Twelve Thousand

So I guess she's standing now.

All through the (long Christmas break-y) weekend, she's been standing holding on to things and occasionally letting go.  At first it was hardly standing.  Just a quick "look Ma, no hands" moment with wild eyes and arms outstretched for balance.

But we started counting (one thousand, two thousand), and she just made it to twelve.

This has been a definite project for her.  She gets all concentrate-y and holds out her hands to steady herself.  This is particularly amusing when she does this while on her knees.  (*That* doesn't count, we tell her).

These things take me by surprise.  She starts out doing something new and I think, oh she's going to be standing soon, and three days later: twelve thousand.

Also, ALSO, she can grab the top rail of her play-n-pack from the outside.  !!!!!!!!  Last I noticed, two weeks ago or something, she was too small to reach the rail from the inside.

Soon she'll be running headlong into things.

lizard girl at Jungle Java

There is an indoor playground here called Jungle Java.  Think of a McDonald's playground, only bigger, better, and with coffee instead of hamburgers.

Sophie enjoys this place immensely.

(So do we.  She's free until she's one year old, and they have free (though tortoise slow) internet.)

The toddler area, where we hang out, has a ramp and a slide and a faux "cave" with soft cushiony stalagmites and stalactites that are good for chewing on.  And a stuffed lion that is sturdy enough to be ridden.  But it is not just the play area, but the other kids she enjoys.

This is the toddler area.  For toddlers.  Age four and under, can't you kids read?  This space is regularly invaded by bigger kids overflowing the vast, multistoried complex of tree house, climbing walls, zip slides, and obstacle course that comprises the main play area.

I've been working on getting Sophie to climb the bumpy ramp to the slides.  She's a desultory worker at best--easily distracted by oh look I'm sitting on vinyl I wonder what it tastes like.

The big boys invade, rushing up and around us, blatantly disregarding the fact that they are older than four.  I have in the past kicked them out.  Now, I tell them that if they're in the baby area they need to act like babies.  They consider.  No, I am told, they are not babies, they are ducks.

While we are having this discussion, Sophie is newly engaged.  She looks at the boys with rapturous adoration:  they run! they climb! they tumble!  With a remarkable firmness of purpose, she scales the ramp to the slide, eager to join in the fun.

As she works her way up and onward, she keeps her eyes on her goal and her little tongue pops out of her mouth in a cute little display of baby concentration.  She pants with excitement and exertion, and her tongue flicks back and forth.  She looks like a lizard.

A cute lizard, but still.

I wonder what side of the family *that* comes from.

anticipatory giggles

Sophie has two laughs: a cackle, which I'm afraid she gets from me, and a throaty chuckle, which may or may not come from her mother.

She's quite the giggly, cackling, chuckling girl.

I will hold my hand in front of her and flex my fingers in a grasping motion while making a clicking noise.

These are the tickle bugs, and when she sees them, Sophie knows they will be coming to get her.

So she stops, looks.  Her eyes get wider.  And she starts to giggle.

Click-click-click, the tickle bugs are coming!

And she throws herself against my thigh, rolls her head around, and laughs, and laughs, before they can even get to her.

linearity and book reading

At her evening story time, Sophie likes to be the one turning the pages.  She's gotten the linearity of it down fairly well now, attempting to turn pages from the right to the left.

The trouble is, her little fingers can't quite grasp a single page or separate it from its brethren.  The result is a frustrated reader.  

She knows that pink flower--dress comes after green pear--leaf, but when she grabs at the page, all of a sudden we've jumped to red shoes--apple.

WTF????!!!!!!!

It's like books have this mystifying ability to show one thing and then another and just as you're really getting the idea of object permanence and linear order, somebody comes around and just unilaterally decides we're gonna skip over purple grapes--tricycle, orange fish--towel, black kitten--coat, and oh just a lot of stuff to go right to gray parrot--rabbit or even to the back cover of the frickin' book.  And it really tries a girl's patience when you've been working hard and growing brain cells and developing this "right page turned over onto left page" cadence and things just refuse to stay in their accustomed order and "bah!" I say "bah!" and "bah! bah! bahbahbahbahbah-BAH!"  and fine, oh great, now Daddy's turning the pages for me, I am *so* over this. Not gonna even look at the pages anymore. Just look at the lamp over there. bah.

Rather than calming her, story time sometimes has the opposite effect.  Most nights we never get to brown bread--goat (my personal favorite) before we have to call it quits and turn to the bottle and a song.

Tooth

She's got one.  Just barely peeking out of her gums.

It makes her cranky.

Multi-syllabic

She's started babbling with more than one "ba" now, stringing ga's and ah's and oo's together.

Also:  she was standing up, holding my hands tonight, when she saw something interesting.  She let go of one hand to turn toward whatever it was and then absentmindedly let go of the other.

She stood there for, oh, probably only a second or so but it seemed much longer, till she kind of realized she was tightrope walking without a net.  She slowly, deliberately, but kind of worriedly grabbed my hand again and lowered herself to a sitting position (something else she's recently learned how to do).

Also:  she gazed with rapt adoration and joyous wonder this afternoon at the shower curtain as I opened and closed it for her entertainment.  It opens!  It closes!  It's big and fluttery and makes a sound! 

She also climbs stairs

We've been visiting friends, friends who have a slightly sunken living room with two stairs.

In a fascinating process, Sophie has gone from befuddled to mastery in two days.  She does slightly better if her pants are off (more traction).  But even fully dressed, she chugs up to the bottom step, panting with excitement and--hand, hand, foot-slip, foot-slip, foot, foot--gets herself up on that first step.  Then the second, even faster than the first.

