My most popular posts are two that talk about Amy having grey eyes. Apparently these posts show up in Google image searches.
They might be getting browner. Hard to say, they look so different on different days, in different clothes. Here’s today, at fifteen months (with residual tuna on her face):
Here’s at eight months:
Uploading videos via dialup is not feasible. So I’ve gone to the library (ours here in Plymouth, and the one in Culver) to do the uploading, and even then it’s not that fast. I think it took over an hour each time I was there, to do two videos simultaneously. And these aren’t even long videos! I miss cable…
Anyway, these first three are from August 9. It was originally one long video but I tried to separate out the more interesting parts.
Crawling:
Pulling up to stand:
Getting down (on purpose):
And this one’s from last night. We all had spaghetti; ours with homemade meat sauce, and Amy’s with a little butter and parmesan. Some of it ended up in her mouth — most of it found its way there eventually, with help.
Amy did two things today that wowed me.
First, after she pulled herself up by her rocking chair arms, she took steps to follow it as her weight pushed it around the room.
Then, she crawled up onto the low shelf of her changing table. Climbed! No, I don’t plan on making that an available play space, but I was so surprised at what she was doing that I just watched.
In other news, I bought a folding camp-chair-style booster seat — very light-weight, folds compact — to use when Amy and I join Mark at the dining hall. We used it at lunch today and it worked great. And it was less expensive than hard plastic non-folding or non-compact boosters, so even better.
Amy has been showing interest in participating in spoonfeeding, or at least getting somehow involved with that mushy stuff. So we bought her one of those fancy cloverleaf Baby Bjorn bowls, that’s supposed to not tip and not slide around, and whose shape is supposed to help kids get and keep food on their spoons.
But first! Look how cute:
Okay, so first I put the bowl on Amy’s highchair tray. She picked it up. Sigh. But before I gave up, I thought, maybe she’d forget about playing with the bowl if there was something interesting in it.
So I cut up some nectarine for her and put all the pieces in the bowl. She picked them up and ate them just fine and otherwise left the bowl alone. She dropped fewer pieces than she does when we put her finger food directly on the tray or table.
Next, after she finished the nectarine bits, I put in the new food for the week — beans cooked with veggies and mashed — and placed the spoon in it.
Forget about the spoon, says Amy, as she digs right into the stuff.
Smiling — oh, what a fast and easy way to eat!
But wait! What’s this? This looks familiar… aha!
Actually, the spoon didn’t become interesting until the end. When she couldn’t grab any more food, I used the spoon to feed her what was left, and then she played with the spoon.
After this one use of the bowl and spoon, I am pleased. It is not as heavy and slide-proof as I expected — the blue part is pretty stiff and not very thick. However, the bowl doesn’t tip, it was easy for Amy to eat out of, and she didn’t want to play with it as long as there was food inside.
Amy’s hair has been hanging in her eyes for a long time now. I have been uncertain how to manage it, whether to put it in a ponytail or cut it. The ponytail seems to pull too tight, so today I decided to cut.
After gathering the camera, the scissors, the comb, a glass of water to wet the comb with, and a baggie to put the cut hair in, I strapped Amy into her highchair with a towel bib on, then I wet the front half of her hair with the wet comb.
Here are the first curls cut from the middle. She was a lot more cooperative than I expected, watching the comb and the scissors go back and forth and trying to watch me cut.
And Amy shows off the cut from all angles, before a nice bath to rinse away any bits of hair that might otherwise irritate her face or neck. (She sure hates having her hair rinsed anymore; it used to not bother her at all, but before that it bothered her even more than it does now.)
It’s hard to cut hair straight even when the patient sits still, so I feel pretty good about this cut even though it’s somewhat lopsided. Besides, I think most of the slant is because the front hair on her right side waves a bit.
