You Need Hands….

Although Emily has been quietly fascinated with certain parts of her body for several weeks now (her knees, as I’ve mentioned before, have been particularly popular), she’s suddenly realised that there’s more to her than that.

She’s discovered that she has a tummy, for instance, and has taken to scratching it when she’s having her nappy changed or being dried after her bath (another reason why I was eventually driven to cut her nails). And recently, I’ve gone in to her room to get her up in the mornings and found her staring at her hands in abject wonder, as if she can’t quite work out what they’re for.

In the last couple of days, she has also realised that she has feet. What’s more, she’s also realised that feet taste quite nice when pulled into one’s mouth. It always amazes me how babies are able to do this, since it requires a kind of dexterity and bendiness that us adults just don’t seem to possess. My mother has pointed out that she is only just realising her limbs are part of her, hence the reason she is so captivated by them.

The most entertaining moment, however, came when she discovered that she had hair. We were in the middle of the supermarket, when she suddenly started stroking the side of her head, with a very bemused expression on her face. And she kept on doing it all the way to the checkout.

Of course the fact she can’t actually see her hair, whereas she can see her hands and feet, must have confused her even more. Which leaves me wondering just how she’ll react when a tooth finally makes its appearance.

Nailing It

After weeks and weeks of putting it off, I finally gave in yesterday and cut Emily’s fingernails. I wasn’t planning to do it then and there, but she had started scratching the sofa in the manner of an over-enthusiastic cat and we decided something had to be done.

There are a number of reasons I’ve actually been procrastinating on the fingernail front – not only was I a bit scared of accidentally clipping one of her fingers instead of its nail, but also the mere prospect of trying to keep a wriggly baby’s hands still for long enough to cut even one nail, let alone a whole hand’s worth, was a daunting one. The one time I did sneakily bring out the clippers, I managed to get about two done before she realised what I was doing and screamed the place down.

And sure enough, the first two proved surprisingly easy – but the older, wiser Emily simply didn’t bother with screaming once she realised what was going on. Instead she just moved her hand out of the way – and as soon as I held it once again, so she moved it again. I tried giving her a toy to distract her, but she simply held it in such a way that it proved impossible to reach her hand. And sure enough when I did, she slid it away once more.

This went on for several minutes until I finally fooled her into thinking I simply wanted to hold her hand in an affectionate way – and pounced with lightning speed once she finally gave her hand to me, before she could cotton on and whisk it away again. I managed eight nails before I eventually gave up, figuring she couldn’t do much damage with two freakishly long ones.

Still, it’s a relief that it’s finally done. Perhaps next I’ll give her toenails a go.

Circular Motion

Over the past few days, Emily’s mobility has noticeably increased, and although she hasn’t quite mastered the art of getting from one side of the room to the other, she has discovered that moving herself round in circles is a fun alternative.

Yesterday morning, as per usual, I put her down on her playmat once she had finished breakfast. It was no surprise to me when she rolled on to her tummy within a few seconds, but I was rather taken aback to walk back in the room five minutes later and discover her facing the opposite wall to the one she had previously been facing. Another few minutes and she was the other way round, staring at the sofa. And all I could think was, “Just how did she do that?”

My mother later informed me that babies tend to have their own unique ways of getting around. My older brother, she says, used to move along on his tummy, while my other brother was more content to shuffle around on his bottom. I, meanwhile, favoured the hands and knees method of getting around.

She also told me, however, that Emily’s new-found abilities indicate that she is just a stone’s throw from crawling. And with that in mind, I am off to put everything in the apartment under lock and key.

Apologies Once Again….

…..for lack of posts in the past couple of days – I have had a few computer problems which took a while to fix, and which involved having to do a full factory restore at 2am (while dealing with a teething baby at the same time!)

We are now up and running once again, so normal service is gradually being resumed. A new post is below, expect it to be joined by pictures and links very soon.

Emily Phone Home

What is it about babies and their fascination with household gadgets? As I’ve mentioned before, Emily is particularly fond of our phone – to the exclusion of everything else, it seems. No matter how many toys we may place on the bed or sofa to try and distract her when we’re having a chat, she’ll still ignore them and make a beeline for the phone – normally to try and have a good chew on the keypad but sometimes to just stare at it in abject wonder.

In fact, she is so fond of it that when she is lying on our bed and the phone is there just out of reach, she’s taken to pulling the bedsheet as a way of moving it towards her. As enterprising as this may be, it usually results in failure since she still can’t quite reach it and gets a tad frustrated.

But it’s not just the house phone that seems to have attracted her attention. Our laptop computers,mobile phones and TV remote controls also seem to have a strange contraction – the first time she got hold of the latter, she actually examined it carefully, even going so far as to turn it over to see if the reverse had the same array of coloured buttons as the other side. Then, of course, she attempted to eat it (only to be stopped by nasty Mummy).

To try and combat her attraction to the phone, both grandmothers came up with the idea of buying her a toy phone as a Chanukah present – so now she has one from Fisher-Price and one from Vtech. They’re both really good, coming complete with lots of flashing lights and buttons to press – and we were convinced that she would leave our phone alone now she had one of our own.

We were wrong, of course. Upon presenting her with the first phone, she played with it for a few minutes before casting it aside in favour of the real phone. The second one seems to have kept her busy for a bit longer, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be after the real thing once again.

Of course, given the amount of time that girls tend to spend on the phone, I can only assume it’s a sign of things to come.

How Not To Roll

I mentioned in a previous post that Emily has recently learned to roll on to her tummy, but still isn’t quite there when it comes to rolling back again (although she is making steady progress on that front). What I didn’t anticipate, however, was that she would enjoy her new-found skill so much that she would – quite literally – practise it at all hours of the day and night.