At first she was trying to go straight up, spanning multiple steps at a time.  She was successful at that a couple of times and then hit on the one step at a time technique.  Now she barely even slows down.

Since she does one step at a time, there is, in principle, no limit to the flight of stairs she could climb.

We're unlikely to ask her to climb up any stairwells yet, though.

and then her mother fell down

We went to a toy store today.

They had a wooden contraption with a solid base on wheels that was designed to let your kid grab on to a handle and walk herself around.

Which is just what happened when we stood Sophie in front of it and let her go.  Shuffle, shuffle, look around--and then: walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk bump, and she stopped when she got to the wall.

I didn't think this was too remarkable, since that's what the thing was designed for.  Her mother, however, no doubt with images of a mobile Sophie in her mind, just kept repeating "oh my god" and looked a bit woozy.

Still no teeth

. . . which has not, however, stopped her from becoming an enthusiastic eater of cheerios.  

She continues to pull up and coo and wave her arms at things.  She has even stood on her own, if we define "standing" as "remaining upright for a second or two before toppling over".  It continues to be disconcerting how she'll move from where you put her when you're not looking.

I'm used to babies that stay in place.

The other day I tried to interest her in some blocks.  She looked at them, devoid of enthusiasm, and then set off for the recycling bin.  As if to say, whatever, keep your blocks, *I'm* gonna get me an empty milk carton.

toddling or teetering

creeping and crawling

She's getting pretty good at pulling her self up on things and is showing more and more frustration with not being able to get where she wants.  She'll growl in anger if she can't get where she wants to get going.

We've got a new game whereby her mother or I stack some blocks and then she knocks them over.  She has quite the triumphant look on her face when she does so.  This last Saturday, I left her with some blocks on the carpet while I went to get some toilet paper to wipe her nose and

HOLY SH*T, SHE'S NOT WHERE I LEFT HER!

Okay people, this is serious, she's achieved mobility.  I found her making slowly, but determinedly for the refrigerator in a sort of galumphing, inelegant hop-drag.  It's not pretty, but it works.  Her eyes gleam with excitement.  Me, I'm realizing that the entire house is now a death trap.  We can't have curtains anymore.  She wants to climb up everything.  Surely she won't let the curtains alone when she discovers them.  And she's developed a perverse fondness for electrical cords.  Not to mention the many small things that lay on the ground.  I'm pretty sure she wanted to explore the underside of the fridge and dig for treasure.  

Must obsessively pick small things from off the floor.  Now that she's been introduced to cheerios, she's not going to let a penny go uneaten.

Once we realized we had a mobile baby on our hands, we spread out a couple of play rugs to give her the range to explore.  She immediately made for the open floor.  Does she not realize that the play rug is printed with tiny roads running around a jolly little town?   I blame this intransigence on her mother.  *I* was always a good little boy.

Thrush

She's got thrush, which is apparently very common and not as bad as it sounds.

It sounds downright medieval to me, like something you might find in a list of ailments along with the gibbering palsy, Wortrath's malheur, tainted noxbustle, wisty, black wisty, and pallid wisty with grenished testkitchen.

Her appetite's still hearty, so that's good.  And we've been given soothing salves, one of which (to judge by her reaction) is quite tasty.  We're supposed to rub it on her gums and in her mouth.  She enjoys this until all of a sudden she doesn't.

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She did not vote yesterday, but she did get a sticker.  I had her free coffee at Starbucks.

Project Vertical

She has an ongoing quest to remain upright at all times.  She's getting quite good at it.

She can: hold onto something while standing up without immediately falling over.  Twist and grab onto a leg and try to climb from sitting.  Move from her tummy to all fours (no knees, mind you, just feet and hands) before falling back to her tummy again.  (She doesn't seem to get the idea of using her feet to propel her forward yet).

She also today moved from all fours to sitting position.

It's all happening so fast.

nipples

She wishes to pick them up.

Sometimes I am shirtless.  Sophie now, when she notices I have nipples, attacks with a sudden fervor, scraping, scratching and clawing trying to pick them up.

Luckily they are firmly attached and thus have resisted her efforts.  But she's getting pretty good with that whole opposable thumb and forefinger thing, so it gets fairly annoying after, oh, two seconds.

Her mother wisely keeps her nipples both out of sight and out of reach--having learned her lesson early on, I suspect.

Okay, yes, she's still cute

What can I say, it has been a busy month.

So here's some Sophie news:

She's started saying ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

She says this when she is content.  When she is not content, she shrieks.

When she is upset she pthpfpfpfpffppfpfpfp's.  When she is really quite unhappy she says ma-ma-ma-ma-maergh (ending in a moan).

I choose to think that the contented "babababa" is short for papa and the discontented "mama-moan" is a plea to be handed over to her mother.  Papa's for happy times, mama is for moaning.  Seems clear to me.

Luckily there has been a good deal of contented Sophie lately, although she's been expressing some frustration lately as she attempts to keep vertical at all times and at all costs.  (In other words, she's learning to pull herself up and to remain standing while supporting herself).  

If she gets very frustrated, she growls a deep gutteral growl like a bear.  Cute!

Things She Likes

... and we can tell because she reacts with gleeful urgency to them:

1. her bottle.

She not only knows the sight of it, but the sound of it as well.  We'll try to sneak up on her, shaking it behind our back so as not to have a crying fit (because once the bottle is *there* there's really no good reason it should not be in her mouth *immediately*).  But she'll hear the slosh, get wide-eyed and then start looking around frantically.

