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.