"Where'd Daddy go?"

Presenting Jack Dunois, commander of the French forces at Orleans, 1429.

Joan of Arc: "Soldiers always nurse the village babies."
Dunois: "That is true..."

Appearing this weekend at Princeton Theological Seminary. Tickets going fast. Don't miss it.

Styling

Tom recently was told that Edith needs bows in her hair. The likelihood of a bow staying in her short, stick-straight, baby-fine hair is slim to none. But the comment did inspire him to try a little hairstyling. Presenting the first attempt:

These shoes were made for walkin'

Today Edith tried on her Mary Janes for the first time. They complemented the tuxedo pants she wore to a 30th birthday party for our friend Laura. And they must have had some magic in them, because she tried out her bipedal moves at the party.

We've learned that the whole game of identifying babies' firsts is more ambiguous than it would seem. Is a baby's "first word" the first syllable he utters that happens to mean something in English, the first syllable he says deliberately, or the first word he uses repeatedly in the correct context? And when does a baby "start walking"? When she firsts puts one foot in front of the other? When she first does so without holding onto anything? Or when she begins to walk as her preferred method of locomotion? These things really develop gradually, rather than overnight.

Edith has taken unassisted steps several times now, but she still crawls to get where she wants to go--or walks while pushing furniture, or walks while holding onto an adult's fingers, itself a fairly new development. She took those unassisted steps without realizing it: when making for the dog or a ball just out of reach, and when she had hurt herself and wanted mama, a few feet away.

I don't know whether she realized she was walking yesterday at daycare, but her teacher sure was excited. Edith's daily box score from Ms. C exclaimed, complete with multiple smiley faces, "Edith started walking today!" On the back was written, "At noon Edith walks to me! Only six steps but it is a really good start! She is really walking....Have a good weekend with Edith WALKING! Maybe she walks more this weekend!" It's nice that Edith's teachers take as much delight in her milestones as we do.

And Edith did want to practice more this weekend. Today at the party we hit the right combination of factors. Laura and Brian's apartment has an entryway with white tiled linoleum, which seemed an attractive runway. Her Mary Janes, with slightly stiffer soles than her everyday shoes, may have given her steadier balance. An audience of adults sitting around may have inspired her, too. And one of the guests, a soon-to-be-father himself, found just the right touch: Several feet in front of Edith, he dangled a giant blue spider named Lulu. Edith met Lulu at Laura and Brian's house several months ago; maybe she wanted to renew the acquaintance. In any event, Lulu seemed incentive enough for her to make her way about five feet across the linoleum. Several times.

She also found a stepstool just her size and figured out how to kneel on the bottom step and hang over the top step to bat a balloon back and forth with anyone willing. And on playing with several of her hosts' books, she babbled animatedly for the first time as if telling herself a story while turning the pages. She still wasn't looking at the images, but she seemed to know that a stream of specially pitched language accompanies a book.

Meanwhile she continues to perform her four parlor tricks: clapping, patting her head, showing how big she is by reaching her hands over her head, and waving goodbye...all on command. It's thrilling to realize she understands some of the things we say.

This is getting fun.

"Nothing interesting here, Mom"

Edith, who was perusing the newly arrived alumni magazine when I got home from work, tactfully hides the subtitle of the cover article from me.

(It is, it turns out, "Can Mothers Succeed in Academia?")

Lists

(1) New Skills
According to the cognitive science book I read last summer, a child's brain development occurs in sudden bursts, rather than gradually. Tom and I both feel like we've seen such a burst in Edith recently, especially when it comes to playing. New things she has learned to do in the last week include

• Hugging.
• Taking a baseball cap off Mama or Daddy's head and putting it on her own.
• Playing Peekaboo with Paul in Pat the Bunny. I was sitting there a few days ago when she turned to that page and so asked, "Where's Paul?...There he is!" as she lifted the flap. You could see the light dawn, as she made the connection that she could play this game in a book that she knew from real life. Now she finds that page of the book and does it repeatedly by herself.
• Bouncing a ball toward someone, as in a basketball bounce pass.
• Trapping the ball with her arms when the person rolls it back to her.
• Offering an object, smiling when you take it and say "thank you," reaching to have it back, and saying "thank you" in return. (Her version has two clear syllables with an inflection that matches the adult's, but the actual consonants and vowels are admittedly unclear!)
• Strumming her finger over her lips while intoning, to make a funny noise. Tom taught her this and she got it within seconds. Now she does it independently, trying to make people laugh.

She also took a few unassisted steps toward Bismarck on Saturday, although she hasn't repeated the feat since, so it's not really in the category of new skill mastered.

(2) Mandibular Exercises
Edith's jaw strength--or teething pain--also seems to have increased suddenly, judging by the things she has bitten through in the past few days:

• The plastic seal around a new container of veggie puffs.
• The cardboard box containing a new tube of toothpaste. (My little gerbil...)
• A foam bathtoy.
• Her mother.

(3) Cousins

We celebrated another first birthday in the Lank clan this past weekend. The occasion was remarkable for there having been a moment when all five cousins were in the same place, awake, dry, and reasonably happy long enough to have their picture taken together.

Left to right are sister Maggie with brother Santiago, Edith, and brother Matthew with sister Abigail.

The picture taken a moment later was perhaps more revealing of character: The two big sisters turned to rein in their little brothers (who, as far as I can tell, were doing nothing to merit discipline), while Edith sought to rile things up by picking on both her boy cousins at the same time.

Spring!

The best milestone yet: Edith has started hugging. I love it! Nothing like those little arms going around your neck and squeezing.

Spring put in a first appearance here today, and we spent half the afternoon on the playground, in the company of the rest of the neighborhood. Edith is at an in-between stage with respect to playgrounds: too little to run around with the other kids (though she watches them avidly) but no longer among the infants-in-arms hanging out with the chatting grownups. So she cruised around the bottom of the slides, and we went up to the top of one piece of equipment and watched other kids through the bars. The playground seemed to inspire some good walking practice, too. It's covered with woodchips, and she quickly discovered that crawling on woodchips isn't so comfortable on one's palms. So she stayed upright, and without a push walker, decided to hold onto my fingers instead. She was getting close!

Then her buddy Harrison came out to the swings, and they definitely recognized each other. She burst into a grin when we went over to greet him, and he held out his hands, and they proceeded to jabber away at each other.

I'm looking forward to long summer days on the playground.

Double digits

Edith celebrated turning ten months old this past weekend with her Bestemor. I think they had a good time together; I know we enjoyed the visit!

"Can I drive you to lunch, Mor-mor?"

"Just kidding: I don't have a license!"

Edith in the middle of the classic "U-N-C, Go-Heels-Go" chant and arm motions. Bestemor brought Edith a UNC cheerleading outfit, which she wore to help the Tarheels to victory over Duke Saturday night.

Feigning sleep on his bed, Edith pretends she's the dog--the first time we've seen her play any kind pf pretend.