Perspective

Len, Eric's father, came back Thursday from a two-week trip to Europe. We had dinner with him on Friday, and at some point in the conversation, we started comparing NYC to Europe. NYC wasn't looking so good at that moment. A disgruntled tone was started to creep into the conversation as we began to think of day-to-day irritations of city life. Just then a car drove by with the stereo so loud it was like it was in our apartment. You could see a complaint forming in Len's mind. He took a breath, and then he looked over at Tess.

Tess's eyes were wide with excitement. She started to dance in her high chair, wiggling around and waving her hands. Len just burst out laughing.

Dilemma

Tess has been waking up earlier and earlier, perhaps because of the sun. It's not uncommon for us to hear her cry out at 5am. But she's still tired, and is then a grump for the whole morning until she gets to her nap.

Today I didn't go get her until 5:45, even though I could hear her fussing, because I hoped she might fall back asleep. She didn't.

If I put her to sleep in the morning, she won't take a long nap, and she won't take an afternoon nap, and so then she gets even less sleep.

If I don't put her to sleep in the morning, I have to live with a cranky baby who just needs to go to sleep until about 11 or 11:30 when I can start a mid-day nap.

For the first time in my life, I'm really hating long days full of sunshine.

Sick Days

Tess has been sick since Sunday. I was hosting a play group with 7 other Moms and their toddlers, and as everyone started arriving I realized Tess had a fever. Oops.

The last three nights have been rough, and Monday she ran pretty high fevers all day. Today she was better, though she still had a fever in the afternoon and evening.

We've been surviving with lots of snuggly animals and lots of books. Tess brought me one today and then started to sit on my lap, but then stopped and went to get three more books to stack beside me before resuming her backward walk into my lap. She knew we were going to be there for a while.

Eric Whistles for Tess

May 21, 2010

Was a beautiful day.

New Sights for Both of Us

There must be a nest on our block, because for two days now Tess and I have passed baby birds learning to fly on our street. I would never see them if I weren't walking at Tess's pace, but she always stops to point at the birds, and today she cornered a poor little guy that couldn't yet fly. For the first time, Tess might have actually caught a bird if I hadn't held her back to give the baby bird a fighting chance of escape. She chased him along a fence, into a corner, and then she was distracted by someone and the bird was able to hop into a flower bed protected by a fence.

Hair Clip

Tess has never needed to wear hair clips to keep hair out of her eyes, which was fortunate, because she not only ripped them out of her hair, but also took them out of every other little girl's hair. Around Christmas time, I bought this decorative clip and tried it in Tess's hair. She pulled it out immediately. Then she started noticing that I would clip my hair back from time to time. She found this clip about a week ago, and I put it in her hair and picked her up to show her what it looked like in the mirror. She was intrigued, but pulled it out. Then the next day, she brought me the clip and wanted me to put it in her hair again. When I did, she patted it happily and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Then she left it in for about an hour, and would occasionally pat it and smile. Since then, she has wanted me to put the clip in her hair when she came across it in the house.

It makes me wonder if this event is related to how I've been feeling like Tess is going through a major growth change. I feel like some change happened with how she sees herself. Maybe she understood the idea of pretty--or if not pretty in the way I think of pretty, then at least the idea that wearing decorative items is something to do because others will see them on you.

I've been reading The Interpersonal World of the Infant by Daniel N. Stern. Here's an excerpt from the book jacket:

Unlike those who view early development as a gradual process of separation and individuation, Stern argues that infants differentiate themselves almost from birth and then progress through increasingly complex modes of relatedness.

He talks about 4 major stages of senses of self. The stages break down roughly like this:

• Birth to 2-3 months: Sense of an emergent self
• 2-3 months to 7-9 months: Sense of a core self
• 7-9 months to around 15 months: Sense of a subjective self
• 15 months: Sense of a verbal self

The early date would be when that new sense of self is emerging and the age range between the two dates would represent the formative phase of that stage. So for example, though a sense of subjective self emerges at 7-9 months (around the time the infant can move themselves), the infant would be forming their sense of subjective self for the next 6 months or so.

During the formative phase of the subjective self, an infant discovers that "he or she has a mind and that other people have minds as well." This leads to the "momentous realization that inner subjective experiences, the "subject matter" of the mind, are potentially shareable with someone else." Something I think these pictures represent:
"Mom, you eat my food."
And the result when I let her feed me.
During this time, the infant forms a working theory that Stern says is something like this: "what is going on in my mind may be similar enough to what is going on in your mind that we can somehow communicate this (without words) and thereby experience intersubjectivity."

