Cruising the Furniture Beats Cruising Bars

Well, Baby Brigid has learned a few new tricks that she has been happy to repeat like the trained monkey she is. Over the last week, she began saying bah bah bah bah bah indiscriminately and over the weekend added mah mah mah mah mah as well, so her vocabularly is now: Bah Bah Bah mah mah mah, blah blah and an occasional dah dah dah but not very often. Interspersed between the consonant-vowel combination she ga-gas and coos and generally melts our hearts with her babbling and squealing. The other new tricks she learned over the weekend involve smacking her lips like kissing and snuffling her nose, making sniffing sounds. It cracks me up, which makes her do it even more.

Brigid's pulling up to her feet has now evolved into tentative steps of crusing the furniture. Yesterday, she was moving her hands to the side, then one foot slowly moved to her right, then the left followed, her hands slid sideways, then her right foot, left foot and so on for about three feet. She seemed to grasp the significance of the development because she squealed with delight and bounced up and down for a minute, then continued the move until she must have had enough. She slowly squatted down and sat down. That lasted for 30 seconds because she was on her feet again immediately. She knows what those things at the end of her legs are for, aside from grabbng and eating when she is either nursing or being changed.

The girls spent the weekend at the lake with Grandma and Granddad Downs and had some glorious fall weather in which to play and ride. Jack and I went up with the baby on Monday to spend the afternoon and have dinner before gathering up the girls' things and heading back home. They had yesterday and today off for the Columbus Day/superintendent's day holiday. Before we arrived Monday afternoon, Grandma had introduced trespassing to the girls, having taken them on a reconnaissance mission to Camp Chateaugay, which is closed for the season. They spent the afternoon peeking into windows and inspecting the grounds, unaware that workmen were there and watching them. But the workmen were good-nautred and told them to have fun. That took the fun out of the whole felonious activity so they came back home. The girls then went on a ride with Daddy, and then Daddy, Margaret and I went on a ride. It was fun and quite lovely. Meanwhile, Grandma was left at the camp to mind Brigid. The two were none the worse for wear when we returned. A great Granddad dinner followed and then we were off back to Plattsburgh.

Brigid had a relatively placid evening, nursing and sleeping through most of it and she slept fairly welll throughout the night, waking briefly a few times to nurse and then fling herself back onto her back asleep again. She was very good natured when I left for work this morning. I hope the trend continues. Jack was going to take the girls out geocaching. We'll see if they manage their goal.