2. her reflection.

Oh what joy to be held up to a mirror and to realize that a delightful little baby is staring back at you.  And there's another daddy--two of them!!!  And another mommy too!  Wow, this is so freaky cool!  It. just. blows. my. mind!!!!!

We've got a mirror on the living room wall that is now covered in dried saliva.

3. other babies/kids.

Why do babies like babies?  I don't know, but they do.  I've got some anecdotal evidence that they might enjoy finding someone potentially smaller and weaker than them.  A friend tells us that her baby (who took away a toy from Sophie) is usually the one to have toys taken away from him.  I'm proud to report that on their second encounter, Sophie had apparently wised up and growled at the kid when he came to take he toy again.  Babies are just barbarian bullies, apparently.

4. us.

It's so very gratifying to come home to a little face that lights up at the sight of you.  Kind of like a dog, only better.  Sophie would jump up and lick my face if she could (she does enjoy licking things).  In the event she just sort of bounces in place and grunts.  

Lately she's been showing signs of realizing that her mother and I are detachable--that we are not, in fact appendages of her own body (though we remain her faithful servants).  When passed from the mommy to the daddy or vice versa, she'll take a serious little moment to contemplate what the hell just happened and how it is possible that a second ago one was over THERE, looking over here and now one appears to be HERE, looking back over THERE.  Huh.

5. "bleebleebleebluhbluhbluhbleebleebleebleebluhbleebloo"

This would be the sound of a finger moving rapidly up and down over a mouth that's voicing.  Is there a technical term for this?  Anyway, Sophie loves this.  It is absolutely hysterical--my second most funny trick (the first being the bit where HER pacifier is in MY mouth, which is just crazy insane funny).

Now here's the greatest part.

Sophie tries to join in.  After "bleeblahbluh-ing" for a bit, if we put a finger up to Sophie's mouth she'll start to go "aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" and wait for us to move our finger up and down.  When successful, it will be HER mouth making the noise.  Whereupon she beams in joy.

6. ceiling fans.

I don't know why, but they are fascinating.  If they are not moving, she stares at them disappointedly.  If they are moving, she stares at them in joy.

old enough to be freaked out apparently

I was making faces at her in the mirror the other day.

She enjoys this immensely.  Usually.

But then I grinned maniacally at her and cackled like a hyena.

Her little eyes got big.  She startled.  Her little lower lip started trembling, and then she started bawling.  And this was no "hey, I'm kind of hungry or uncomfortable" whimper like she usually does, this was a full-on, "what's going on with the world, and what happened to the daddy" cry of distress.

I apologized profusely, and pretty soon she decided that I'd gone back to being me.

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In other news, she's also really interested in other kids now.  She'll stop playing to watch them totter around.  When they build things, and crash things, and run around, she hops and flaps in my arms as if to say, "soooooooo cooooooooool1!!!!!!!"

Best in Show

Once more back to the doctors for shots.

The doctor pulled her up on all fours to see what she would do and she just stayed like that, ramrod stiff, looking around curiously.  It was *very* impressive, apparently.

Also:  she is now even more delighted with mirrors.  She'll squeal with delight when we go up to one, and then look at us--back to our reflection--look at us--back to our reflection.  With a look of absolute wonder in her eyes.

So yes, pretty much best baby ever.

Sophie hearts Elliot

A guest blog from her mother:

"Sophie's first boyfriend, sort of.

It was reported to me Friday at daycare that Sophie has a boyfriend. His name is Elliot. He is an older toddler, one of walking age. Apparently, from what I am told, he is very eager and excited to visit with Sophie on the days that she is there. He ambles over to where Sophie is playing and begins to giggle. Not being a shy gal, she smiles at him with her irresistible, gummy smile. The two exchange loving glances and coos until Elliot runs off to get a bottle and Sophie is swooped up for a diaper change. ohhhh, to be 6 months again...."

Her first cold :(

My poor little baby was making the most pitiable noises yesterday--snuffling and moaning.  Sad little potato would roll her eyes and whimper at us as if to say "fix this now please."

She didn't like being stuffed up, and she REALLY didn't like the nasal bulb syringe.  

Being upright helped her drainage, but it's kind of hard to sleep like that.  We ended up taking turns sitting up with her for a large chunk of the night.  Leaning her back on my chest in the rocking chair at three a.m. worked wonders--she was semi-recumbent at an angle, so she was able to drain AND sleep.

The good news is that she was all happy and kicky and giggly this morning.  The bad news is that this is likely the first of many colds we'll have to endure before we've properly trained her immune system.   The internet tells me there are roughly 200 viruses which produce symptoms generally called the "common cold".

One down, one hundred ninety-nine to go.

Oh yeah: faces, startles, feet, cart

--she's taken to grabbing bits of face in odd moments (like eating, falling asleep, or just because).  She'll grab a nose, gouge an eye, get a pretty firm hold on a lip.  While doing this, she has a look of studious concentration, as if she's wondering, "what *are* you, exactly?"

--with growing awareness comes a growing ability to be startled.  Things that earlier would have passed over her in silence are now possibly frightening.  Loud noises, sudden movements, etc.  I now have to remember to announce my presence before pretending to be a bear that's about to eat her.

--feet.  What's up with that?  She stares at feet: my feet, her feet, other people's feet.  Often this involves suddenly flinging herself forward to get into better feet-viewing position.  This wreaks havoc on her already precarious balance.

--It used to be that we could put her car seat in a shopping cart and wheel her about the store thusly.  Now she's taken to staring at us worriedly as she bounces over the sidewalk cracks and bumps at the threshold of the store--backwards and on her back.  She doesn't like this; she should be upright an facing forward.  Already we find ourselves taking her out and pushing the empty car seat around in the shopping cart.  Soon she'll refuse this mode of travel all together.

lots and lots of little things

Lots and lots of little things are happening.  Every day, every minute she does something slightly new, or slightly better.

Here's a quick list:

--sitting up quite well thank you.  (Though we had our first face plant earlier today).

--she knows the bottle by sight.  We can tell because she starts to jiggle and hoot enthusiastically.

--whilst sitting, she can bring her legs kind of under her and kind of push up--enough so that we get the idea and help her up the rest of the way.  Then she's standing there looking sooooo pleased with herself.

--she likes to be swung back and forth by her arms.  She protests when we stop.

--her noises are returning:  the razzing, the hooting, the honking, the growling.  Now they string together in a cacophony of not-quite-signification.  Every now and then she stumbles into a vowel-consonant cluster.

--she only likes to be held facing forward.  If you face her backward, she'll wriggle and twist until you give up and turn her around.  Oh, and she likes to be held.  The stroller is a poor substitute for giving us an upper arm workout.

--she'll laugh out loud for the sheer joy of it.  Or to get us laughing--if this is so, it works.

--still pooping like clockwork.

--she goes to sleep easier too.  We started a routine.  It's amazing that after the bath and into the sleepsack and just thirty seconds into the song what was a wide wide awake girl has transformed into a lolling can't-keep-eyes-open girl.

--she's rolling around right and left quite freely now.

--oh yes, she's quasi-mobile.  She doesn't cotton to that face down stuff, so no crawling.  But she'll lie on her back and use her feet to scoot her way across the floor.

Poop! A guest blog from her mother

I have learned that when speaking of gifted children, there are many kinds of talents.  Some children, for example, are more verbally inclined, some socially. Like most parents, I always suspected that Sophie was an exceptional child. However, I never imaged that her talents would lie in defecating. 

She is the most talented pooper I have ever seen or heard of. In fact, when I google "potty trained 5 month old", nothing resembling Sophie's skills comes up. 

So here is the story. At first, I thought this was a coincidence when I took off her diaper and she pooed one morning. But then, she did it again, and again. I mean, every morning when I would take off her am diaper, she would let out a long, languorous poooo. So we have been doing this for at least 8 days now, and she has only missed one day. 

The beauty of this is that I now just put down the new diaper and some toilet paper and let her do her dealio on the TP then chuck it in the toilet. No dirty diaper to clean, no dirty diapers sitting in the diaper pail, and no girl having to sit in a dirty diaper. 

Talented daughter, brilliant mother, I'd say, all modesty aside.

Learning to Read?

She's surrounded by books.  She finds them sometimes fascinating.

Well, she finds everything fascinating, really.

Sitting up

She sits up now.  Mostly on her own.

She'd been balancing on her butt, kinda, the whole of last week.  Not really sitting up, per se, but spending longer and longer periods before she'd tip over and we'd have to catch her.

Then today--she's just sitting around, looking interested and occasionally trying to shove her fist down her throat.

Still a bit tippy, but my goodness, what a quick improvement!

intermittent update

she's still wonderful.  sitting up almost now.  tho' she can be tippy at times.

also she throws things.  doesn't mean to, but gets hold of something and swings it back and forth in a frenzy of excitement smiling her gummy smile of delight.

she laughs out loud when you make funny faces or flap your arms at her.

sometimes i growl like a bear (she shows no fear) and pretend i'm about to gobble her up.  she laughs uproariously.  her eyes sparkle in anticipation.  soon i can just kind of snarl at her and she will break out into chuckles.

she loves her bjorn and is none too fond of the stroller anymore.  she wants to be vertical, not horizontal--vertical is where the action's at.

when i come across her and her mother in the bookstore (it's usually the bookstore) she lights up with a thousand watt smile and starts flapping her arms and squealing in delight.  whereupon i fall down on the floor, so totally in love with her am i, and shout Yes! Yes! you can have all the ponies in the world!

and the dancing.  she loves the dancing and the swinging and the rocking and the swaying.  also she thinks her mother and i know how to sing.

(meanwhile, her daddy's got to get back to dissertating.  i'm doing naught but writing these days.  and formatting).

Books

Why, I ask myself, is she so fascinated with the books in our living room cum library?

She is usually surrounded by books, sure.  And she is an intrepid little explorer.  But she's also surrounded by plush toys, plastic toys, finger puppets, rattles, things that play a tinny little tune when you press their buttons, an expensive baby swing she abhors, a cheap second hand "excersaucer" she loves, and binkies, binkies, binkies (!).  Oh, and also: board books and soft squishy books just for her.

So why does she want the books on the book shelf?  What does she want to do with them?  If I give her a book she just tries to gnaw on it or rip its pages.

Annie looks at me, deadpan: "Duh."

(This room, by the way, with the book shelves and a comfy chair, was meant to be our adults-only room--our refuge from babydom.  This was before she was born.  After she was born she took it over in, oh, about a day.)

Peekaboo

She's starting to get the hang of peekaboo.

But not quite yet.

She thinks it's wonderful giddy laugh-out-loud unending fun when we wave one of her receiving blankets in front of her and then peek out over the top.

We haven't tested this, because we always tire before she does, but we're pretty sure she'd be happy to do this for hours.

So the blanket's a big hit.  But she's not so sure about the hands.  That does not make her laugh out loud.  Instead she looks at us with concern.

