Scientific Experiments and Other Milestones

Cecilia conducted an experiment the other day focusing on sound and matter. Her intention was to find out what different sounds could be made by striking various materials against each other. Her primary focus was hard plastic, particularly, this yellow spoon. It was concluded that plastic makes a dull thud against carpet, a slight dinging sound against metal vents, and, most pleasing to the ten-month old ear, a sharp whacking sound against glass (less so against wood).

It was also concluded that the spoon was lightweight enough to be transported both via hand and mouth while crawling. The spoon traveled an approximate distance of 25 feet during the duration of this experiment. Ease of travel was slightly more favorable on kitchen flooring than carpet.

Stay tuned for more scientific processes with our little engineer.

In other news, Cecilia has suddenly hit a bunch of interesting milestones. She has begun to wave now when waved at (thanks for teaching me, cousin Andrew!). She carries things around in her mouth while crawling, as she has found this is less cumbersome overall than holding items while trying to crawl.

Over Thanksgiving, she learned to crawl up stairs. We don't have stairs, except for one step down into our sunroom which she's already mastered (going up, not down - down is still a potential recipe for disaster). So the stairs at her grandparents' house presented her with a new learning opportunity. At first she had no interest - she would pull up on a stair and then try to sit back down - not good. On about the third or fourth time we sat her down on a lower step, she crawled all the way up! She seemed quite pleased with herself, and once I even caught her on the fourth step up when I thought she was just behind the couch - oops. Glad she had the momentum and had not stopped to sit down and topple backwards down the stairs.


And yesterday, she climbed to new heights - quite literally. She was found on hands and knees in a small chair. Then she stood up in the chair, holding on. Then she fell out of the chair immediately following this picture. Tears were shed, nursing was had, and all was well again. She tried again today to climb into another small chair, although it was slightly higher and she could not do it. This won't be a skill I plan to be particularly encouraging of at this time. Maybe when she's walking we will work on getting into and out of chairs. Oh, and we think she is saying "baby" ("bababababa") about caroline's baby dolls. It's hard to be sure at this point, though.

It's such fun to watch them achieve new feats!!