In!

Lilah has finally mastered the concept of "in!" Up until now, the only "container" she put stuff into was her mouth. She was always quite good at taking things out, however. Too good, in fact. She would (and still does) make a bee-line for any container full of stuff - laundry baskets, baby wipes containers, my purse, etc. - and take great pleasure in pulling the contents out, piece by piece. Set Lilah loose in an orderly room, and within five minutes, it will look as though it has been hit by a tornado.

As someone who works with young children and has a general understanding of the stages of play and their relationship to cognitive development, I have been watching closely and waiting for her to start putting things in. So I was quite delighted on Friday when she started putting the balls in while playing with her Busy Ball train toy. Next, she started putting the shapes into her shape sorter. (Of course, she's not yet matching the shapes to their specific holes, but Rome wasn't built in a day, people!)

A few weeks ago, when I lamented Lilah's fixation on dumping/pulling things out and never putting them back in, my friend Celina cautioned that "in" wasn't necessarily all it was cracked up to be. Celina's ten-month-old, Juju, quickly graduated from transfering toys from one bowl to another to hiding Celina's cell phone in various random containers around the house. Then she realized she could carry things around with her in her onesie. How totally smart and adorable, right? Until the "things" she chose to fill her onesie with started to include food items. Yuck! I'd take Lilah's tornado-like mess over that one any day!

Well, Lilah is not yet shoving pasta noodles and cheesy toast down her own shirt, and I'm going to cross my fingers that she doesn't figure that one out for a while, but she did take manage to (very deliberately) drop a few teddy puffs into my cleavage this morning. Looks like the concept of "in" has opened up a whole new world of possibilities to be discovered and messes to be made!

*Question for Been There Done That Moms: how long do I have before she discovers that her ears and nostrils are also fair game for the "in" game???