Signs of intelligence

When your baby is really young, it can be hard to recognize whether they understand you or not. For quite some time, we've had occasions where we've asked Alyria to do something (e.g. closing doors, or picking something up) and she would fumble around and kind of do it. So it seemed as if she understood, but we couldn't really be 100% sure.

Pass the ball

One day, a couple months ago, my mom, my wife, and I were in a circle around Alyria. We had a little ball, and we asked her to take it and pass it to a different person. We did this a few times and she successfully gave it to the right person each time. This was probably the first real conclusive sign we've had that she understood us.

Planning Next Steps

Lately, Alyria's been dragging objects around as she crawls. We have an area where there is a small step between the front door and rest of the house. Recently, she was on the top of the step and dragging the ball around. She wanted to go down the step. So she dropped the ball onto the lower floor, crawled down, then went to pick it up and continue crawling. My wife says she's been doing this for a couple weeks now. I think this is the first time I've seen this level of planning from her.

Alyria's almost 1 year old now. We're always talking with her, describing things, and asking her to do things. And every day she surprises us with how much she can understand and do. And when we stump her, you can see the wheels grinding and she thinks. It's truely amazing to witness.