Monkeying Around

A few days ago, Hadley and I were engaged in our normal ritual of playing keep away from the fireplace. We do this often. Hadley makes a mad dash for the fireplace and I scoop her up and put her back in the middle of the room with all of her toys. Of course, the fireplace, the one thing in the room I don't want her playing on or near, is the one thing she wants to play on constantly. Go figure.

Well, that day, Hadley kept dashing to the fireplace and pausing as if she was waiting for me to catch up. Instead of picking her up like I normally do, I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her crawling and said "no fireplace." I thought this would elicit a cry, but instead she stared straight forward and started laughing. I took my hand off of her shoulder and she started slowly crawling forward. I put my hand on her shoulder and she laughed again hysterically. We did this several times before it finally dawned on me that she had created a game for us! She was just waiting for me to figure out how to play.

This seems to be a common theme lately. Hadley does something new until Sean and I finally catch on as to what she wants or is trying to communicate. She must think we are so dense. And, most of the time, we are. I'm still so used to thinking of Hadley as my little baby that it catches me by surprise when she does something as intellectually advanced as creating a game-- or eating without blowing food all over the room.

Hadley also has a game for Sean. One night while we were eating dinner at a restaurant, Hadley got bored and cranky halfway through the meal. To try to keep her busy, Sean gave Hadley her pacifier and then popped it back out. Hadley laughed hysterically at this. When Sean gave her the paci back, she immediately spit it out and started squealing. This continued for some time. People two tables over were laughing along with her.

Hadley has also recently decided that jumping in the bed is her all-time favorite activity. When I put her down for her nap, she stands up, holds onto the rails and jumps up and down until I come back to check on her. When I come in the room, she leans down to look at me through the rails and grins with a huge smile that says, "Did you see that???" I have a feeling we'll be telling our little monkey to stop jumping in the bed quite often.