Leonid's World: Crawling, brushing teeth, travelling

Things have been pretty hectic this summer, and daddy found no time to write up any decent story on behalf of Anne Sophie. We've been busy redecorating our apartment (now it is finally finished!), and dad was away for 3 weeks in Indian Himalayas, and there was something to do every evening (walking or biking with Anne Sophie, bathing her, etc.) and every weekend (visiting places). And even though we have given up our TV subscription and haven't watched any TV (and no olympics!), time is still a rare commodity.

Well, enough excuses, for today our Anne Sophie has turned 11 months old. She has learned and experienced many new things:

She started to crawl. Her way of crawling is pretty peculiar, as she tries to crawl with both hands and both legs at the same time. But it works out quite well! And she can crawl very fast if she really wants to get something. On the other hand, she'd rather not crawl if she doesn't have to :).
She achieved mastery in controlling her baby walker. She can stop and turn exactly where she wants, and she can step over thresholds, by lifting the walker a bit, to go from one room to another. But the use of baby walkers is actually discouraged, so we use it very sparingly.

Anne Sophie also actively tries walking. While she still needs support, she vigorously makes steps in the direction she wants.

One of her favorite activities is brushing her (steel only two) teeth with a baby brush. I guess she likes massaging her gums, where her other teeth should be coming out very soon.
"Reading" books is another favorite activity. This is also one of the easiest ways to calm her down - just give her a book! She grabs a book, often upside down :), turns pages, points with her finger at pictures and letters and even pretends that she is reading by saying things in her own language. I try to read her a story or two every evening before she goes to bed.
Anne Sophie already has words for certain things, like "ku" or "quo" for a cow, horse, goat, deer or anything that looks like that; "mama" is usually a call for something that she badly wants like to eat or to get up; "baba" is for grandma; "tata" is for photos; she often says "papa" but I am not sure if she really means me :). She also says words that resemble Russian words for a bird, thanks, etc.

She also started to travel around a bit. Last weekend we went to Brugge en Brussels to show grandma some fine places in Belgium. The main attraction that weekend was a huge flower carpet, made of fresh flowers on the main square in Brussels. Anne Sophie withstood the trip very well and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, especially the children's playground and the swing in the park just across from the Royal Palace in Brussels. There were children of all kinds of backgrounds and languages playing together, and Anne Sophie was staring at them all the time with great interest!