Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Developmental Leaps and Bounds

One of the other casualties of the second child is those week-by-week Your Amazing Bay-bee email updates or some similar thing. With the first one, I signed on for weekly updates and read them avidly, eager to know what my precious child would accomplish today! (and then eager to worry because my precious child could not roll over exactly when they said he should. Clearly am bad mother!!)

This time around I not only do not have the email updates, I have no idea how many weeks old she is. Oh, I have a round idea of months old, obviously, but I do have a cheat: she was born the last day of April, so every time a month ends, she's another month older. Not exactly rocket science.

But of course having had one baby, I have a vague idea of when we might expect certain things -- smiles around six weeks, laughing around three months, crawling around nine, walking around one. First words around there too .... you know, that kind of thing. And I remember The Boy first grabbing toys around three months, so it came as no surprise to me that my daughter first successfully got hold of a toy and pulled it to her mouth over the weekend.

What has surprised me is that she went from no ability and no interest whatsoever in toys to not just actively grabbing them, but getting her feet in on the action. She can kick those little hanging toys on her playmat with pretty awesome accuracy for someone so little. I'm pretty sure she's doing it on purpose -- she's looking at the item, and bringing a foot up. And she only ever seems to kick the one that makes noise, of course.

I do remember that development in babies often comes in spurts, but I don't remember my son being so ... spurty. Going from slack-jawed disinterest to soccer maestro in less than a week.

Which of course just proves that my kid is a total GEEENEEUS. Of course. Because the ability to successfully connect foot with an object is the start of a successful life that will culminate in a Nobel Prize etc.etc.

Anyway. I have to say I'm glad to see this stage. The ability of a child to play with a toy may not mean a Nobel Prize but it DOES mean mommy can sit for a moment with a cool drink and blog about it while baby is entertained. All hail the mommy-break.

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