childproofing defeated

So, Thursday 29 November I go into the kitchen to see if we had marmalade, or if I needed to add it to my shopping list. I was in there less than a minute. I hear a squeal from the dining room that sounds a little too happy. I come back in and Peter is in the middle of the dining room table eating the salt. I'd never seen him climb before and instantly he is an expert.

Monday 3 December, I slammed the index finger of my dominant hand in the car door rendering it useless for a week. Wouldn't you know it? Peter proceeds to defeat almost every bit of baby proofing we've done that week. He easily climbs the barrier to get to the stairs. He climbs my accordion to get onto a side table that has an interesting antique lamp. And he's figured out how to pull climbable things over to unclimbable things so he can reach them.

Fortunately, he's pretty good at climbing down stairs and tall objects and he seems to remember which things I've told him are hot -- but still, he really can't be left alone now. And he's so fast. The same week as the salt incident he ran away from me at the pool and almost jumped into the deep end before I could get there.

He's starting to really get into books now. He really listens and signs all the words that he knows and asks about pictures of things that he doesn't know the words for. Hours of fun. Last week he asked me to read "Goodnight Moon" to him in the middle of the day. When we got to the part where you start to say goodnight to everything he started crying. He was inconsolable until I made it clear that he didn't really have to go to bed.

He's signing all the time now. He signs to ask for what he wants, when he sees an object he recognizes in real life or in a picture, and also when he hears a word he knows either in conversation or in a song. Chris and I were making a curry and looking for fish sauce at our local grocery. Peter starts signing "Fish" just to be part of the conversation. We like to watch Northern Exposure, which has a moose in the credits. Peter will start signing "Moose" now during the opening scene-- before the music has even started to let us know that he knows there is going to be a moose.

He's extremely verbal now. He'll make long streams of sounds-- like sentences. Sometimes the sounds sound like words. Sometime they don't. He is very good at imitating the musicality and flow of the way he hears people talk. It's very disconcerting to hear how he hears me and to see my gestural life mimicked.