Sounds
Cries — When very tired, frustrated, hungry, or when her hair’s being washed
Getting ready to cry — The wide-open mouth, scrunched up face, so angry or upset that she can’t get a cry out just yet; doesn’t happen that often
Giggles — When tickled, swung around, or otherwise pleasantly surprised
Singing — High-pitched light babble
Snuffling — She will huff and puff quickly through her nose
Sonar — Short bursts evenly spaced
Sports announcing — Loud babble and yells
Various other babble — Mostly b’s, d’s, g’s, ah’s, and e’s
Whines — Usually in her high chair waiting for more food
Movements
Annoyance — Sometimes she’ll bang her arms up and down and kick a bit when she’s frustrated, like when I won’t let her eat grass or climb on the kitty or when we wipe her face after a meal
Clapping — Mostly almost clapping, where her hands just go back and forth but don’t touch, but twice she’s actually made a few claps
Crawling — Not all that fast or graceful yet, but competent, even for getting over obstacles like a pillow or a leg
Cuddling — With a person or a blanket or soft toy, she’ll scrunch herself up and hug whatever it is and tuck her face into it
Pick me up — When we get ready to pick her up, she raises her arms.
Pincer practice — She still mostly grabs with her whole hand but sometimes touches things with just one finger or an open hand, and occasionally grabs with first finger and thumb
Standing — Occasionally she can pull herself up on the coffee table, but if placed standing she can stay up for a long time, cruise to the left, let go with one hand or foot, and either sit by falling or occasionally by reaching down
Take and toss — She’ll crawl around grabbing toys and tossing them behind her
Waving — One or both hands up high
Meals and sleep
At breakfast she has a bottle, 6-7 oz.
Around 11 she has a nap, anywhere from forty minutes to an hour and a half.
At lunch she has a vegetable, a fruit, and whatever that week’s new food is. Some of the recent ones have been scrambled eggs, yogurt, mozzarella cheese, rye crackers, and whole wheat pasta. Then another bottle.
After her afternoon nap, usually from 3:00 to 4:45 or so, she has another bottle.
At dinner she has oatmeal or barley cereal, Cheerios, and a little of anything from our dinner that she can eat.
At bedtime, the fourth and final bottle.
Activities
Most of her waking time she spends in the living room with that week’s basket of toys. (I’ve divided them into three baskets, in hopes of all of us getting less bored.) She can entertain herself quite well.
Sometimes we play with her with a toy — helping her pull a string or push a button, playing peekaboo with a stuffed animal, and so on.
Sometimes we do “Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” “Patty-cake,” or “This Little Piggy.” She watches, laughs, and sometimes gets her hands involved.
Sometimes we read a book and let her play with it afterwards (if it’s a board book).
Sometimes I sing or play an instrument for her while she either plays in the living room or stands in the entertainer.
Sometimes we take her for a walk, usually in her stroller.
Sometimes she crawls around the floor, playing with the rug my mom crocheted, or the springy boingy doorstops, or the dining room chairs, and so on.
Sometimes Mark swings her around or does arm curls with her and that sort of thing.
Sometimes she plays with blocks in her room.
Sometimes she rocks in her rocking chair or on the rocking horse. She doesn’t rock them herself very well, although sometimes she tries. She holds on well to the arms of the chair or the handles on the horse.
So I figured out how to use the clear elastics we bought a few weeks ago — you have to stretch them first. They make a much better baby ponytail than my chunky elastics. And how cute with one of Sandi’s bows clipped on in front!
One of the shots included a good clear image of those two bottom teeth, so here’s a close-up. It also shows her pretty grey eyes very nicely.
Yesterday I tried two books with Amy that I haven’t tried in a long time. They’re not board books, but kind of a stiff glossy cardstock, so I haven’t been sure she could handle them gently enough.
Both are interactive — Pat the Bunny has little things to do like look in a mirror, lift a cloth for peekaboo, and a furry bunny to pat.
Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings has open-out pages — folded, they show a textured shape, and opened, they show a picture of animals incorporating that texture and shape. She’s not ready to handle the open-out pages yet, but she can touch the textures.
This morning I noticed her sitting with Pat the Bunny open on her lap, patting the bunny, then turning the page. How cute!
I made a silly little doll for Amy. Her proportions are, um, interesting. She is made from an old T-shirt. The eyes and mouth are embroidered with thread. The hair is made from rope handles from a gift bag, unraveled, each strand knotted in the middle, and sewn with the knots inside the head. I’ll make some clothes at some point.
Here’s a cute picture from this morning:
