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.