And once I made the mistake of peekaboo-ing out from the side of the blanket instead of the top.  She started violently and then stared at me with worried, teary eyes.

But don't worry, I hurried up and resumed playing with her the right way, and she soon got over her shock.

(She also likes it when we toss the blanket over her and she can kick and flap it off.  This appears to give her immense satisfaction.  On the few occasions when the blanket lands such that vigorous wriggling will not dislodge it, she gets quite unhappy.  Multiply her previous joy by negative one.  This switch is from unmitigated joy to seething anger is all but instantaneous.  It's a good thing she's still easily distracted.)

Sophie Rolls Over

Worse Than Claire

Long night last night.

She tossed and turned and turned and tossed.

Also with the kicking and the grabbing and the scratching.

For a while (45 minutes at three a.m.) I sat in a chair in the dark with her in my lap, trying to convince her to sleep.  While I gently rocked her and hummed a soothing lullaby, she strained to reach as high as she could and clawed frantically at my face.  Do you know how hard it is to keep humming soothingly when something is trying to claw its way into your mouth?

Earlier I had made the mistake of looking down.  Her eyes glinted at me through the darkness like those of a feral cat.  Happy to have gotten my attention, she giggled happily, and decided that sleepytime was over:  time to play now!

If only we could lock her in the basement--but alas, we have no basement.

Okay, fine.  I wouldn't really lock her in the basement (without turning on the baby monitor).

Anytime I express these sentiments to Annie, she looks at me blankly as if to say: "Do you expect sympathy?  YOU don't have to breastfeed."  Often she looks at me blankly and just goes ahead and says it too.

BTW, her--Sophie's not Annie's--feeding has taken on a ferociously feral turn lately.  She gobbles her milk/formula and is unamused (she shrieks!) when we try to take a break to wipe her mouth.  And those hands!  She grabs the bottle and wrestles it this way and that.  Sometimes she wrestles it right out of her mouth.  She'll lie there panting for a moment and then shriek at the bottle for having the temerity to remove itself from her mouth.

This is one of those things that, if I point it out, will cause Annie to stare balefully at me.

Opposable Thumbs

Although she has the opposable thumbs, and although I've said she's gotten good at grabbing, she's still less than stellar at grabbing on purpose.

This morning with a children's book, I found it was hard to engage her attention.  She's not a big one for plot and characterization yet.  She does like color though, and when she sees a chartreuse she really really likes, she'll flail her arms wildly and flutter her hands against the page, working hard to grab--what exactly I don't know.

I've learned the value of board books though, because: a) they won't give her paper cuts; and b) she's less likely to destroy them when she finally gets a corner into her mouth.

Unfortunately, chartreuse does not taste as good as it looks.  This is a bitter disappointment to her, and she'll start to whimper and cry.  Then I'll turn the page and distract her with another color and she'll say "Oh! Oh my, periwinkle!  Periwinkle must taste WONDERFUL!"  (Which sounds something like "oooooer-gah-pzzzzzzzzzth!").  Then the whole process begins anew.

At night, as I try to urge her to sleep, she grabs at my beard, sticks her fingers in my mouth, and pats my cheek as I sing a song.

Once she managed a really good hold on a couple of chest hairs and then cackled with glee when I shrieked.

Ready for her close-up

Rolling Over

She's regularly rolling over now.

Maybe on purpose?  Eh, maybe, maybe not.

It's like a taste of mobility and orneriness yet to come.

When, after the requisite bouncing and singing and shushing, I lean down (keeping her close to my body so that she doesn't startle), and place her gently in her crib, she will now turn on her side before going to sleep.  Her process for this is as follows:  she grunts, her legs shoot straight up, and the weight of them swings her over to one side or the other.  She then sighs a sigh of deep contentment and mutters off to sleep.

She will have no truck with the AAP's insistence that she should be kept on her back.  I suppose we could try swaddling again, but I think she would spit and hiss and mutter and razz like a cat in a straitjacket.  And even swaddled, the legs up in the air trick might work for her.

She turns over when it's not time to sleep too.  She has very good head control now, and will turn and stare at whatever interests her.  Occasionally she'll be on her back, get interested in something located approximately at the back of her head, and twist and grunt and turn until she suddenly (and unwelcomely) finds herself in impromptu tummy time.

Baby reaction times being what they are, it is an amusing 5-7 second process while she: a) realizes that something has changed; b) realizes that she's stuck on her tummy (because she can't figure out how to roll on purpose yet); c) starts to look worried; d) struggles ineffectually for a second; e) becomes enraged at Annie and my giggles; and f) starts to howl.

Conversations

We're not sure what she's saying, but she sure is saying a lot of it.

Coo, screech, babble.

She's started taking turns (a bit) when we talk.  So it's like an actual conversation (where one party uses no actual words).

Her repertoire includes: "ma", "huh", "eee", "ah", and "give it to me now!!!!"

Okay, that last isn't verbalized, but she still manages to make herself clear.

Her current long-term project is to finally get some of whatever it is that her mother and I keep sticking in our mouths.

Shopaholic--shots

Sophie is a hazard in stores now.

She grabbed at a vinyl bag handle the other day and wouldn't let--

what?  What's that?  You already know about how grabby-grabby-put-it-in-the-mouth she is?  You're tired of hearing it?  What else is new?

Well.

Huh.

Okay, how 'bout this: her trip to the pediatrician, Dr. Bones, ye olde baby mechanic.

Sophie failed to impress.

She's been a delight, she was busy being a delight that very day.  Then a short 30 seconds after going through the door, Sophie decided it was time to be grumpy.

