Somewhere between crossing that magical 3-month line and becoming 3 and a half months old, baby learned to hold toys, make first attempts to crawl and to show real emotions. Her crying is no longer random "OMG I have no idea what is going on so I might as well cry!!!". Her crying is now more like, "I'm tired and bored and I demand you entertain me right now". I think it's a great improvement. 
With her skill to hold toys in her hand our baby was given her first rattle. It looks awful and I almost broke it trying to see how it works.
No, I didn't try to shake the rattle until it gives up and breaks. It's also designed to change shape when you twist it, but apparently it's not meant for grown-up strength. Go figure. But baby quite likes the rattle. It's new entertainment and a brand new thing she can chew on. Chewing on things is another activity she enjoys. She started with her fingers, moved up to other people's knuckles, her shirt collar, edge of her blanket, other people's shoulders, and now also toys.
For a while I suspected she's getting her first teeth because of all that chewing. On closer inspection her lower canines are visible under her gum and for a few days she constantly tried to scratch that spot. She also had all the less specific signs of cutting a tooth. I was expecting those canines to cut any moment now until it turned it's not supposed to happen until after 15th month. Apparently baby's behavior was only temporary and those teeth are not nearly as close as I thought. Her physical development has skyrocketed. A couple of weeks ago she learned to hold her head. Now she holds her head very firmly and when I hold my hand under the sole of her feet she pushes herself forward in her attempt to crawl. She has not learned how to do it without my help. When I put her in stomach position, she pulls her legs under her body and then pushes them back straight but doesn't move an inch. She quickly gets really frustrated
because she can't figure out what she's doing wrong!She's making attempts to roll over but I think she misunderstands the whole concept. If I let try to roll over for a long enough time she does indeed end up the lying the other way. The problem is that in stead of ending up on her stomach my baby ends up with her head where she used to have her feet. So how does this work?
She vigorously rolls to the side and ends up a little more crooked with each attempt until she's done a full circle. Actually she probably doesn't want to end up on her stomach anyway because then she'd just get frustrated with failing to crawl.But the biggest change is with her attitudes. I remember being warned about babies getting emotions and this making them more difficult to care for. Well now it has happened. Sometimes she's in a good mood and she doesn't notice any discomfort. Everything is just perfect and she's smiling at people and chuckling to get attention. And sometimes she's in an awful mood. She doesn't want to play on her own, she doesn't want to be held, she gets irritated with everything and needs the smallest excuse to start protesting. When she's in that kind of mood it is more difficult to please her but somehow it's still better than before. Overall she probably cries more but it almost never makes me nervous. She used to be really helpless and crying was a sound of major distress. Even the smallest problem made her very scared and confused. When she was too warm she cried like it was the end of the world. Now when she gets too warm she yells a few times and then uses her feet to push away the blanket. When she gets tired she grunts and wails. And when she's hungry she ... well. Hunger is a serious matter so when she's hungry she still cries like it's the end of the world.
I would have thought that baby toys with sound are the most annoying things ever. But really while the baby spends 10 minutes hitting her rattle against every reachable surface
, and trying which part of it is most fun to gnaw on, I get to make myself coffee or to read the news. Okay, she actually doesn't hit her head with it. She did it once by accident and I gasped with concern. 
She gave me a long look and then deliberately hit her head lightly to see if I gasp again. I was prepared for it this time and I didn't react in any way. I haven't seen her try it again even once. Basically, the sound of the rattle means, "Do whatever because baby is busy". It's the sound of free time. Nothing annoying about that. I think I would be way more annoyed when a 10-year old spends 10 minutes playing with her drum set while she could in stead spend that time sitting behind a computer and playing a first person shooter. All in all, I think parenting gets more enjoyable every month.
good to read the last bit :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the rattling would be waaay more annoying if it were a noisier rattle :P The one you have now is pretty good and it has a nice sound to it actually.
I think that it's good that your baby is accustomed to people and doesn't get scared of (that means, doesn't start wailing at) new people :) She just studies them inquisitively and then goes back to checking out other stuff (that's more interesting than people :P).
Develpmentaly, there will come time, when all the babys are scared of new people and that can't be helped in most likelyhood. Only the level of severity probably can be helped a bit, but it is as much about personality as it is about up-bringing.
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