In the past several days, for the first time, Ella has been walking without a specific destination in mind. Before now there was always something at the end — one of us, the couch, a wall, or something else she could brace herself against. The distance couldn’t be more than four or five steps plus a lunge to reach her target. And she still moves that way a lot of the time. But she’ll also just _walk_, out into the center of the room. She seems to realize that it’s only a matter of time before she falls, so these walks are always bobbling, high-speed affairs — her legs working furiously while her head bobs side to side as she giggles. They usually end up with her in a heap on the floor, but she’s cool with that.
Having Ella turn one year old has made me mindful of the fact that she’s with us not just for the new few months, not just until the next milestone, but for a length of time we can’t see to the end of. It’s like tottering out into the middle of the room, trying to keep focused on the next step, knowing you’re probably going to fall eventually, but enjoying it all nonetheless. It’s not actually all that hard to believe a whole year has passed — she’s been changing so rapidly, especially recently, that she seems very distant from the helpless bundle we took home with us last December.
It’s always hard to know which things I observe about Ella are universal to babies, and which things are particularly hers. The one thing that strangers always say when they see her in public places is “What a _mellow_ baby!” And I think they’re noticing something that _is_ particular to her, but “mellow” isn’t quite the word for it. She’s perfectly energetic, even loopy at times, but, as she always has, she reserves her extremes of behavior for the comfort of home. When she seems mellow, it’s because when there’s something new to see, she just _watches_. I’m reminded of the “picture of her grandparents”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella21.jpg trying to gauge her focusing skills when she was a week old. They were convinced that she was exhibiting tracking behavior that was far advanced for her age. Whatever the case, she’s always been observant, and always content to watch, to let something soak in, before she chooses to respond.
It’s becoming more clear as she gets older that comfortable places are very important to her. She’ll be fine in a strange place — as long as one of us is nearby. But she’ll tolerate much, much more in the way of other people holding her and interacting with her if she’s on familiar turf. That turf obviously includes home, but also includes places like the coffee shop, where she’ll explore from chair to chair as if she owns the place.
At one year, the floodgate opens in terms of allowable food for babies — most of the stuff they say not to give them for allergy reasons, like eggs or peanuts, become fair game. In many cases we jumped the gun by a few weeks, so that right now Ella will usually try at least some of whatever we’re eating at meals. The constraint here isn’t ingredients, but teeth — there’s a third one starting to poke through on the bottom, and plenty of teething activity to suggest that more are on the way, but still basically just those two. She’s very good about chewing things and not trying to just gulp them down, so we’ve been able to give her bigger and bigger pieces to contend with. Many of the veggies that she’s been fine with as baby food, she now rejects in their natural form, including green beans, peas, and carrots. She loves working over half a slice of bread for ten minutes or so. She’ll still eat baby food and oatmeal and the like, but if there’s something else that we’re eating, or that’s visible to her, eating _that_ becomes her overriding priority. In order to get her to eat her oatmeal-and-mashed-vegetables lunch today, I had to put the croutons for my soup back in the cupboard.
We took her to the aquarium in Baltimore for her birthday. She’s still small enough to fit into the Baby Bjorn — barely — so she could see all the tanks easily. I figured she’d last half an hour or so, but she remained riveted for an hour and a half. She loved the big stingray pool and the dolphin show the best. She was surprisingly laid back about her first encounter with sharks. Overall, though, it made clear that she’s distinguishing between all sorts of things, and a trip to the grocery store is no longer functionally equivalent to a trip to the zoo. The fact that she’s a little harder to entertain is easily offset by the joy of seeing her recognize and interact with more and more things in the world.
She still wakes up occasionally in the night, and is a little harder to get back down when she does — on balance she’s less interested in sleeping in her bouncy chair. She will always sleep soundly when she’s in bed with one or both of us, but that’s not a habit we want to encourage, so it remains a tactic of last resort. And as for naps — a couple a day remain the norm. They’ll be on the long side (over an hour) only if she woke up a lot the night before. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that she’s never going to be a big napper.
She doesn’t say anything that’d count as a word yet, but babbles a little more often, even around strangers, and has a few specific, recognizable sounds. “Da Da Da” is common and seems to come up in a variety of situations. When she sees something that intrigues her, “Oh!” is less common than a wheezy intake of breath that’s very cute when you know what it means but sounds at first like the dying breath of a lifetime smoker.
The general tone of this site notwithstanding, there are frustrations in dealing with Ella. Lately she’s developed a propensity for melting down when denied even the simplest desire. Earlier today, she started crying when I wouldn’t let her tear my glasses from my face, and when it became clear that she wasn’t going to get them, she slid over to the end of the futon and yanked the protective padding off the sharp corner of the arm (looking straight at me the whole time). That’s something else she knows I disapprove of — she was deliberately pushing my buttons, testing her boundaries. She has always been stubborn in a charming way, but it’s clear that the other kind will continue to be a challenge.
Also earlier today, though, I was playing monster with her. I crawl around on all four and chase her down making roaring noises. Except it’s not really a chase, because as soon as I rumble and start lurching forward she shrieks with delight and heads right for me. Much tickling ensues. After a few minutes of this I was resting on the floor, and from a distance she started making these weird shouting/hooting type noises I’d never heard from her before. She toddled over to me and started trying to head-butt me (!), then tried to bite my nose, all the while hollering. Then I realized it: _she_ was being the monster now.
Sudden moments of delight like that are the best part of being Ella’s father, an honor I hope to be worthy of for many more years to come.