Grump, grump, grump, wail!

This may have had something to do with the fact it was her eating-time we told the medical folk.  (Or perhaps she remembered the shots from last time?)

Mmm-hmmm, sure, said Dr. Baby-Bones' eyes.

Then we had an inexplicable incident with her bottle in which the milk streamed down her face instead of into her mouth.  This has never happened before!

Mmm-hmmm, sure.

Has she been eating enough.  Yes, she's not usually this ravenous (as Sophie claws at the bottle).

Mmm-hmmm, sure.

And the sleeping, how is that?  Well, we wake about twice a night, start in the crib, then move to the bed.

You know, said the Baby Mechanic, a family bed is well and good.  But (and it is here that I started mentally finishing her statements with comments like "you idjits", "so that how it's done chez McDumbass, is it?", and "it's a miracle you're kept her alive this long, really").  But there's a difference between planning a family bed and sort of falling into it because you're too tired.  ("Or incompetent").

That is only partially true!!!!!!  Partially!--we silently shouted.

How about solid foods we asked?

You know, Dr. Bones said leaning back and folding her arms, she's not going to get all that much out of solid food right now.  Rice cereal.  It's just empty carbs, she'll still get most of her nutrition from breast milk or formula.  ("Idiots!")  So you can give her a taste or two, but . . . 

Then she rolled her eyes at us, just on general principle.

She leaned over the bawling, frothy mass that was my daughter.  Okay sweetie, sorry, it's time for your shots!

And out the door she goes, leaving her dirty work to the nurse practitioner.

"It's your turn to hold her" said my lovely wife.

What ensued did nothing to improve Sophie's mood.

About five minutes after leaving the Doctor's office she was happy and cooing again.

A natural history of Sophie

The acorn barnacle feeds by opening its shell and extending a feathery leg into the water.  With this appendage, it grabs passing plankton and such, which it then kicks it into its mouth.

Sophie behaves in a remarkably similar manner.

When her mother and I are carrying her around a store (usually a book store) she is alerted to the presence of her prey by their colorful markings.  She will then extend an appendage and begin flapping it urgently in their direction.  When her host (that's me) moves her closer in response to her plaintive grunts, she will begin the process of attempting to grab and then devour--say--a DVD copy of the Mamma Mia soundtrack.

So far she has had little success (we don't, as a rule, allow her to slobber on the books), but every day, things are getting incrementally less safe around Sophie.

(She did manage a minor victory with a stuffed animal the other day.  This to the conflicted consternation of an employee who was torn between 1) an admiration for her cuteness; and 2) a desire to keep the merchandise unslobbered upon.)

Sophie's Balloon

Shortly after this she got very angry because she couldn't fit the balloon in her mouth.

Confirmed Sighting

We've just had a confirmed sighting of toes in Sophie's mouth.  I repeat, we have a confirmed sighting of toes in Sophie's mouth.

Observers have long thought Sophie capable of such a feet (Har-har-har!), since she has such impressive flexibility.  However, this is the first time the theory has been definitively confirmed by a sighting in the wild.

According to reports, Sophie enjoys the taste and 'mouth feel' of her toes, as she enjoys the taste of most things.  Asked to comment, she turned to the interviewer, grinned, and said "ah-grush-zzzzzzgh-ah-ooo!"

Omnivore

Sophie has been going through a period of rapid development and increasing frustration.

Here is a small list of things she has wanted to eat in the past two weeks and which subsequently enraged her because she could not (or was not allowed to--yes, I'm a big meanie):

1. A fast-food bag from Wendy's

2. Several mylar balloons

3. My watch

4. Her pacifier leash (which connects to her binky so that she can't hurl it to the floor as easily)

5. The wet ball of lint and hair that accumulates between her fingers if we let her go too long before wiping her fingers off

6. Anything that Annie and I are currently eating

7. An unopened bag of potato chips

8. A sheet of paper

9. My shirt pocket (VERY frustrating that it doesn't come off)

10. A rattle

What's wrong with chewing on a rattle, you ask?  Nothing.  She was frustrated because she couldn't get it in her mouth.  Because she was already sucking on her pacifier.

I tried to explain the Pauli exclusion principle to her, but she didn't want to listen.

The problem, I think, is that she's now experienced enough to have realized that the world has options.  She's not yet experienced enough to have realized that these options are often mutually exclusive.  (Freud derives from this sad fact the necessity of civilized neurotics).

Anyhoo, she'd really like to eat that thing over there, and can't understand why we'd deprive her of the pleasure.

Squirrel Sighting

She saw a squirrel today.

This is the first time that we've been sure she's seen an animal (other than fish, which she's seen in tanks--she likes fish).  We know she saw it because she turned her head to follow it.  

She's ignored pretty much everything except for people and trees hitherto.

Perhaps she thought the squirrel was a very small, furry person?  Or an oddly shaped, small, leafless, extremely mobile tree?

She likes looking at flowing water too.  She likes fountains, rivers, and faucets.

This is a slightly dangerous thing to be fascinated by.

The world is full of fascinating things that are also dangerous.  Fascinating dangers.

We will probably buy her one of those kiddie leashes when she starts to walk.

Grabby!

Sophie has started grabbing things.  On purpose.

It's her new dealio, and it's taking us by surprise.

Her toes are a favorite, but this morning she grabbed a spoon out of my bowl.  Yesterday she grabbed a handful of eggs off of Annie's plate.  When I go to put her down, things are newly complicated because as often as not she'll have a handful of shirt.  She was screaming angrily at the elefantes this morning (we'd had the temerity to put her down for a few minutes while we got dressed).  When I tried to pick her up, she had a death grip on one of the elefante's trunk.

