Shaking her head
A couple weeks ago, Sydney started shaking her head no. Actually it's more like a wobbly head shake with a side to side motion in addition to the typical "no" rotation. ...and sometimes she crosses her eyes and grins when she does it. We're not really sure if she understands that it means "no" or if she just knows when it seems appropriate to do it.
For instance, when my parents were visiting last week, my mom said "I can't fool you can I?" and Sydney looked at her and shook her head. Very very cute. (This happened when Sydney dropped a cracker and mom tried to give her another one as a substitute saying that she found the one Sydney was looking for.) Clearly Sydney knows what she's saying right?
Well maybe not. Sometimes we say, "do you want some milk" and hold up her sippy cup. She shakes her head "no" and then puts her mouth on the spout of the cup to take a drink.
Of course previously she's pushed it away once before turning and taking a drink so perhaps it's just a timing thing. Who knows.Threshold between the kitchen and living room
There was a time not so long ago when Sydney couldn't sit up very well and fell over a lot. Then she started doing some slow and awkward crawling but getting around a little. Still she was falling over some. I was always pretty distressed over the falling over from a sitting position. Apparently Sydney did too.
The worst spot in our house was the threshold between the kitchen and the living room which is perhaps a 1-1/2" to 2" step down. Sydney would play one either side of it, take a really long time attempting to traverse it, and often wiped out and fell over at that point. This was a multiple times a day thing.
Today Sydney is running around like a crazy person however she still remembers that threshold and the majority of the time she won't walk back into the living room from the kitchen without stopping at it. Sometimes she holds onto the wall to step down. Sometimes she sits down and crawls over it. Other times she just stands there for a long time before doing either. More sadly, there are times when she's tired that she'll stand there and either whine or cry until you go pick her up and put her down on the other side of it.
The silly thing is that there is an identical threshold between the kitchen and computer room which she has no problem with and when she gets really excited she can go between the kitchen and living room quickly without even thinking about it.
Whether sad or amusing, the other day after so carefully working her way over the threshold into the living room she took off at a fast walk and tripped over the rug one foot away from the threshold.
Shyness
Sydney is very shy, especially around strangers, and really even around anyone she doesn't see daily.
At thanksgiving, she spent much of the time laying in Meghan's lap like a limp rag doll.
When my parents came up to visit last week, things didn't start off real well. They got here while Sydney was asleep. When she woke up, she made some noise so I went and got her and then carried her out to the living room. She was probably half awake. When she saw my mom and dad, she started crying. In fact she pretty much wasn't willing to be in the living room for quite awhile. Meghan ended up doing something with her in the bedroom for awhile.
Later after we brought her out to the living room, she crawled into the corner between the TV and the wall, put her back to the wall (facing the room), and started banging the back of her head against the wall. I went over, sat down beside her, and asked her why we were being silly. Slowly, she got over it and started playing with her zebra (thing she rides).
A little later one we needed to take Meghan to the airport so I took Sydney into the bedroom and explained to her that I was taking Meghan to the airport and would be back in 40 minutes. During that time she would be playing with Nanna and Papaw. I looked her in the eye and re-iterated that I would be back in 40 minutes and that everything would be ok. From there, I carried her back out into the living room, explained to my parents the conversation I had just had with Sydney, handed her to my mom, and Meghan and I went to the airport. She looked at my mom with an expression acknowledging what I had said. Surprisingly, from that point on she made up with my parents completely and was reaching for them to be picked up for the rest of the week.
Understanding
That last story brings me to another topic that has us pretty amazed. That would be Sydney's understanding of what we tell her. When she's calm and not over tired, she really seems to understand a lot.
For instance, Meghan said, "your feet are cold, we should put some socks on you", and Sydney walked off and brought Meghan her socks and shoes.
Sydney understands the word "no" and understands that she can touch the pretty Christmas tree ornaments with one finger but can't take them off. ...and she abides by this.
When we say "it's time for bed", Sydney often gets up and walks into her room.