Curious Exploration

Day Twenty-Two: I love to see Ariel exploring. She's been doing that A LOT now that she is walking.  Sometimes is spells trouble, but mostly its a great learning experience for her and great entertainment for me. I really enjoy seeing what she finds interesting and her reactions to new things.

Tonight, we spent a couple of minutes at CVS and her daddy was there to walk around with her while I picked up a few things, so we let her explore a little. She was really excited about it. She was really cute just trotting down the aisles like she knew where she was going. She was very interested in the things she saw all around her, but listened ridiculously well when Jason told her not to touch anything.

The littlest things interest her now. She seems to wonder "how does that work?" or "what's happening there?" and "what is that?" with greatly increased frequency. She spends time examining things in a new way, even things she's seen daily up to now. For example, tonight she found the yogurt container intriguing. She examined the colors with awe, touched the smooth surface with intention, and loved how she could see and feel the spoon scraping the bottom from the outside (it is semi-tranparent and the plastic is rather thin).

At home, she has finally discovered cabinets. We haven't finished that part of baby-proofing, but it is on our "must do now" list. She is really interested in our most full cabinets which happen to also be our most dangerous cabinets. I've given her one cabinet that she can go through to her heart's content and she listens pretty well about the others (usually). I definitely have to keep my eyes on her though.

In addition to cabinetry exploration, our little one has learned how to open most of the doors around the house. I wasn't thrilled about this discovery...well, I was pretty excited about how quickly she figured it out, but now she is using her new talent all over the house. I used to be able to keep her out of parts of the house by shutting the door. No more. Oh well. She's growing up and she's curious.

Thank you, God, for curiosity. It's true, we can get into trouble with our curiosity. However, we learn so much because of it. I'm watching that everyday now. Ariel is trying new things and going new places and seeing new sites and even learning more about her limitatioins because of her healthy curiousity. Further, she's overcoming her struggles sometimes because her curiosity helps her forget she wanted mommy to hold her or that she is somewhere strange with lots of new people. Thank you for letting me witness and experience this adventure in Ariel's life.


What's this about? I decided on my birthday to make a commitment to being intentionally thankful. I challenged myself to post one thing I am thankful for everyday this year.