Both of my boys in particular also clearly wanted to know how to do a thing, before they tried to learn to do a thing. This was particularly evident in talking, walking, and crawling. I think I told you, we finally got down on our hands and knees and banged the floor with emphasis, to show Ben how to crawl, because it became clear he was waiting for the ability to be bestowed from on high, rather than to develop through trial and error. And he never once let us hold his hands, while he tried to toddle. Not once. He'd stand, and you could tell he wanted to go, but he wouldn't. If we took his hands, his legs turned to spaghetti, and he sat down.

We did the same thing with demonstrating crawling for Annabel. And I thought, based on my memories of my niece Rachel's learning to walk (she's the one of my many nieces and nephews whose early childhood I remember in detail, because she's 12 years younger than me and lived nearby), that there would be a long phase where we'd hold her hand while she walked or would sit a few feet apart from each other and let her stagger between us. Never happened. She went from holding on to the furniture one day to walking across the room unaided the next. Not that she was perfect about it, of course, but she somehow did all the rehearsing and confidence-building in her mind.

While I have more than a little of that personality trait myself--i.e. if I'm not good at it, why bother trying?--I just don't see how you work out something as complicated as learning to walk or talk in your head rather than by trial and error. You'd think a baby would need, well, baby steps. But I guess Annabel has her own ideas.

{{{Anne}}}

Seen on the bus this morning:

A woman wearing black leggings under her knee length black skirt.

With nude pantyhose over them! WTF?

Sounds like someone's missing a few marbles upstairs.

A woman wearing black leggings under her knee length black skirt.

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.

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With nude pantyhose over them! WTF?

Oh, I can see that. She woke up too late to shave her legs, but all she had that she could wear to the office was a skirt, so she decided to throw the leggings on under the skirt. But the shoes that go with the skirt require hose. She's running late, remember, so she doesn't have time to strip off the ;eggings and put on the hose, she just pulls it on over the leggings and hope (a) nobody notices and (b) she doesn't expire of heat exhaustion before she makes it to the office where she can hide her bizrrely covered legs under a desk until she has a chance to duck into a bathroom and ditch the leggings.

Not that I've done that.

I'd rather be late than be seen in public like that.

She didn't even have time for coffee, beathen, the poor woman has no idea what she looks like.

{{Anne}} Much strength to you and your mom.

With nude pantyhose over them! WTF?

brenda, that's just wrong.

I'd rather be late than be seen in public like that.

Given that I was an hour and a half late and we were on the same bus, it appears she chose to be late and seen in public like that. It's just baffling.

If she has time to maneuver pantyhose over leggings without having them ride up, she has time to shave her legs or put on pants. I mean, that's a difficult task!

She didn't even have time for coffee

Many bad decisions have occurred for lack of caffiene.

I just don't see how you work out something as complicated as learning to walk or talk in your head rather than by trial and error.

My kids' Montessori school referred to this as "hiding a skill until it's perfect". They said my son had the most extreme case of it they'd ever seen -- he jumped, somewhat late for a Montessori kid, straight from sounding out syllables to reading books.

Some kids build all the skills invisibly, then present them as a package.