Carmen has grown quickly over the past months. She has gained a healthy weight, enjoying the many different types of fruits available at the OFI Care Centre. She has also gained confidence and a bit of boldness. She continues to be a first-rate climber and wastes no time being on the ground.
Carmen shares a sleeping enclosure with Santa Claus, and the two have formed a close bond. Carmen is most sociable on her way to the infant’s Learning Forest, and loves to play with her peers as she makes her way to the trees. Once she has reached the forest though, she only has eyes for the trees. Carmen is an explorer. If her caregivers look away for a mere second, she will have disappeared from view into the canopy. This boldness is well displayed through her superb climbing abilities. As soon as she is able, she scales a tree, hooking her hands around branches, thick and thin, and propelling herself as high as she can go. From her new vantage point, she can survey the area, and then resume swinging from branch to branch, combing her way through the leaves and branches of the canopy.
While her preference these days is to climb, Carmen can also be found expertly building a nest. When she applies her focus to nest making, she is quite the little engineer. Carmen can also now return unescorted back to her sleeping enclosure after forest school. She knows the way and will happily walk back at the head of the pack.
This independence will serve her well as she continues to learn about life in the forest and grow over the next few years.