While she’s not a bad little sleeper, I’m now quite used to her waking up towards the morning and singing to herself in her cot – so it came as no surprise to me when at about 5.50am last Sunday I heard happy little noises coming from her room. All was well – until they were replaced, about five minutes later, by anguished sounding wails.

Naturally, I got up and went to investigate – only to find her lying on her tummy in the cot, looking round with a slightly bewildered expression on her face as if she was wondering what had happened. Since I had assumed that rolling over in a sleeping bag would be somewhat difficult, I think she had managed even to surprise herself.

Having calmed her down with a cuddle and a feed (whereupon she slept until nearly 8.45 – and no, I’m really not complaining about that), I couldn’t help but laugh at the predicament she had gotten herself into. Of course, it probably won’t be quite so funny when she starts doing it on a nightly basis at 2am, but we’ll worry about that when it happens.

Lost In Translation

Ever since she was newborn., my husband has said he can’t wait for Emily to start talking. Given how chatty both her parents are, I have said that once she does start talking she probably won’t stop, but nonetheless waiting for that all-important first word is exciting.

For some time now, though, she has been given to making random sounds as if she is trying to have a conversation – although she hasn’t quite reached the level of babble yet, she still chatters away very insistently and enthusiastically, almost as if she believes she is making perfect sense.

What’s more, she’ll seize every opportunity to exercise her vocal cords – whether it’s over the phone, sitting in the car, rolling around on her playmat or lying in her cot at 5am (I’m particularly fond of that one, as you might imagine).

When she does this, it’s very tempting to try and work out what exactly she is trying to tell us – assuming she is actually talking to one of us at the time (for she does have a tendency to happily chatter away to herself as though she thinks no-one else is listening).

Normally I have no clue, but today I think I may have cracked it. This afternoon she had her second pneumococcal jab – and since the weighing clinic operates at the surgery on a Monday, we took her to be weighed first. Having been scared by the lady who runs the clinic, she screamed her way through the weigh-in, and no sooner had she calmed down from that than it was time for her jab, which of course brought more screaming – albeit briefly.

Afterwards, in the car, she started chattering away incessantly, and I’m convinced that what she said was, “Firstly you take all my clothes off and put me on a cold metal weighing scale, then you take me into another room and stick big needles in my thigh. I don’t know about you, but my afternoon has been rubbish…..”

I may of course be entirely wrong. But that’s what it sounded like.

The Joy Of Food

In recent weeks Emily hasn’t been the most forthcoming baby when it comes to food. Perhaps her teething has had something to do with it but meal times have been greeted with, at best, indifference, at worst, a complete refusal even to sample my delicious mashed carrots or pureed pear.

This weekend, however, that all changed, when she suddenly and unexpectedly turned into an eating machine of the ‘I will consume anything you offer me which isn’t nailed down’ variety.

Over the past couple of days she has not only enthusiastically approached her food, but polished off the lot in about ten minutes flat and taken more when it was offered. The result has been rather like watching Homer Simpson feasting on a box of donuts, and every bit as entertaining.

Avocado and banana definitely seems to be her favourite at the moment, but porridge and blueberries have also gone down well over the weekend, and carrot and sweetcorn puree was equally well received. And then for afters, she has taken to munching on her napkin, her bib or anything else within chewing distance. I could of course turn these into something more palatable for her, although I’m not entirely sure that mashed serviette would go down too well.

Baby’s First Chanukah

Being Jewish, we don’t get the chance to introduce Emily to the ‘magic’ of Christmas – but fortunately the festival of Chanukah also takes place in December, and that’s also a time for celebrations, parties and the exchanging of gifts.

However, Chanukah lasts for eight days, and I have been reminded by my mother that it is traditional to give loved ones presents on every day of the festival – meaning technically that I owe Emily eight presents.

We’ve gotten off to a good start on this front. While out shopping the other day we bought Emily a plush toy in the shape of a traditional Chanukah spinning top – or dreidel as it’s known. Although we didn’t actually give it to her until the first night of the festival, we allowed her a sneak preview of it the other day.

And she absolutely loved it, possibly to the exclusion of all her other toys. So much so that her little face lit up when she saw it, and when my husband took it away to remove the packaging she was rolling on to her side and frantically reaching out for it, as though it was being taken away for ever.

She forgot about it as soon as I took her into the other room and reminded her of the existence of Laugh n’Learn Puppy, but she was similarly enthusiastic when we finally gave it to her for good.

As for presents for the other seven days – well, I suppose I’d better get shopping.

Label Queen

Emily is now at the age where she is able to play with her toys – and as I’ve mentioned before, everything she gets her hands on goes in her mouth. With certain playthings, however, it’s not the bright colours or the music they play that is the biggest attraction – instead it’s their labels.

Over the past few months we have bought Emily several plush toys from Ikea and Tesco, which are great for small babies since they are soft and chewable and easy for little hands to pick up. They also have very long labels on them, which we were unsure about at first – even to the point that we considered cutting them off.

However, we changed our mind after seeing our little girl’s reaction to them – more often than not, having had a good old nibble on the toy of her choice, she’ll turn her attention to the label and stare at it intently before giving it a cursory lick.

It’s not just the labels on toys that seem to attract her though. Many’s the time I have looked in on her in the morning before she gets up and found her rustling the labels on her cot bumpers (also from Ikea, coincidentally) I now have to tuck them away so that she doesn’t start rustling them in her sleep and waking herself up (although I have to admit there have been occasions when the act of moving the label away has been enough to wake her).

Personally, it’s hard to see what the appeal is. But then again when you’re six months old, I suppose even the mundane seems fascinating.