Thump-Swisshh
*edited to add: We've got a few new youtube baby videos out there, you know, for the grandparents. Or anyone who feels like watching. Like me, when I should be working.

E-baby has been practicing and can making fairly good time getting across the room. Her crawling style is a bit unorthodox, though. She uses both hands but always has one foot flat on the ground, like walking, and the other leg bent at the knee like crawling. This one-knee-and-one-foot technique, while propelling her further per stride than traditional two-knee crawling, gives the visual impression of a tiny pirate with a wooden leg. When she says "yarrrh" it gets eerie.

In the wake of this new ability to transport herself, I am learning a lot more about what's on her mind. I've learned, for instance, that she wants to be on top of everything. If she and I sit together on the floor, she'll climb onto my legs (base camp 1), up to my lap (base camp 2), to my shoulder, grab the bill of my ballcap with her jaws and belay up to the top of my head (the summit) where she takes a few pictures, checks her cell phone reception and calls for a helicopter to carry her back down again. She does the same to SNG, but not in winter as the sherpas are expensive that time of year.

(As an aside, right now she wants to type her own blog post.)

I've learned that she likes everything that's dirty: shoes, trash bins, baseboards.

This morning as I was making breakfast, I put e-baby on the kitchen floormats to play. I crossed the kitchen to pour my coffee (Thump-swisshh, Thump-swisshh, Thump-swisshh) there's e-baby climbing my ankle. I crossed back to make my omelette (Thump-swisshh, Thump-swisshh) and soon her head rests on the back of my calf. I crossed to the fridge (Thump-swisshh, Thump-swisshh) and she blocks the refrigerator door. Once I finished dealing with steaming-hot-magma and coffee, I picked her up and she put my entire nose in her mouth and said "BBBRRRRPPPPP!!" I put her down, grabbed my breakfast plate and walked towards the kitchen table (Thump-swisshh, Thump-swisshh).

It's close enough to "pitter-patter" for me.