In just a few days Beatrice will be ELEVEN months old, which means that we are very rapidly approaching the end of her babyhood and the beginning of toddlerdom. Of course, she is still very much a baby who loves to be carried around and cuddled. But a toddler’s will is beginning to emerge.
Beatrice is starting to see herself as an independent force in the world, and nothing demonstrates this better than to see her pointing at things. There is her sweet, cherubic hand with her perfectly curled little chubby fingers, and it is pointing at things. Things that she wants, things she notices, like the airplane flying in the sky or her Dad coming in the door. Now it is all pointing, all the time. She no longer stands for us doing things to her that she does not want, like taking her to the potty when she doesn’t need to go. “LET IT BE KNOWN, I HAVE A WILL,” her pointy finger declares.
She is very rapidly developing language skills as well, and I have this suspicion that one day very soon she is going to answer one of my questions with a complete sentence and we will never look back. She loves to hear herself talk and spends a good part of the day deedldee deeldelee-ing to herself as she plays. She’s still not crawling yet, which makes my life much easier, but I think she will probably just go straight to walking. Tonight she started standing up almost by herself, holding on to my hands just for balance. Her little knees start to quiver if she stands for too long, but she loves the novelty of standing instead of sitting.
On the other hand, poor Louis isn’t doing so great these days. He’s starting marking indoors, which was the main reason I wanted a girl cat in the first place. I think it’s due to the fact that he’s being bullied terribly by the neighbour’s cats. They jump through our open windows and come right into the house to eat all his food out of the dish before I even notice a suspicious rustling and chase them out. So it’s understandable that he’s feeling threatened and wants to leave pee in strategic places around the house, but I’d really rather not clean up cat pee every day. All you cat owners out there, anyone dealt with this before? I’ve tried washing the offending areas with vinegar, which takes out the smell but doesn’t dampen his desire to pee somewhere else.

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