Matching Tracksuits

the girl

Skills, Part II

Tuesday 8 May 2007

L is gaining increasing control over her hands — so much so that she now can use her fist as a substitute when she’s lost her pacifier.

I originally wrote this several weeks ago, then put it on hold for some reason or another. Now it’s off hold, but I forgot to change “three months.” As of today, she’s just a little more than a week shy of five months.

Translation: we have a budding thumb-sucker.

Now, sucking a thumb is not bad. All parenting books I’ve read say as much. In fact, once L starts teething, our pediatrician informs us, it’ll be better if she sucks on her thumb than on her pacifier.

But for some reason, whenever that cute fist goes partially into her mouth, K and I instinctively pull it back out and re-insert the pacifier.

Why?

After all, a thumb is much more convenient than a pacifier.

  • It never falls to the floor.
  • It never gets lost.
  • It never gets left behind.
  • It’s readily available in the dark.

I suppose it’s an unfounded worry that, by letting our little girl start sucking her thumb, she’ll have a hard time later stopping. As she’s only three months old, it’s about like us worrying that she’ll want to go to a school known more for partying than learning.

It’s called “exaggeration.”

Girl at Play

Monday 7 May 2007

DSC_6787
The Girl plays to the accompaniment of one of the most famous songs ever written.

Chimney Rock

Wednesday 2 May 2007

Sunday was the second time we’d been to Chimney Rock. The first time, we were sans L, sans camcorder, sans D70. That, of course, means lots of images of the Girl and a bit of video of the Girl.

L began the day in my custody:

Chimney Portrait

But fussiness overwhelmed her about 2/3 of the way through the outing — only K could comfort (what alliteration).

Mom and Girl above Falls

More pictures at Flickr; video coming soon.

Turning Heads

Tuesday 1 May 2007

I’m constantly amazed at all the things L has to learn, and how quickly she learns them. She learned those things waving around in front of her face were hers, and then she learned to control them. She’s figured out that those growths from her lower body are hers, too, and she’s learning to control them too.

Both those examples are very concrete.

Lately she’s been getting into the abstract.

We noticed last night, for instance, that she’s figured out a major fact about the world around her: it generally stays in the same place, and it’s she that moves. She was watching K load the dishwasher, and I turn around 180 degrees. She quickly turned her head and continued watching. And it took me just a couple of seconds to realize the significance of what she’d done. I turned back around again; she turned her head again, and giggled when K kissed her cheek.

The Laugh

Friday 27 April 2007

It’s something every parent eagerly awaits, I suppose — early laughs. Unlike early “smiles,” which are often the result of baby’s gas, laughs come from a sense of humor, and not a pressurized digestive system.

L has been laughing here and there, but only for a few moments, and then it’s just smiles. Recently, however, she has begun laughing for extended periods of time. Not extended enough for all of us huddled around her, but more than a few isolated seconds.

Sort of… (Redux)

Thursday 26 April 2007

Not only did I not provide the link to the video the first time. It turned out that the video hadn’t even uploaded properly.

Sort of…

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Sitting IThere’s a definite developmental order almost all infants follow. Sitting comes before standing. Crawling comes before walking. Babbling comes before talking. Liquids come before solids. It’s all very regimented in the child’s development.

Or so I thought.

L has been challenging that preconception, though. Now, the Girl absolutely and very resolutely does not want to sit. She wants to stand. Sort of. We’ve been burping her simply by setting her on bottom and letting the pressure that exerts on her belly (when she leans over slightly) force out all the offending air. Now, she simply extends her feet when we move her from a horizontal to vertical position, and it’s virtually impossible to get her simply to sit.

Sitting is one thing. This is quite another.

Update I somehow didn’t provide the link to the video. That’s been corrected.

Note to Self

Thursday 19 April 2007

The Girl has a tendency to pee right after her diaper has been taken off. Perhaps it’s the freedom of being diaper-less; perhaps it’s the air on her bare bottom; perhaps it’s just a sense of the theoretically forbidden; perhaps it’s simply chance. Nonetheless, the Girl likes to pee diaper-less.

Timing...And so, what to do? If you’re lucky, you catch it all in the diaper you just put off. In case that doesn’t work out, there’s the hope that you remembered to put a cloth diaper just under the Girl’s bottom to catch accidents. But if both plans fail, there’s only one alternative: put her on the bed briefly while you pull the cloth liner off the changing pad.

Here, a question arises: why? Rather, why now? Because we don’t want the Girl to lie in her mess? Well, she does that until we change the diaper anyway. Really, it doesn’t make sense.

And here’s why: What if the Girl, while lying bare-bottomed on bed, decides, “Now is a good time for a BM”?