So as I've been reading this book, it makes me wonder if I'm watching the slow shift between the last two stages Stern lays out. He says this about the new capacities available in the second year of life:

Toward the middle of the second year (at around 15 to 18 months), children begin to imagine or represent things in their minds in such a way that signs and symbols are now in use. Symbolic play and language now become possible. Children can conceive of and then refer to themselves as external or objective entities. They can communicate about things and persons who are no longer present.

So I wonder if the hair clip shows some part of that development of herself as an objective entity.

She also likes to pick a body part, especially the nose, and touch the body part of everyone in the room. I've wondered if that's about some kind of growing awareness of the fact that the same word can symbolically represent a bunch of different things.




In any case, I feel like the nature of how I relate to Tess is changing, and I'm really enjoying it.

16 Months

Yesterday I measured Tess and she had grown almost a half inch in 4 days! It was hard to believe. Though what seems most remarkable lately is how she's shifting in her cognitive and physical abilities. It's subtle and so it can be hard to notice, but last night I was thinking about all of the things Tess can now do and understand, and I thought it was worth recording.

Understands Language - Tess now understands all of the following and more

• The verbs nurse, go, eat, drink, sleep, dance, sit, play, read, take, push, splash, run
  
• She knows the words/ideas for bath, night-night, go outside, up and down, no, hug and kiss, stop, dog, kitty, many body parts (including cheek, chin, eyebrows, and knees now), book, toy, several foods, all done, all gone, water, phone, slide, swing, boy, girl, baby
• She says mama and dada. She copies sounds sometimes. She says "hi" and "bye." She says "yes" and shakes her head for "no."
• Tess will shake her head "no" a lot in response to things we are saying. A lot of the time she is doing it with understanding, though often we know she doesn't understand. The other day Eric thought she was just mindlessly shaking her head, so he asked her "do you want a pony?" expecting her to shake her head. But instead, when she heard the word pony, she started to kick her legs in the motion we do for a song with the lyrics, "see the pony galloping, galloping."
• She's started to sit through storybooks. She used to only want to look at pictures, but now she brings me the books with stories and has more patience.
  

Actions

• She's walking around the living room right now with the phone pressed up to her ear, babbling, fake laughing periodically, and raising her eyebrows as if in serious conversation.
• She can walk several blocks by herself, will hold hands to cross the street (though she's not aware of the street yet), and will follow me most of the time.
• She can easily stack. She's getting better at her shape sorting toys. She's starting to understand puzzles.
  
• She now hugs stuffed animals and has favorites.
• She's crazy about all animals and will abandon any activity at the park to chase the pigeons and squirrels. Dogs are her all-time favorites.
• She points and says "dat," wanting me to give her names for things
• She can identify her uncles in a favorite photo she likes to look at every day.
• She wants to jump so badly, and will come up on her tippy toes in her attempts at it.
• She's climbing a lot now. Though she's still super cautious and will scream for me to come from another room rather than attempt to get down on her own.
  
• She can walk up and down pretty steep ramps.
• She's starting to love putting things away. She will empty the cupboards and then clean it all up. She loves to put objects in a basket or bowl. And she sings the tune for the clean up song. It's the one tune that is very clear when she's singing.
• She's copying more refined hand movements when we sing songs together.
• She seems to understand more refined humor. She understands if someone is fake crying and it makes her laugh. She's better at teasing us.
• She points and gestures and is good and telling us what she wants.
  

It's like I'm watching the scaffolding of her language come together these days. She's so much more of a little person, keeping me company throughout the day. She's still very baby and still not really talking, but I feel like I'm watching a big shift happen ever so slowly.

Kisses

A few photos

It is spring, but you wouldn't have known it last weekend.

And this is why it's hard to take Tess's picture.

Little Memories

• Tess likes to give kisses now, but the way she puckers up is by sticking out her bottom lip. The other night I blew her a kiss when I put her to bed. She smiled back at me, stuck out her bottom lip and leaned her chin toward me to blow me one back.
• There's an electrical strip by Tess's crib for her noise machine and either the fan or humidifier. When I put her to bed, I turn the strip on so that I don't have to turn each machine on. I usually have Tess in my arms, so I turn it on with my toes. Yesterday I got out the fan, and Tess has been fascinated by it. She goes to the electrical strip and turns it on with her foot. Even though she could more easily flip the switch with her hands, she somehow thinks you have to use your foot for that one.