In the last couple of months, Kaia’s hair has gotten noticeably longer to the point where I can’t just part it out of her face with the usual side part. I have to either clip it back or tie it up. While she easily tolerated hair clips from around seven months through 12 months, since we’ve come back from the Southern Hemisphere, she will not wear them at all. She will insist on pulling them out, throwing them, and chewing on them. And of course, this gives our nanny anxiety because she knows that I will be checking at the end of each day to see if any hair clips are missing (they were quite pricey for what they are, given they were handmade and meant specifically for fine baby/toddler hair). So because of this, she just won’t take them out of the apartment. 😀

So I started rummaging through my random hair accessories, including complimentary things I’d been collecting from different hotel stays, and I actually did find a couple of baby-sized hair ties that would be appropriate for her hair length and texture. I started tying her hair up, and for the most part, she’s accepted this. After a rough few days of not understanding why I had to comb and tie her hair up, now, Kaia patiently sits there each morning as I comb and style her hair. This morning, I tied her hair up in two little pony tails. The nanny said that some of her “friends” at the library, including a boy of a similar age who lives in our building, saw her, and then proceeded to attempt pulling her ponytails.

“That was inevitable,” my nanny said, rolled her eyes. “Boys always want to pull girls’ hair!”

I’ve asked our nanny to do more educational activities with Kaia since we came back from Australia, things like coloring, writing, identifying colors, shapes, body parts; counting, the alphabet. Kaia has a puzzle of her own name on it that was gifted for her birthday by a friend. And so our nanny has been using our play mat and the puzzle to teach her the alphabet, while also doing exercises on identifying her eyes, nose, mouth, and other body parts. Now, when our nanny asks Kaia where her “eyes” are, though, Kaia confuses this and thinks her “eyes” are the “i” in the name puzzle! At first, I didn’t quite get it, but then I realized that her name puzzle has an “i” in it for her name, and then I got the connection and confusion. It’s always interesting to look at these learning moments from a baby’s developing view. She actually isn’t totally “wrong,” but we just need to see it from her perspective.

On the weekends, when we feed Kaia all her meals, I usually sit with her at each meal to coach her, encourage her to eat new foods, and well, ensure she isn’t in danger (of choking). Chris occasionally does this, but he tends to get impatient, multitasks while watching Family Guy, and doesn’t do it as well as I do. Plus, I enjoy sitting with her and helping her eat more; I find this a very gratifying activity, assuming I’m not doing every single meal, every single day for her. It’s been rewarding to see her immense growth in eating solids via baby led weaning from six months through today. Her eating skills today are because of all the time and hard work I invested since she turned six months old and had her first avocado and mango, from coaching her, modeling chewing and spitting, cooking and preparing and cutting all her food in specific ways, etc. These are actual real life results in action NOW. Little else has had immediate reward for me as this has. That’s eight months of coaching and teaching her how to eat, bite, chew, rip, and tear, plus navigate the “map” of her mouth. She’s quite sophisticated for her age, as she needs very little supervision to eat everyday foods. I’m not that comfortable giving her things like whole grapes or cherry tomatoes just yet, but we’re quite close to getting there.

One thing Chris never thought he’d do as a parent was to hide while eating his noodles. If Kaia sees us eating fruit, noodles, or bread (her favorite things) and she hasn’t had her own portion yet, she will go crazy and start yelling for what we’re eating, so we have to hide while eating these things unless we’re eating them at the same time. We always prioritize vegetables and new foods first for her before meat or carbs to ensure she gets adequate vegetables and new food exposure, so if she’s having something like fish, chicken, or noodles, she tends to have these last (well, very last is fruit as her “dessert”). This usually means that I have to squat while eating toast, or Chris has to carry his bowl of noodles high above his head and sneak past her and eat out of her view. It’s why we face her high chair towards the bedroom so she needs to really, really turn to try to see what Chris is eating while she eats. It’s pretty hilarious… especially when Kaia is astute enough to catch him eating noodles or toast without her.

In just the last two days, Kaia has gone from walking hesitantly with us guiding her to wanting to walk with her walker literally everywhere. On Thursday, when she was in another kid’s play room, every time she saw a walker, she would charge over and take over it, walking everywhere she could. All she seems to want to do now is walk back and forth with it in our apartment. And while she struggled and didn’t quite know how to turn with it, once she figured it out within a day of us showing her how to turn, she started getting the hang of it. Now, she’s turning pretty effortlessly and walking faster and faster. I wonder when she’s actually going to let go of the walker completely and just run!

It’s been very gratifying to see her development every day, but it’s always so cute when the development seems to come in these huge bursts, seemingly overnight. She’s eager to take over this entire apartment, so it will be interesting to see her once she’s confident enough to let go and actually take her first independent steps, fully on her own.