For the Grandparents

Tuesday 17 April 2007

Nana finally got to hold the Girl for an extended period of time — a genuine miracle when Pa-Paw is around.

Wednesday Afternoon Hands

Sunday 15 April 2007

The Girl is getting control of her hands. They’re still jerky, and this is a cause of great frustration. “Get used to it,” I say. “Not being able to get your hands to do exactly as you wish is something that plagues us for our entire lives.”

But she has, I think, finally realized that those things sticking out from her shoulders are hers and under her control. So she’s reaching for things. She’s holding things. She’s flinging things, though somewhat accidentally.

And once a little almost-four-month-old gets that ability, where does everything go? Straight to the mouth.

Tricks

Saturday 14 April 2007

The Girl has been learning how to grab things with her hands and then actually do something more — move it, hold it, bring it towards her mouth. Lately, I’ve been putting a clean cloth diaper over her head and seeing if she can pull it off. If I leave some wrinkles for her to grab, she usually does.

Tonight, however, she used her head — but not literally.

Roll

Thursday 12 April 2007

Lots of rolls — bank-and-roll, dinner rolls, credit roll, drum roll, sausage roll, Charles Rolls, bank roll, spring roll, barrel roll, Swiss Cake rolls, fat rolls, egg roll, shake-rattle-and-rolls, rock-and-roll,

But none of them can compare to this roll.

In the Dark

Wednesday 11 April 2007

For the first time in ages, K and I slept in the dark last night.

No, not the “first time in ages.” The first time in almost four months.

Since L’s birth, we’ve kept a small red light on beside the bed. You never know when the girl’s going to wake up in a pacifier panic, or spit up and need emergency cleaning, or any number of other horrid, life-threatening things.

But  last night, K thought we should do an experiment — open the blind to the window on her side of the bed and see if that provides enough light. And it did.

And so for the first time in weeks and weeks, I lay there in the dark, no red light filling the room with an oddly calm-yet-angry glow (red light is just really not all that pleasant at all), and it honestly felt as if it was the firs time in my life that I’d slept in the dark. It felt like going to bed without brushing my teeth, or coming home without hugging, kissing, and playing with the girl, or eating cereal with skim milk — it just felt unnatural.

Next step — get the girl to stay in her crib all night, even in the midst of needing a 1:00 a.m. feeding…

New Toy

Tuesday 10 April 2007

When I got a new toy as a kid, the hardest thing to do was to leave it at home every morning when I left for school. When I got back, I was so excited to be able to play with it again.

With L, it’s the same, only the feelings are more intense, not to mention more significant.

The best part of it is the smile and the giggles I now get when I return home from work.

Unless she’s sleeping.

The Visit

Monday 9 April 2007

Oh, that Papa is sly. A planned Easter visit across the mountain can be turned around (Let someone else do the driving for once!) by simply throwing one’s back out. Then the parents can bring the granddaughter to the grandparents!

I’ll have to remember that.

Of course, the one who spent the most time with the Girl was the old man…

If it weren’t for the fact that Nana is so sensible, that girl would be so spoiled that she’d stink worst than durian.

The Mobile

Saturday 7 April 2007

Now playing at a YouTube near you: The Mobile.

A stirring drama about a little girl, a mobile, and the bond between them. With an all-star cast and a classic sound track, it’s sure to become a classic.

Fan’s Fan

Friday 6 April 2007

The Girl likes just about anything that moves in a circle, I believe, but ceiling fans now seem to be a favorite.

Fan's Fan

We discovered this some time ago at a visit to Paw-Paw and Nana’s place — they have ceiling fans in almost every room, so L was probably fairly certain that she was in her own personal Seventh Heaven.

“Goin’ Mobile”

Monday 2 April 2007

Like most–probably all–parents, we have a mobile hanging over our little girl’s crib. In keeping with the rest of the decor, it’s a Pooh Bear themed mobile, with Pooh, Tigger, Pigglet, and Eeyore swirling around, looking down at usually-smiling L.

But that’s very passive–lying there, watching Pooh and friends turn circles over your head.

Taking an idea from Baby Minds by Susan Goodwyn by Linda Acredolo (Amazon), we made it a more engaging–and thus, more educational–activity. All it took was the addition of a long piece of fabric loosely tied to L’s left leg, with the other end end attached to the mobile. And voila!

It didn’t take long for L to figure it out:

motion of leg = mobile mobile = very happy little girl

And with increased happiness came increased motion, until everything was a blur.

Now that she’s got it, we’ll change it, attaching it perhaps to her right arm–it will get her used to “real” life…