She did it today! Twice she pointed to her foot. And yes, she was wearing socks. Okay, I will most likely end this story to this saga today.
Archive for April, 2006
Wanna get Jubilee to clap? Just say, “Yay!” She’ll clap in response to your cheering. And then you’ll be so excited to see her clap, that you’ll say “Yay!” again. And the infinite loop continues.
A friend had made fudge mint brownies. Since I was eating some, I thought I should be fair to Jubilee and let her eat some. It must’ve been a temporary moment of relaxed-mom-itus. I told Pastor Harrison this was her first bite and he said, “There’s no turning back now.” I gave my daughter her first ever bite of chocolate. And no camera, what’s wrong with me?
The result? She ate it and walked away.
She pointed to her sock once or twice in the last few days! Most people probably couldn’t care less anymore, but this is my personal quest to get Jubilee to point to her sock consistently. Ultimately, she will know the answer in several languages (e.g. English, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and Spanish).
Now that Jubilee is walking outside more, she’s encountering new obstacles. In the backyard, there is a big step that she cannot go down herself and thankfully, doesn’t try to. So she asked me for help and I brought her down the step. The rest of the path consists of extremely shallow steps. To help her walk down these steps, I walk behind her, holding her hands and using my own strength to bring her legs down each step without falling.
After doing this a few times, she started to go try to go down the shallow steps herself. Facing forward, i.e. not backwards on her tummy like she does with inside stairs. Suddenly she thinks she can walk down shallow steps by herself, not realizing that I’ve been helping her this entire time.
This reminds me of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. How often do we think we can handle a task on our own? At first we think it’s impossible, but after a few successful tries, we’re convinced it’s possible. Our prideful hearts most certainly attribute our accomplishments to our own abilities. But all along, our Heavenly Father was the one carrying out the task.
Heavenly Father, I pray that in everything I do, I will point my daughter to You as the one the who guides us. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus Christ, who is our cornerstone (1 Peter 2:4-8) and for Your Holy Spirit, from whom we receive our strength and power (Zechariah 4:6).
Today I asked Jubilee, “Where is your sock?” Jubilee knew to point down the stairs where she left a sock. But she still isn’t pointing to her foot.
Jubilee figured out how to tell us she wants to go outside: She grabs her shoes and goes to the door. 
When I got home from work this evening, I played with Jubilee outside to give Daphne some R&R inside. It was a wonderfully sunny day and she was loving it. She particularly likes to go up and down the driveway right now, and for those of you who can picture the driveway, it’s a little stressful to watch her navigate this perilous terrain.
Going up the driveway is tough work.. you can see her concentrating as she trudges up the ‘mountain’. Then she turns around and heads back down, laughing all the way. I’m amazed at how long she keeps her balance, because she really flails as she comes down… she gets totally out of control. Jubilee is a real thrill-seeker.
She’s still incapable of going all the way down without falling, so we are careful to keep our hands ready to catch her when she stumbles. I keep thinking she’s done with it all, and then she turns around and heads back up the hill for another run. She’s a maniac!
Jubilee had her first Easter Egg hunt this year. Her Grammy and Poppa brought plastic eggs and a basket. Inside the eggs, they put goldfish crackers and “Bug Bites” a graham cracker snack in the shape of various bugs. The eggs were perfectly hidden in full view for her to see us place them on the ground.
We then showed her how to pick up the eggs and put them in the basket. She learned quickly, I’m hoping because we had been teaching her how to put her toys away. Then we showed her how to open the Easter eggs and find a prize! She had a great time.
Now, she plays with the eggs all the time. One of her new games is to toss them down the stairs. And…we’re pretty sure that she is now saying egg. “Eggy!” she declares!
Well…today, Jubilee has completely forgotten her sock trick.
Jubilee discovered the umbrella stand in the entry, and she discovered that she’s tall enough to toss things inside. And we’ve discovered that is now the first place to look when things go missing.