Cara Figlia - The World of Categories

Cara figlia,

The book The Wonder Weeks says you are entering The World of Categories. In the last phase, you discovered The World of Relationships, and now you are using your understanding of relationships to categorize things. There are apparently many ways in which you could be doing this, but I've been watching you and I think you are discovering How Things Feel and How Things Move (Note: I've made these up to describe you--they were not part of the book). You are also discovering How Things Taste, but I suspect all babies do this, especially when teething.

You love to touch everything, pick stuff up, feel it in your hands, turn it over, squish it, rub it, manipulate whatever it is in your hands to figure out How Stuff Feels. If you are anything like your mom (me) or your 12-year-old niece, you will continue to do this with things as you grow up. I still love the feel of soft, furry and silky things, and when I shop, I often touch the fabrics around me. If I don't like the feel of something, I won't buy it. You, however, seem to love feeling rough, scratchy materials. When we look at your touch-and-feel books (which you LOVE, especially the That's Not My Lion), you won't even bother to feel the furry ears of the lion but you never pass up the lion's rough paws! This surprises me, and delights me to see you exploring how everything feels, not just the things I think feel good.

I'm also delighted by how you watch and move everything to see How Stuff Moves. You are fascinated by how the spinning circle rolls down the busy cube, and when it gets to the bottom, you lay your head on the ground and watch it finish spinning, turning your head from side to side. You push things, drop things, throw things and shake things, all in your efforts to see how they move. If you hold up a sweater and shake it around, you are watching the bottom of it to see how it moves. You flip through pages of my books to see how they move.

And most of all, I think you are trying to figure out How The Baby Moves. You are crawling EVERYWHERE! Under chairs, on top of stools (balancing carefully all by yourself), into boxes, around chairs. We had so much fun the other day playing hide-and-seek and chase around the chair in the living room, especially when we went from you chasing me to me chasing (and getting) you! You are standing all the time, trying to figure out just what you are capable of, and often surprising all of us. And your steps while holding our hands are become more and more sure.

This World of Categories is an amazing place to be. I love that you are learning all this, and I can't wait to see what you learn next!

Ti amo con tutti mio cuore,
Mama