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Five Months Old Etta and I signed up for a twice weekly, half hour swimming "class" in the warm water therapy pool at our city pool. The class is structured with activities, such as encouraging the baby to splash her arms, and simulating a "freefall" from the side of the pool, which the teenage instructor suggests are teaching the babies lifesaving skills, but I have no delusions of Etta or any of the other babies becoming accomplished swimmers while they’re still in diapers. I view the class as an opportunity for Etta to enjoy the water and meet other babies, and nothing more. In fact, I don’t think I’ll sign up for the class again because we have just as much fun bobbing around in the water with the float toys and other moms and babies during the public swim. We’ve also joined a play group that meets once a week. Most of the babies ages five to eight months, and Etta is the youngest and most delicate. The babies lounge on their quilts, surrounded by their toys, in the center of the room. Moms create a perimeter around the dozen or so quilts. All of the babies except Etta and two other girls are able to sit unsupported. The group is a fusion of women from childbirth and new mother classes given by the hospital where our babies were born. Had I not been working, I could have joined earlier. With this gathering in addition to our twice weekly swimming, Etta will be getting lots of stimulation. Current Fascinations Etta loves tags and labels. She has many colorful soft toys, and now three lovely cloth books with lots of flaps, squeekers, crinklies, and three dimensional attachments, but it is the small white labels she homes in on. Those utilitarian fabric content/washing instruction tags fascinate her. She fingers them. She sucks them. She examines them with rapt interest. Etta is crazy for the kitties. She hears their collars tinkling and starts looking around frantically for them. It’s a problem when she’s nursing and trying to get to sleep, because she’ll be relaxed, hear the kitty’s collar, and she’ll pull off the breast, push herself up, and strain to look in the direction of the sound. I finally took the collars off of the kitties to keep them from distracting her. Etta also enjoys petting the kitties. Unfortunately, she enjoys it so much that she now shrieks with delight, which makes the kitties less willing to stick around and be petted, no matter how starved for attention they are. While out shopping one day I got two helium balloons for Etta. When I got home I put her on her back on the carpet, tied a ribbon around each of her ankles, and stood back as she kicked furiously to make the balloons dance above her. It wasn’t long before she figured out a trick: she rolled onto her side, brought her feet up, grabbed a ribbon at her ankle, and then worked her hands up the ribbon until she’d pulled the balloon down to where she could bring it to her mouth. I had to take the balloons away at that point because I didn’t want them to pop in her face, terrifying her. Etta plays with her tongue constantly. She sticks it out, curls it up, hums spittles around it, and thrusts it against the roof of her mouth to make a squishing noise. It’s as if she hadn’t realized it was there, and now, all of a sudden it’s something to be explored. She’s challenging her tongue to see just what it is capable of doing. Although she’s busy with her tongue throughout the day, it is at mealtimes that she’s most active with it. Just last week she was eating quite neatly, having mastered taking food from a spoon, sliding it to the back of her mouth, and swallowing. Now, with a mouthful of food, she rolls her tongue, sticks it out, curls it under, and smacks it against the roof of her mouth to make that exciting "squish" sound. Hair, or lack thereof Etta had a second balding a few weeks ago, and overnight her hair has sprouted again. She has a strange three-tone hairstyle. The top of her head is covered with velvety fuzz barely and eighth of an inch long. She has a bald stripe from ear to ear around the back of her head. The lower sides and back of her head has hair almost an inch long. There are still a dozen or so inch-long hairs on the top of her head that remain from her newborn days, and when static electricity makes them stand up they look like insect antennae! New Adventures in Food and Drink I gave Etta water for the first time today. She is so interested in holding the "cup" (An Avent bottle with a sipper spout and handles) and drinking from it, but it’s difficult if it’s not full to the top because it needs to be tipped up for the spout to fill with liquid. Also, when I put milk in it, I had to be extra diligent to clean up any spills to prevent bacteria growth. Having plain water splashed around is less messy. While spoon feeding Etta, she grabs the spoon as it nears her mouth and abruptly shoves it in, nearly gagging herself. When Etta sees something she wants, she grabs it at lightening speed. There is no longer a hesitation, a need to judge distance, or a thought about how to get it. I think she is soon ready for finger foods even though she only has two little slivers of teeth at this point. Long Distance My husband called home from the office and for the first time I put the phone up to Etta’s ear so that he could say hello to her. She smiled the instant she heard his voice and whipped her head around (in the direction of the ear which she’d heard the sound in) and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t there. The Common Cold… and a First Tooth? I developed a bad sore throat and headache and Etta was somewhat subdued, staring glassy-eyed for a long while before surrendering to sleep each night. She coughed occasionally, but didn’t seem congested. I wondered if she had a sore throat, but I had no way of knowing. Etta is about to get her first tooth, on the lower right. I’ve been watching her gum swell, thicken, and rise for days, but now there is a sharp point poking through. It is just a tiny corner of the tooth, barely visible to the eye, but quite noticeable when I put my finger in her mouth and she bites down. I started giving her infant’s Tylenol when she fusses, to relieve either the cold symptoms or teething pain, or possibly both. Etta has been particularly needy, requiring lots of time at the breast and lots of cuddling and reassurance. On Saturday my husband and I took her for a long walk in the carriage, she rode around in the Snugli carrier on my back (she’s still too floppy for the framed backpack), she had two good meals in her high chair, she played with a variety of toys, she had a bath, she pet the kitties, we "read" some picture books, and she took several naps. What a life! Object Permanence Etta was viciously chewing a toy which I doubted could withstand her assault, so I got a more suitable teething toy and switched it in her hands. Immediately, she lunged in the direction of the toy I’d taken, even though it was quickly out of sight. I put it down under the chair we were sitting in, and she peered over the arm of the chair, not seeing the toy but knowing that it went that direction, and she started to cry. Just last week it was "out of sight, out of mind," but now she knows that things continue to exist even if she can’t see them anymore. Rolling Over Etta rolled over from belly to back today and was quite pleased by her cleverness. She’s nearly six months and already I can see that she’s on her own timetable for motor-skills development. Most of the babies in our playgroup go to baby gymnastic programs and their mothers eagerly encourage them to reach their "milestones" on time, if not early. I take a more casual approach, allowing Etta time on the floor to play and explore, but never really coaching her to do certain things. I try not to compare Etta to other babies, but sometimes I wonder if I’m shortchanging her by not giving her more directed stimulation. Most of the babies in our playgroup learned to roll over at four months. If I’d taken Etta to Gymboree classes twice weekly since she was two months old, would she have learned to roll over sooner? But more importantly, does it really matter when she attains these little skills? I look around at my own dusty home, the piles of dirty laundry, and the pantry filled with "instant" meal mixes, and do I feel guilty for "sitting around all day" playing with my baby? Not really. Because my mother also reminds me how quickly babies grow and are gone. Etta will be six months tomorrow. Her newborn days are gone forever. In a way I feel that she’s always been a part of my life, but then again I can’t believe how fast her infancy is passing. I want to savor every moment, even if Etta’s "behind" in her physical development and I’m sitting here in the same shirt I wore yesterday because I haven’t done the laundry yet. |
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