Short update this week, since things are busy. My mom is in town visiting for Thanksgiving, and given that I still have to work most days this means that she’s really less visiting me and more visiting her grandchildren. Which I guess is just fine since they seem to enjoy it. She reads them books and brings them things. I do these things, too, but apparently it’s not the same.
Mandy is still very mobile, and increasingly vocal. She’s jabbering to herself and us in conversational tones all the time, like she’s got this language stuff down pat and just needs to fill in the vocabulary. This picture kind of cracks me up, because it looks like she’s in the middle of a nice chat with her girlfriends over at the coffee shop. She’s still not quite as expressive as Sam was at that age, but she’s quickly getting there. She’s also taken to mimicing actions to the extent she can. The other night in the tub she kept dunking her hands into a bucket of water and rubbing them through her hair, like she was lathering up –an action she’d seen us do to both herself and Sam.
Speaking of bath time, Sam made me wonder about her last night. She was sitting in the tub and the water had gone cool, so I told her to scoot back while I ran some new hot water warm things up. I very clearly said “Sam, this is HOT. Don’t touch the water coming out of the faucet.” Of course, she looks right at me, then leans forward to put one of her toy fish under the steaming stream. Because apparently I needed to be taught a lesson about who’s really in charge here, laws of thermodynamics to the contrary.
I had made sure the water wasn’t scalding hot, but it was hot enough. She jerked back in surprise and looked up at me with wide eyes.
“What the hell, Sam?” I said, throwing up my hands. “Sprechen sie Englisch? I JUST TOLD YOU it was hot and not to touch it. It will BURN you!”
She paused for a moment, looked at the steaming water, looked at me, looked back at the water, looked back at me. Then she picked the fish back up and started leaning forward towards the faucet again.
I can’t tell if she’s incapable of picking up a lesson that most lab mice would grasp after a few trials or if she’s just so strong willed that she’s willing to risk personal injury just to put me in my place. Lord help me, I’m not sure which I’d prefer some times.
I read the last section out loud to my mom and husband, both in the room, and we all had a good laugh. Oh, do I know that feeling.
Yep, it seems to be a recurring theme with Sam. 🙂