Her hands have been a lot dirtier lately. I've been finding sticky-wet clots of hair and lint in between her fingers.  This is probably because she alternates grabbing things with sucking on her fists.  I hope she starts solids on our schedule rather than hers,...

All of a sudden there's an apartment full of things we have to worry about her grabbing.  Hot things are a worry.  Heavy, fall-y things are a worry.  Lots of sharp things need to be kept out of her way now.

Luckily she's still relatively immobile, but sooner or later she'll start crawling and walking and then we're in for it.

I can see it in her eyes:  what she desires most in the world is to go over there, pick that thing up and put it in her mouth.

'Cause it just might be food.

Sophie's New Sound

Sophie has a new sound.  It's kind of like a roar, but kind of, well, just look:

Sometimes the sound is happy.  Sometimes the sound is angry.  And sometimes it's just a warning that we'd better start paying attention to her.

(The sound is about a week old now, but it's taken me a while to get around to uploading it.)

Mike and Annie's Frustration

Sophie woke us at 2:00 with some serious screaming.  She was about doubled over with gas.

It's gotten to the point where we can pretty much tell if something is really wrong.  Usually she just engages is some recreational moaning.  Last night, there was no doubt she was in distress.  Poor little cupcake.

Unfortunately there's not much we could do about it except give her the gas medicine that the doctor tells us doesn't really work and bounce her in various positions until she got some relief.

So we bounced this way and that, on her tummy, on her back, on her side.  Meanwhile she was screaming.  Why didn't we fix this NOW?  Did we not understand that something was wrong???

We got her burping and pooting from both ends--and then, finally, a whimpering retreat into sleep.

I consider this perhaps a taste of what a colicky baby would be like.  I'm so grateful not to have one.

This morning she was sweetness and light again.

Sophie's Frustrations

She continues to get better and better at grabbing things.  Today she grabbed my shirt as I was bending down to put her into the stroller (an operation she strenuously objected to).  So that was cute.

Other things she enjoys grabbing include her bumpy yellow ball, her Tupperware shapes, and her blanket.  Oh, she has great fun with the blanket.  When we take her outside and want to cover her up because it is sunny out and babies shouldn't get sun burns--when we cover her up she grins like a maniac and starts kick kick kicking her blanket off.  Or, now that the grabbing has started in earnest, she'll screw up her face, cackle with delight and sweep up as much blanket as possible with her arms.  Then she tries to eat the blanket.

Because this, it seems, is the logical progression once you (the infant) have learned how to grab things:  you put the things you have grabbed in your mouth.  It's what grabbing's for.

And this is where the frustration comes in, because one of Sophie's new favorite things to grab is (are) her toes.  She does this very well--much better than I can.  But try as she might, she can't get the toes in her mouth.

Luckily she's fairly easily distracted with a song and a silly dance, so it's not too frustrating.  But still.

Sophie's Lacanian Moment

And *boom* she constitutes herself as a sovereign individual in the visual field.  

Which just goes to show you how advanced she is.  (Lacan said the mirror stage is for 8-month-olds).

Sophie's Social Life

Sophie had a busy week.

On Tuesday (the 17th) she visited a signing class.  On Friday (the 20th) she went with us to a party.

She was a bit too young for the signing--though Annie and I enjoyed it.  But she did find the other kids, and the toys, and the bubbles, and just the general activity fascinating.  She's never been too very enthusiastic about holding her head up for tummy time.  I thought she was maybe just lazy, but it turns out she's just been uninspired.  When there's something worth looking at (i.e. something other than Annie or my face) she'll apparently push up and look without complaining.

After a while, it got to be too much, and she had to have some quiet time.  (I understand completely, I often feel that way after more than an hour in the mall.)  Most of the other kids seemed to feel the same way--except for the one little girl who actually was old enough for the signing who kept jumping around, shrieking excitedly and who complained vigorously when it was time to come home.  This is behavior I recognize from when Annie and I had the event at Jump City (several bouncy castles in a warehouse):  the younger kids/babies don't complain when it's time to go home, but the 3+ set certainly does.

Something to look forward to.

The party on Friday was an end-of-seminar event in somebody's backyard.  Sophie was putting on a good show, just generally being cute as she was passed from one female lap to the other (for some reason men hardly never ask to hold babies).  At one point she was surrounded by several cooing people all enthusiastically competing to tell her how cute and wonderful she was.  She sat there, calm and composed, as she gazed beneficently at her subjects and graciously received their tributes.

She even charmed the few times she cried.  "Oh," people said with a laugh, "Oh sweetie, it's okay.  How cute!"

WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE AT THREE A.M.?

They laugh when we suggest they spend the night.  They think we are joking.

Sophie has hobbies

Sophie's new hobbies include:

1) Grabbing things with both hands and putting them in her mouth.  Like the yellow bumpy ball.  Or her cow rattle.  Or my finger.  When you're an infant everything looks like a nipple.  Her "grabbing" at this point is more like a kind of general inward sweep.  And sometimes she grabs something and apparently doesn't know how to let go.  But the general tenor and intentionality of her actions are clear:  "Hey whut's that thing?  I'm gonna put it in my mouth!"

2) Chilling out in her new stroller and charming passers-by.

3) Practicing stepping when held up on her feet.

4) "Razzing" (a kind of wet sibilant pffzffzfzfzfzfzfzfzfzfzfz-ing noise she makes with her lips).  This last can easily become a roar of rage when she feels ignored.

