Saturday, June 18, 2005
Where’s Sadie?
There she is!
This is our version of peek-a-boo. Hide Sadie’s face, or one of ours, behind a towel, blanket, or whatnot, excitedly say “where’s Sadie?” (or whoever), remove the obstruction and say “there she is!” She gets such a kick out of the game, and around a week ago she initiated it herself with Deb. Wow! She did it with me a couple days ago. She gets so excited when you play along by saying “where’s Sadie?” when she has the cloth in front of her face, then “there she is!” when she drops it.
That’s a big conceptual leap, initiating the game herself. We were tickled.
Another thing she started doing out of the blue, maybe two weeks ago, is being affectionate to Deb’s belly. She started giving it hugs and kisses. Very strange.
She’s been teething, and drooling, like crazy, but none have popped through since the original two she got at four months. Not that this stops her from eating heartily. Each day she has Cheerios, at least one slice of toast, as many as four kinds of fruit, one or more veggies, and frequently cheese, macaroni or other pasta, chicken or sometimes other meat, crackers, Nilla Wafers, and sometimes other things. We’ve been throwing in a jar of baby food now and then to use it up. She’s far enough into feeding herself that she’s okay with being fed the old way sometimes.
She’s eating at least four times a day; sometimes almost constantly. Her favorite thing is ripe yellow nectarines. She’s big into bananas too. I cut up the mango and she initially liked it, but not so much now. That may be because she got the softest parts first and the rest needs to be steamed softer. She liked kiwi, but that was almost as messy as yesterday morning when she had blackberry jam on part of her toast. She liked that as much as the part of the toast that had cream cheese. Heck, the kiwi was messier than the broccoli she had three nights ago. That may very well be her favorite vegetable. If it’s on her tray, she eats it first, then goes for the other stuff. She eats a lot of her stuff off our plates. Pancakes are a big hit.
She loved being at the office last week when it was hot. I put her in a big box a Dell server had come in, like a mini play pen. Rather than feeling trapped, she thought that was cool, especially when she had toys to play with. We got her one of those shaped blocks and matching holes toys that lives at the office for times she is there, and someone in the building gave her an apple shaped ball she loves. The mattress in the sleeper loveseat comes out and she naps on that on the floor. If she wakes up, she can crawl right off of it safely.
We’re on walking watch. She can stand up, on her own, in the middle of the floor, with nothing to hold onto. She still stands in one place though, toes curled into the rug as if they hold her up and she’ll fall if she lifts them. Deb did have success the other day in having her take steps while she held her hands. That’s new. Ah, I am witnessing it today. She waves bye-bye now, but she stubbornly refuses to clap. We keep threatening to take her to see her cousin to learn from her.
She’s mimicking more words, even complete phrases, sometimes surprisingly well considering the lack of teeth. Mainly she says da da da. She uses inflections and volumes of “mmmm” to indicate she wants something or something is good. “Are you thirsty?” “Mmmm!” Like that. She’s also selective about shaking her head no. “Want some toast?” *shake* *shake* “Some apple?” *silence* “Nectarine?” *silence* She babbles a lot, usually waking up insanely happy, sitting in the crib, playing and holding conversations by herself while waiting for someone to notice. She says words sometimes that aren’t mom, ma ma, mommy, da da, daddy, dad, yeah, or mmmm, but she’ll do them once or twice and then they go away. For instance, she has said hi a couple times. She seems to say “I love you” sometimes. Ah, I forgot, mostly she shakes her head, but one time she nodded for me to indicate “yes” to something. Deb just reminded me of that.
She knows large numbers of words, even if she isn’t saying them. She know what we’re saying and reacts or responds accordingly. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
Baths have become a challenge. A toy helps. She loves her rubber duckie! She’ll happily stand up during most of the bath, keeping little contact with the water. Then again, she wants to stand during diaperings too. Yay. She hates hates hates water, or at least water and soap, going down her face. My new system is to hold her upside down, dunk her hair in the water to wet it, then set her in the tub, then when rinsing, be careful to minimize what goes down her face. She makes this tough.
She’s hopelessly fascinated with phones now. This may be a natural progression, or may be because she has a cool toy phone that is one of her favorite things. I wonder if people fully appreciate what microprocessors and modern technology have done for toys.
Someone gave her a couple of used Baby Einstein videos. Those are utterly enthralling. She seems especially taken with dogs. I used to get my nieces and nephews big stuffed animals for their first Christmas or birthday (that and books like Mother Goose, etc.). I gave an English Sheep Dog to one of my nieces and for the next two years my sister in law would periodically tell me “it sheds! It’s not even a real dog and it sheds!”
Every other day, at least, she’ll go the entire day refusing to nap. Those days are fun. On the other hand, she can sleep like crazy at night, and her bedtime has been migrating earlier in fits and starts, prompted by the fact that she keeps getting sleepy earlier. Thus the falling asleep in her chair eating supper. Thursday night she went to sleep at 10:00. Friday morning Deb had to be at the doctor at 10:30, so I had Sadie duty. She slept through our waking to the alarm and the activity in the house. At 11:00 I went in to check and found she had just sat herself up and was blearily awake. She slept nearly thirteen hours.
That was when I gave her the big breakfast that included jam and cream cheese on her toast. She didn’t miss nursing at all. I forgot to try some formula on her, having already given her juicy water, which she sucked down, as thirst first thing in the morning as we generally are. We’re experimenting with formula, which she has not taken to well. The latest theory is to use it as a basis for fruit smoothies. Of course, I gave her a couple spoonfuls of milk with a little cereal in them from my cereal this morning and she thought the milk was gross too. But my coffee? Mmmmm!
She’s able to break out of the computer room now, if she decides she wants to or manages it accidentally. We have the doorway blocked with a couple of plastic milk crates. The empty one slides easily. Yet she’ll move it and then stay in the room most of the time.
One of her relatively favorite toys is the thing with a row of characters that pop up, each with a different lever, button or knob to make it do so. Does she like making the things pop? No. You pop them up, and she obsessively puts them all down again because it offends her sense of order for them to be up. She’s so funny. It’s a great way to distract her attention from something you’d prefer it not to be on.
Like pulling books off shelves. She’s been “helping” her mother pack, pulling books off the bookcases. You’d think this would run counter to the sense of order she exhibits with the pop-up toy.
We’re still having a little bit of separation anxiety associated mainly with Deb, yet this is interspersed with utter fascination and friendliness with strangers. She got held by several people at work, a couple of whom she didn’t want to let go of. All the people there, and in places like restaurants, or the Weekend Pundit wedding, fascinate her. She’s especially fond of other babies. She met one her age that she was quite taken with at the wedding. People marvel at how quiet and well behaved she is. In public you’d never know how much she “talks” here.
She’s into mirrors now, too. She always seemed to like them, but recently she seemed to make the connection that this was her and that a mirror was showing a reflection that does whatever she does. Several days ago, looking in the mirror after her bath, she had drool running down her chin, so she lifted the edge of the towel and wiped it. At the restaurant last weekend, standing outside afterward, she watched her reflection in the window. At the office, she kissed her reflection in the dead monitor on the floor that she was playing around.
I guess that’s enough of a Sadie update for now. I can’t remember anything else offhand, though it’s entirely possible she’s done interesting stuff I’ve forgotten. Heck, just this morning she refused to drink her juicy water for Deb because it didn’t have enough juice in it. She’s becoming opinionated like that, and finding ways to express it. In this case, if she doesn’t like what’s in the sippy cup, she drops it onto the floor. She did that with the formula, too.
