Very Sad Hand

A few days after Leah's birthday, she burned her hand. Doesn't the picture just make you feel her pain? Now, the blisters have been replaced with new pink skin. Since you are all wondering, she got her hand on the toaster oven door. We kept her hand in a mitten to keep her from picking/gnawing at her gauze wrapping, and to protect it from infection from anything she might decide to touch. Surprisingly, she kept it on really well. She just learned to be a lefty for a while. When all of her mittens ended up in the laundry, we improvised by putting a clean sock on her hand. The socks stayed on her hand even better than the mittens. It's is so much better now. We took off the bandages a little over a week after it happened.

On a happier note, Leah has a few cute new talents:

She picks up little objects and throws them in the trash. All by herself.  The first time I saw her do it, it was a piece of string she found on the carpet. Now, after eating in her chair, she'll pick up the cheerios/peas/cheese/bread (whatever she ate) and take them to the trash one-by-one. Usually I bust out the dust pan and mini-broom, but I let her do it her way instead. Where did she get this little obsession?! Monkey-see monkey-do, I guess. I prefer to believe she's an intrinsically clean person. It sure would make my life easier when she's older.  Only time will tell.

Since the last post, Leah has started to communicate a lot more. In addition to signing for "more," she knows "help," "hungry," and "thirsty." Granted, she gets confused about when to use which word, and if you don't give her what she wants fast enough she tries all of them. But still, I'm pretty impressed. 

She walks around with her hands clasped behind her back sometimes.  I don't know why she does it, but it's really cute.

Leah understands what I'm saying sometimes.  The words I'm sure she understands are: ball, diaper, bathroom, laundryroom, vacuum, trash, thirsty, hungry, shoe, cheese, pants, sleepy, bear (her stuffed one), outside, sippy cup, sit down, and bath time.  There are probably others that I can't think of right now.  And there are probably word I don't realize she understands also.  Oddly enough, I'm not convinced she knows the words "mom" or "dad."

She knows where her belly button, head, nose, and ears are. But she gets them mixed up sometimes. And she tends to grab my nose instead of her own.  It makes me scared to teach her "eye."

She loves to take objects out of containers.  Emptying the diaper bag, a bin of toys, finger foods in a bowl, the desk drawers.  You name it, and she'll empty it.  She'll even put things back in occasionally though she often needs encouragement for that.

She's a social player.  She doesn't like to just sit and play with toys herself.  She either wants to sit on my lap or next to me while she plays with something. It would be nice if she didn't want my attention all the time.