She continues to enjoy kicking off her blanket when she's in her car-seat and stroller.  She gets a wicked grin and does her coughing laugh and then kicks kicks kicks with abandon.  This is adorable in the daytime; less cute at 5:30 this morning.

Sophie's Yellow Ball

Laughing, Smiling, Vomiting

She's moved on from smiling to laughing now.

At first I thought it was just vocalizing in conjunction with a smile, but now I am prepared to recognize it as laughing.

This morning, while sitting on my chest and smiling down at me, she started coughing. I laid her on her back and she stopped, looking confused. Back on my chest, she gets all happy and starts coughing again. This is when it dawns on me that this is a laugh.

I fear she will be a cackler.

She's a ferocious eater now, and whereas she hardly ever spit up before, now she downs her meals with such slobbering haste that she will sometimes upchuck a bit. Luckily it doesn't seem to faze her.

She has also learned to roar in outraged fury. This morning Annie and I put her in her crib with the elefantes while we, you know, got dressed and scarfed a bit of food ourselves. She was silent, to all intents perfectly contented batting at the elephants, when all of a sudden there was a ferocious cry that demanded IMMEDIATE ATTENTION--RIGHT NOW!

Annie and I rushed in. Sophie saw us and dissolved into smiles. So--the outraged bellow, something new for her repertoire.

Return of the Swaddle

Last night was lovely.

We'd stopped swaddling her, because, well, I'm not sure why. Seemed like she was too big for it or something.

The last few nights she had become increasingly challenging. Binkie out, binkie in, binkie out--flail flail flail--vigorous complaining cry--rinse, repeat.

I especially loathe what Annie calls her 11:30p.m. stealth bottle, because, let me tell you, there's no way to be stealth about the fact that the breast milk has run out and I've just tried to palm the binkie off on her as if she wouldn't notice. She notices! She whimpers, she protests, she's not hungry, but would like me to know that the binkie is not cutting it and can't she just suck air? No she cannot. Sorry, child, but thus is life. I give her a finger. I hold her hand and stroke her cheek. Eventually, if I'm lucky, she will sigh and turn her head. Slowly, slowly, as if I were attempting to disarm a bomb, I'll disengage and sneak away, hoping she'll stay down.

Sometimes she does; the last few nights she hasn't.

So to the library, books will solve all: the inestimable Dr. Karp tells us we were fools--Fools!--ever to stop swaddling. We, thusly being chastened, swaddled and turned on the radio to stave off understimulation. This has the added benefit of not having to tiptoe around her.

And lo! It works.

Annie swears she slept deeper and more soundly. Annie and I certainly did. This morning we were all cheerful and babbly.

Sophie and the Magic Box of Moving Colors

We can't watch T.V. with Sophie around anymore.

She's okay with the noise, but when she sees the moving pictures her mouth forms a little 'o' and she leans forward in a fascinated trance as if she'd like to dive right into the screen.

After she's seen the T.V. on, we'll catch her checking it out even when it's off. Just in case it does anything interesting.

I don't know that we'll have an absolute T.V. embargo, but three-months seems a bit young to be exposing her to the blandishments of Entertainment Tonight and Lindsey Lohan's uncertain charms.

Sophie has hands!

Yesterday Annie brought her down to work and we had lunch sitting in a central atrium area (overlooking the computer lab).

Sophie stood on my lap and looked at all the people. Whenever anyone would go by, she would stop what she was doing and track them--turning her head as they passed. So while she still shows no interest in squirrels or geese, people are interesting enough (and big enough) for her to watch.

Also, the big news: she's discovered her hands. She spent a lot of time grabbing one hand with the other and staring at them. Occasionally, it looked like she was pulling one hand up to her mouth with the other. Cute.

What with the feet and the hands and the watching people and the vocalizing, it was a long day yesterday. She was so active and did not seem to want to sleep. When she finally went down, she slept hard. She stirred a bit around 1:30 a.m. but then was out until 8:00 or so.

And then she woke up all happy and playful. Lovely!

Sophie so far

So much going on in the last couple of months!

For the first month she was often doing an imitation of a pirate--one eye closed.

At one month she started really looking at us.

I would take her out for walks in the park in the babyhawk--toward the end of the second month she started staring at the trees.

At 1 1/2 to 2 months she started wanting to sit up and stand a lot.

At about the same time she starting vocalizing fairly consistently.

This past week or so, she's actually been playing with some toys--most notably her elefantes hanging over the crib and a little plastic monkey we got from my dad, I think. We've stopped watching TV around her because she's started paying attention.

She's started to have opinions--she stares in contempt at certain toys and is quite certain that tummy time is no fun. She enjoys being lifted in the air and will occasionally protest vigorously if I stop.

She especially seems to like being pulled into a standing position with her hands. She'll cock her legs and kind of do a crunch while smiling at me as if to say: get on with it! This started about two weeks ago or less.

She enjoys it when we stick our tongues out at her and make razzing noises. This is apparently hilarious.

She has discovered and fallen in love with her feet in the past week and a half or so. She enjoys looking at them, kicking them, kicking them against someone's hand, and having interesting socks on them.

Just yesterday she was in the library in her car seat when she kicked off her receiving blanket. I put it back on. She kicked it off again. I looked at her and she broke into a big wide grin. I covered her up again and she grinned even wider. Blanket goes on--baby kicks it off. This went on for some time.

I think she enjoys her feet so much because she's getting some control over them and thus has some mechanism for effecting change in the world. Other than pooing on it.