Morgan Dahl

Thanksgiving at Outer Banks

We rented a house in the Outer Banks for Thanksgiving and invited the whole family. It was the first time all of Morgan’s grandparents and aunts and uncles were together in one place with her.

First unknown babysitter

Though we’ve been out without Morgan quite a bit, and even spent a few weekends away with someone else watching her, her babysitters have all been relatives.

On Tuesday we had a Georgetown student come over and watch her for the evening while we went out. Not much to report — she came over about an hour before Morgan’s bedtime to meet everyone and hang out for a while, then Morgan slept through the entire time Molly and I were away.

Morgan digs music

You kind of have to pay attention to catch some of these.

The lighting in her room is, as usual, subpar.

• she claps to B-I-N-G-O
• goes silly when so instructed
• cheers for the end of songs
• makes wheels go round and round and even shouts out a word or two
• claps, her face surely shows it, stomps, and shouts hooray as appropriate

Stringing together two words

Morgan has started trying to put together words. Yesterday she was climbing up on this box (repeatedly) and wanted help getting down (repeatedly). After a couple of times through, she pretty reliably started saying ‘down please.’

A few photos

While Morgan continues to change rapidly in terms of cognitive development, it’s become quite a bit harder to capture interesting “firsts” on video.

Here are a few interesting photos, though.

Morgan watching the Viking-Packers game with Jim (sports are the only time she gets to be in the room with a t.v.), going for a walk on a nice Fall day, and Morgan’s first ride in the convertible with the top down!

Morgan helping with laundry

I was starting a load of laundry the other day.  I opened the door to the laundry closet, started the water in the washer and was pouring in the soap.  I then looked around for Morgan.  She had gone to her room, pulled out her hamper, and was standing there looking at me (and talking) with dirty clothes in hand.  Very sweet.

All sorts of new stuff going on!

Morgan has figured out how to get her play house to sign Itsy-Bitsy Spider on command. (Every other time you drop a ball in the water spout, Itsy-Bitsy Spider plays.)  I learned two things by watching her do this.  One, she knows the hand motions to Itsy-Bitsy Spider and, two, she knows sign language.  She was making a very intentional motion with her hand when there was no music playing so I asked at daycare.  They have been teaching her sign language.  She particularly likes to use “more” (which is what I was seeing with Itsy-Bitsy Spider) and “all done.”  Jim had initially interpreted the “all done” after meals as an attempt to high-five with both hands.

I tried to get the Itsy-Bitsy spider on video a couple of weeks ago, but she became too interested in knocking over the camera.  We’ll try again soon.  She doesn’t have the finger dexterity to do the ‘climbing up the water spout’ bit, but if you know the song, you can see that she’s trying.  And she loves to watch other people do it.

She has started using bye-bye properly and without prompting.  We think the first instance of this was Thursday a week ago, as Jim and I were leaving her with Grandma and Grandpa Wetzel to attend a wedding in Charlotte.  I was holding her and Jim put on his coat.  She promptly said ‘bye-bye.’  I don’t think she quite realized that Jim and I were leaving and she was staying with Grandma and Grandpa, but from all accounts, everyone had a great time.

She has started helping out around the house.  If you ask her to, she’ll push her chair up against the wall (where we keep it when she isn’t in it) after meals.  She’ll also pull it out and say ‘up, up’ if she’s hungry.

With the forward facing car seat, car rides home from work have gotten a lot easier.  She’ll eat her snack for awhile (usually Goldfish), follow that up with some water and then happily watch traffic go by or flip through a book(!) for the rest of the ride.

She’s learning to say new words.  She knows dogs say ‘woof.’ And she knows ‘Da.’ And she knows ‘push.’  (As in push in the chair, push the elevator button, push the start button on the microwave, push the start button on the dryer…she’s a very big helper.)

She has also learned Row, Row, Row Your Boat at school.  She gets pretty animated with it, so you have to be on your toes.  She rocks back and forth pretty hard.  And she knows some of the motions to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  And she has started walking up and down stairs (as opposed to crawling) while holding onto your hand (or if there is a low enough railing, a railing).

Finally, she is still working on Mommy.  I think she knows it but she also says “mine, mine” a lot, which sounds a lot like ma-ma.  Very tough to distinguish, so I’m not yet calling Mommy a word.  One day though…

Sorry for the data dump of sorts, it’s been awhile since I posted anything and she changes so quickly!