My Little Zoe Deschenel (She's a Quirky Girl)

A series of random anecdotes about my daughter so that I'll never forget them.


1. Point and Respond

For a long time now River will be nursing and she'll point to my nose, or her nose, or head, or ear, or cheek, etc. etc and I'll tell her what it is. It goes something like nose nose nose nose ear ear head hair nose ear nose nose nose nose nose honk honk beep beep nose nose nose ear head head head head hair ear mommy's nose mommy's head, etc. and on like that for a few minutes.

She expanded this game to lots of other times and lots of other things. About a week ago we were in our doorway where we have a bunch of trinkets. It went something like this:

turtle, cassia, terra, turtle, jesus, jesus, cassia, turtle, bear, jesus, kawati, terra, turtle, turtle, turtle.
By the end she was saying Dzebus.


2. Where is it?

River has either body language symbols or a sound effect for pretty much everything we see interact with on a daily basis. So for where-is-it? she will put her hands into the where-is-it position, shrug her shoulders, give a blank face, shake her head no, and say uh? uh?

We were nursing one day and I said "where are your hands?" She showed me the hand that was in front of us...then she gave me the where-is-it moves. I said, "I don't know, where is it?" Then out of nowhere her other hand comes shooting up through my armpit from behind us and she just nods her head. "Oh there it is!"


3. Sleep talking.

A lot of times River will "talk" in her sleep. And many of these times it's just a bunch of babbling. Once, I put laid her in the bed and she stretches a little and starts saying in a very whispery voice, "toes toes toes."


4. Where did you put it?

I came home from work one day and Chris likes to clean up a bit so that he has help watching the girl. At some point he realizes he can't find the tv remote. He looks at River and says "where did you put the remote?" River gets off the couch and onto all fours to look under the coffee table. Chris turns to me and says, "this happens a lot."


5. Chores.

Less of an anecdote, more of a reminder to myself. River often helps out with anything going on. There are very few times that she simply refuses to respond to you at all. However, she pretty much never responds to her name. I could say "give this to daddy," "put this in the trash can," "pick this up and give it to mommy," "gentle," "oopsy, let's clean this up" and she'll help by giving it to daddy, putting it in the trash can, picking up what was dumped, be gentle with the dog or the breakable thing, or stand on the towel to clean up spilled liquid. Yesterday she wanted to hold the trash on the way out to the garbage can. It was too heavy for her but I appreciated the effort.

6. Generalizing rules.

Sometimes we will put a little bit of hand sanitizer on River's hands and she has learned that you rub your hands together and then blow on them so they dry. We were in the shower and I squirted some soap into her hand. She proceeded to rub them together and blow on them.


7. River has been blowing on her food since well before she was one. I don't know what happened but she must have gotten some food at some point that was too hot. I make sure to test it, but something must have gotten away once because she is religious about blowing on a wide variety of temperatures. Just to make sure.

I know it was before she was one because this is how I knew she may be able to be taught to blow out a candle. A month before her birthday I lit a couple of big scented candles and told her to blow on them because they were hot. When they were far away from her face she would blow toward the candle. However, every time the candle got within reaching distance she would open her mouth to eat it or try to touch the flame. I tried a couple more times after that to the same avail.

On the day of her birthday we lit her candles and started singing happy birthday. She got so wide eyed and looked around as if surprised that this was all for her. When we were done I said "Okay, blow out your candle!"

She started making these little puffy noises like she was saying the letter f, but the cake was too far away. I pulled it closer and closer until POOF! Out went the candle. There was this gasp from everyone, myself included. She blew out her candle! I must say, I thought that she would just try and eat the cake. That, however, she did not want to eat. She did not eat much cake on her birthday.

8. Hide in the tall grass.

This was a game Chris made up when she was very small and wasn't super mobile. He would hold her up behind the couch and pretend she was a "prairie puppy." Then he'd say "hide in the tall grass" and hide her behind the couch. "Look for lions" and she'd pop right back up again. They would do this for a couple of minutes, River bobbing up and down behind the couch hiding in the tall grass and then popping up to look for lions.

They have played this game off and on since then. A couple of weeks ago we were in the garden and Chris brings River over to some tall grass and says "quick! hide in the tall grass!" Sure enough, down she goes into a squat position behind the tall grass. She looked pretty pleased with herself as we clapped for her and laughed. "Pop up and look for lions!" Apparently she remembers this game because up she came! I guess we never have to worry about our baby being eaten by lions.

9. Jumping Practice.

Video to come.