{"id":3704,"date":"2009-05-30T15:46:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-30T22:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=3704"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T05:35:55","slug":"the-latest-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2009\/05\/30\/the-latest-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So many tidbits to share about Bean, who is such a marvelous and interesting little person. Without further ado:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She\u2019s becoming more aware of feeling and articulation and is building a narrative. One say she fell down hard on her back at Little Gym after stepping on a ball. She was uninjured but scared. The next week when the balls were brought out, she started to cry and said, \u201cI\u2019m scared!\u201d and then \u201cI want a hug.\u201d I held her while she watched kids play with the balls. She is also fascinated by trains, but finds them scary. We often visit the train station and watch about four trains come and go. She told her father the story about how their loud screeching brakes frightened her.<\/li>\n<li>Bean also finds certain songs in minor keys that sound mournful to be scary, such as All the Pretty Little Horses, or certain Loreena McKennitt songs. <\/li>\n<li>When she gets mad of late, she often throws down what she is holding \u2013 a book, stuffed animal, crayon \u2013 and announces through tears and wails that she has thrown the item down. Or she spits and then says, \u201cI\u2019m drooooooling!!!!\u201d Or she bangs her head against a wall and cries that she is hurt. It\u2019s so dramatic. It\u2019s so clear that she is angry and the only way she can express it is to throw down something she values or to hurt her self and then cry and exclaim what she did. She also narrates her actions: I\u2019m crying, I\u2019m sad, I\u2019m mad. I think it\u2019s wonderful that she can say these things. I hope she outgrows the self-injury behavior soon, though.<\/li>\n<li>When Bean leaves her music class, she says, \u201cBye-bye, music class.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>We are teaching her the word please. I used to say, \u201cCan you ask for [X] nicely?\u201d And she\u2019d parrot, \u201cNicely.\u201d Then I\u2019d ask her to say please. And now it\u2019s a game. Sometimes I request she ask nicely, and she says \u201cNicely,\u201d and I look at her and say, \u201cNo, come on, what\u2019s the magic word?\u201d To which she replies with a cheesy grin, \u201cPleeeeeeeeease!\u201d Yet she also more frequently uses the word voluntarily when asking for something.<\/li>\n<li>Bean is discovering more of her body. She announces while getting dressed or bathed, \u201cI have nipples!\u201d and touches them. The other day I changed in front of her, and she said, \u201cMommy has nipples. Mommy has owls!! Owls!\u201d I can she how she would think that part of my anatomy looks like owl eyes.<\/li>\n<li>She knows her belly button, and below that are what we call her \u201cgirl parts.\u201d I was changing her diaper, and she reached down with her hand and said, \u201cGirl parts!\u201d I replied, \u201cYes, those are your girl parts.\u201d She exclaimed, \u201cI <em>LOVE<\/em> girl parts!!\u201d Made me laugh. (And yes, I&#8217;m aware this of one of those stories she might cringe over later; I&#8217;m still pondering when I will start restricting these little stories to email.)<\/li>\n<li>She sings a lot: ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Two Little Blackbirds, Ally Galoo and more. I\u2019m amazed with her retention. <\/li>\n<li>The other day after I sang her nap lullabies, Bean said, \u201cThe end,\u201d and kissed me.<\/li>\n<li>Bean has used the potty four times to pee. It\u2019s not something I press, but it\u2019s interesting she is expressing interest.<\/li>\n<li>She nows plays pretend with her toys. She changes Waddles the penguin\u2019s diaper, does nosy-nosy (Eskimo kisses), tickles the toy, asks if he prefers to hear one song or another.<\/li>\n<li>We have had to put the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Story-Babar-Books-Random-House\/dp\/0394805755\">Babar<\/a> book away for now. The first Babar book explains how he came to be alone \u2013 a hunter killed his mother. Until recently it didn\u2019t bother her. Then one morning as Husband read that part, she went ballistic with tears and demanded me. She has been very intensely attached to me more of late. I\u2019m sure she doesn\u2019t understand the concept of killing, but she does grasp Mommy, gone, and sad.<\/li>\n<li>We have a going out ritual that I think helps her deal with separation anxiety. She stands at the top of the stairs and says, \u201cMommy close the door.\u201d I go through the door to the garage to put stuff in the car, and behind me as it closes I hear a wail. I turn around immediately and go back, and she is standing on the top step looking worried and relieved with her arms outstretched. I pick her up and we go to the car. <\/li>\n<li>We take daily walks in the neighborhood and find interesting things to explore. We found an almost whole eggshell that looked as though it had hatched a bird. We&#8217;ve seen snails and explored how their antennae curl up when touched; I picked them up the by the shell so she could see the underside. We sniff flowers (we love jasmine), pick up pine cones, and watch ants. We do the \u201csilly walk\u201d (sort of a goose-step) or walk on tippy-toe. I&#8217;m not self-conscious about being seen doing silly things; I even caught a driver smiling at us.<\/li>\n<li>She\u2019s still fascinated by trucks, and we watch the garbage truck every week. She says she wants to ride in it.<\/li>\n<li>Bean also says some other charming things, or speaks sentences that surprise me, such as:\n<ul>\n<li><em>\u2019Member to look out for cars! Don\u2019t bump cars.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Crayons are fun!<\/em> [sniffs them] <em>They smell good!<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Daddy reading a magazine on the sofa.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>I love [this book, cookies, bubbles].<\/em> (I find it interesting that she has naturally come to use &#8220;I love&#8221; as an expression of enthusiastic endorsement of things she likes.)<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>One of her books features a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kitten-Thought-Mouse-Little-Golden\/dp\/0375848223\">lost kitten adopted by a family of  mice<\/a>. He encounters milk in a saucer, though, and his brother mouse warns him it\u2019s probably poison. He drinks it and says, \u201cMmmmmm! Wonderful stuff!\u201d Bean also says after drinking water, \u201cWonderful stuff!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s another book she loves: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/You-Give-Mouse-Cookie-Give\/dp\/0060245867\">If You Give a Mouse a Cookie<\/a>. If you give a mouse a cookie, he\u2019s going to ask for a glass of milk, then a straw, then a napkin, etc. Well, upon reading this to her the other day, she requested milk in a glass with a straw and drank about three ounces! This is <em>four months<\/em> after we took her bottles away. She has only drunk a sip from a straw and glass since that request, but it\u2019s a start. She did eat half an ounce of smoked mozzarella yesterday, too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bean will be 21 months old in about a week. We&#8217;re having the time of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So many tidbits to share about Bean, who is such a marvelous and interesting little person. Without further ado: She\u2019s becoming more aware of feeling and articulation and is building a narrative. One say she fell down hard on her back at Little Gym after stepping on a ball. She was uninjured but scared. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,34,16,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-motherhood","category-nature","category-recreation"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3704"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13864,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions\/13864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}