She's Quick as a Cricket!

Here is Birdie before dinner tonight with her two favorite toys of the moment: the cube shape sorter and the cause-and-effect pop-y-up-y-animal-thing-y. (Joe was also a fan of the former, but not so much the later.) Clara has long been able to sort her a shape, and has even caught on to the difference between the half circle and the crescent. Tonight was the first time she attempted to turn the cube when her piece didn't work in any of the opening on the side facing her. (Usually, Julie does that part.) Birdie didn't actually find what she was looking for yet, though. This morning, she was playing with the cause-and-effect toy, and in another first, was able to make one of the animals pop up by manipulating its switch effectively. It was the latch one has to turn, but she also then banged out the latch that one just--bangs, actually--down (fourth and third from the left, respectively, in the picture above).

So she's really piecing it all together lately! Also of late, she's been fond of Quick As a Cricket (a book Julie still thinks of as Quick Is Like a Cricket, as Joe used to call it). Julie has noticed that Clara mimics a lot of Julie's motions--small as an ant, large as a whale, quit as a clam, shy as a shrimp, tough as a rhino. . .If you listen, you can hear her trying to babble some of the words, too.