she did it reliably enough tonight at dinner that I’m convinced she knows what she’s doing. She’ll stick a pea in her mouth and do the sign. We’ll put another pea on her tray, she’ll stick it in her mouth, and she’ll do the sign again.

Also, she’s got a soft (as in foam and cloth) block with a duck on one side that quacks when you squeeze it. When she was very young, I’d pretty frequently imitate the tone and rhythm of the sort of nasal, grating quack sound. I’m pretty good at it. I still do it from time to time when we go to look at the ducky shower curtain rings in the guest bathroom, and it often gets a laugh out of her. So today, I squeezed the duck block, and when it was done quacking, she did a pretty darned decent immitation of it, matching the number of quacks (eight) and possibly even trying to match the rhythm and intonation a little (though that could have been coincidence or wishful thinking on my part). At any rate, it’s a pretty cool accomplishment as far as I’m concerned.

Not to be limited to the performing arts, Lennie also tried her hand at the visual arts today. M gave her a crayon, sat down on the floor with her and showed her what to do with the crayon, and she went to town, trying very deliberately to apply the crayon to the paper. Of course, she would have done the same with a block or a stuffed animal or her own finger if prompted, but it’s fun to think there’s something more to it.