February 2010

On math A cool series to follow:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/from-fish-to-infinity/?ref=opinion

Mikey's Development
Physical
Mikey is gaining dexterity with his hands. While we were at work one day I gave him a rattle to play with and I purposefully gave it to him in his left hand. I took my eyes off him to check my email and when I looked back he had switched the rattle from his left hand to his right hand. Cool.

Mikey's sight and coordination also seems to be developing as expected. He bats at things and sometimes grabs things by gathering them with both hands towards his mouth. Here are a couple notes I made on my Facebook profile: "Yesterday he had successfully grabbed the Little Mr. Smile and was holding it, which is quite a feat given how twirly it is." "This morning Papa put his hands out to hold Mikey's hands and before he got a hold of Mikey, Mikey took hold of him. You should have seen the surprise and delight on Papa's face!"

Mikey has begun to laugh but we have to elicit the giggles with tickles or "rough housing." His favorite games are "helicopter baby" where we hold him up and move him back and forth like the blades of a helicopter, "pendulum baby" where we hold him by his arm pits and swing his legs back and forth like a pendulum, and "flying baby" where we lift him up into the air really fast.

Mikey seems to learn quickly. Case in point: he is practiing pre-teething self-soothing by chewing on things...including his own hand. At one point, he put his hand in his mouth and, apparently, bit down too hard and started shrieking in fright. He was laying next to me and looking right at me and I just smiled and said, "there is nothing I can do when you bite yourself!" he calmed down pretty quickly and hasn't bitten himself since.

Mikey has begun to roll onto his side.

Friends
We got together for the first time with two other new mamas that we met in our birthing class: Sherry and her son Cliff hosted me and Mikey and Paula and her daughter Ember. It was so fun to sit and gab with the other new mamas! And to line up our babies for a cutie-patutie photo opp.

There was no potluck this month at the Jacobs house so I invited myself over one sunny Tuesday afternoon. We spent a few hours soaking up the sun in the back yard with Jim and Teresa.

Verbal Communication
Mikey began to laugh! The best part of this was that his first laugh was when all three of us were together.

Misc Stuff
Mikey got a new Doc.
Mikey spent his 4 month birthday in mama's arms ALL DAY!
Mikey got a new mobile. It took loads of mama-power to fold and glue but it turned out AWESOME. So awesome, in fact, that Mike wants to keep it hanging as decoration in the living room even when Mikey is no longer an infant.

On Love
For Valentine's Day I had been hoping that Mikey might take a nap so I could have some alone time with my husband. Instead, Mikey stayed latched almost the entire day. I was so frustrated that my "plan" was foiled! But I was more interested in why Mikey wanted to be nursing all day.