Dear Zoe,
You are 21 months old, and it’s been awhile since I wrote one of these. It’s getting more difficult, because you have changed so much, and at the same time, you’re the same little girl you’ve always been. Your personality hasn’t changed at all, it’s just gotten larger as you learn how to do more and express yourself more clearly.
On Saturday, Zoe had a busy day. It was my dad’s birthday, and there was a family get-together planned at a park in Corvallis. She spent the morning with me while Annie ran errands. Then her cousin Leilani came by with Ryan and Dad to pick up Sean. She was really excited to see Leilani. After Annie got back, we got in the car, and she took a nap on the way to the park, and then played with her older cousins all afternoon. When we got home, she kicked a ball around the backyard with me and Sean before bedtime.
Frequently, while she slowly drifts off to sleep, she will go over her vocabulary. She’ll repeat words she knows or has just learned over and over again, almost chanting to herself. Annie’s gotten used to a bit of random chatter at bedtime, so she didn’t think much about it when Zoe started talking during bedtime that night.
“Papa, Papa?” she said, and Annie nodded and said “Yes, Papa just said night-night to you.” Zoe smiled and went back to nursing.
A minute later she popped back up. “’Lani! ’Lani ’Lani?” Annie said “Yes, we saw Leilani today.”
“Grampa? Ryno?” Zoe continued. “Yes, Grandpa and Uncle Ryan, too.”
Satisfied, Zoe returned to nursing. As she got more sleepy, she talked about the Car (beep-beep!) and Going, and each time Annie smiled and said Yes, and got her to focus on the task at hand again.
But after that, when Zoe started talking about the Ball! and Kicking! and Sean and night-night, Annie realized that she had just recapped her entire day.
Maybe it was just a fluke. As I said, she likes to practice her vocabulary when she’s sleepy, and those are most of the words she knows — but she covered all the major events of the day in chronological order, and I’m inclined to think that she was telling her Momma all about her big day.
Milo and his parents are visiting us this week, so I thought I’d post this video of a game Milo was playing with Dave at the park a few weeks ago. Milo would pick up a handful of bark chips, and then chase Dave around trying to throw them on his shoes. When he threw them, he would walk back to the play structure, get another handful, and start over.
Zoe started walking a few weeks ago. She’d been building up to it for quite awhile, and it’s suprising how quickly it’s become her primary method of getting around. For the first week or so, walking was a novelty — a game she would play with us, or something to make people clap — but as her stability increased, she’s started crawling less and less until now she’s on her feet 90% of the time.
One of the funniest things is that she waited long enough to start walking that she’s very aware of her sense of balance. She doesn’t faceplant very often because most of the time when she walking, if she’s even a little unbalanced, she immediately drops to the floor. She’ll sit there for a second, and then when she feels balanced again, she stands up and goes about her business. So most of our videos of her walking have this funny up-and-down thing going on.
These two videos were taken at the park last week, where she spent her time trucking around following Milo and Oskar, with regular detours back to the picnic blanket to get more chicken from Annie. In the first video, at the end you can hear her ask Annie for “more” and make the sign language gesture for “eat,” and in the second video, as she walks away at the end, you can hear her say “bye-bye” without looking back.
Even though Bill Gates thinks this game is for girls, I enjoy it. Take the best parts of the Sims and Animal Crossing, and throw in a healthy mix of farming, and you’ve got a rough idea of what Viva Piñata is like. I think what I like best is that this is a game that can be enjoyed regardless of how hardcore an experience you’re looking for. If you just want to sit back and watch the grass grow (literally), you can. You also can get all obsessive and micro-manage your way to the cat-show like world of breeding rare piñatas. Another cool feature is the parental co-op mode, where both controllers control a single cursor – something I can see being useful for parents with toddlers who want to play, but don’t necessarily have the fine motor control needed for some operations.