Little EC has a new trick: pretending. She doesn’t have a huge repertoire, but she does what she knows best: eating.

I noticed it first with a teething ring, earlier last week. She wasn’t teething, but she saw it in the fridge and wanted it, so I let her play around with it. I noticed that she’d stick it in her mouth, bite a bit, then take it out and pucker her lips in a chewing motion. Satisfied with her imaginary bite, she’d stick it back in and chew on another “bite”.

Then I noticed that she’d do the same thing with little “things” on the floor. Maybe because she always gets a reaction out of me when she picks things up and puts them in her mouth, I’ve noticed that she’s now grabbing onto things that aren’t there, shoving her fingers in her mouth, and then looking at me while “chewing”. Too bad, kid. I’ve got you figured out.

I can’t get complacent, though. This afternoon she really did stuff some large, hard, unidentifiable mass into her mouth that she found in the communal play room, and I had to force it out of her. I always wonder what’s worse, whatever bugs she might pick up from whatever that thing was, or the ones that she picks up from my finger—the one that’s been handling all the communal toys—in her mouth. At any rate, choking is worse than both.

In other news, I’m playing games with her to encourage her to identify colors and shapes. She’s a rank amateur, but from time to time she will pick correctly when I ask her to give me the red thing, or point to the circle. I just array things out in front of her, one by one point and name each one, and when I’m done, start asking her questions. She’s generally best when tired, but not too tired. Excess energy, and she just wants to pick things up and play with them; too little energy, and she refuses. There is a sweet spot where she’s pretty good.

She’s also expert at memory games. I’ll let her see me put a small piece of a cookie under one of three colored pinch bowls that we have in the kitchen, and then I’ll mix them up. She’s sharp enough to realize that the order of the bowls on the table doesn’t determine where the cookie is; rather, it’s the color that matters. She’s much better at this game than any of the others. On a completely unrelated note, she also really, really likes cookies.