Pulling things out has been one of Ingrid’s favourite activities for a while. Now she’s spending more and more time doing the opposite. She picks things out of the drawer, and then actually puts some of them back.

She’s also playing more with the shape sorter she got for her birthday. Initially she seemed mostly frustrated with it. (Her attention span is about 3 seconds – if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again.) After a little while she discovered the lid on the rear of the box and found that it was a lot easier to get things into the box that way. But she does sometimes try getting the blocks in through the little holes on the front, and occasionally succeeds.

As with other new skills, she tries it with various things around the house, not just with her blocks and boxes. In the bath she puts her toys and sponge in a bowl, again and again. Other things travel longer distances and end up in stranger places: I have found freshly laundered baby clothes (that she picks from the drying rack in the kitchen) in my sock drawer, a bicycle inner tube on a shelf in my wardrobe, and Eric’s shaver in an (empty) wastepaper basket. And she is showing far too much interest in the big rubbish bin in the kitchen… I hope I won’t need to go looking for our shoes or her toys in there!