March 31, 2004
Quality of children's music
Listening to the Wiggles CD that I've put on for Jeyanth, I'm struck by just how high the standards are for children's music. Whether it's Play School, or the Wiggles, or the Tellitubbies, the music is suprisingly sophisticated. The really impressive thing is that they seem to manage to have a simple melody, that small children) can recognise and follow (and parents can't get out of their heads), while also having complex harmonies and instrumentals; a lot of jazzy notes, a wide range of instruments, varied musical styles - nothing like my memories of the simple songs of my childhood.
I hope this means that we're raising a generation of children who will be able to appreciate music more complex than, for instance, generic 80's pop...
March 30, 2004
Southpaw?
I know that it's probably too early to say with any confidence, but Jeyanth is showing signs of being left-handed. He seems to have a definite preference for picking things up with his left hand, even sometimes reaching across his body to grasp something on his right with his left paw.
We noticed a while back that when we were feeding him he tended to go for the spoon with his left hand, but this could have just been because we tend to feed him with our right hands, so the left hand is nearer to the spoon. But it looks like there might be more to it than that...
Getting inside his head
One of the really fun things about spending time with Jeyanth is watching him learn new things, and trying to figure out what must be going on inside his head as he does so.
For instance, over the past day or two, I've noticed that if he is chasing a ball (or a parent) and it goes out of sight round a corner, he will happily crawl up to and around the corner to continue the chase (and, on finding a parent waiting for him, will look very pleased with himself). But if he wants to get at a toy which is positioned in sight on the other side of a barrier (such as a parent lying on the ground, with Jeyanth at his right side and the toy in his left hand), the idea of going around the obstacle doesn't occur to him; he'll try without success to go over the obstacle, and then get bored and play with something else. Then again, if the toy is out of sight, but audible, behind the barrier, he will sometimes crawl around the end of the obstacle to find it.
So if he knows that something is there, out of sight, because he saw it vanish, or can hear it, he has some idea of hunting for it - by following where it went, or just by generally exploring the direction he can hear it in. But if he can see the object, the only way to get at it that occurs to him is the direct route.
I believe that in psychology studies of animals they refer to the 'Aha!' moment, when, for instance, a dog placed in a 'U' shaped fence realises it can get at the bowl of food placed the other side of the fence by running in the wrong direction to start with. Jeyanth has not yet mastered 'Aha!'.
March 28, 2004
He can cope without us
So, Sureka and I got out of Sydney for the weekend, leaving Jeyanth in the care of Sureka's parents. We were gone for a little less than 48 hours, and managed to keep it down to six calls home. Jeyanth hardly seems to have noticed that we were gone. He slept, played, ate, had lots of cuddles, and generally behaved very well for his grandparents. He also tells us that they did a good job too.
Sureka and I had a lovely trip out to the central west NSW, visiting Dubbo and Mudgee, spending a morning cycling round the central plains zoo, walking in the native arboretum, exploring Wellington caves and collecting several hundred locusts all over the front of our car.
March 24, 2004
Open plan blues
As many of you will know, or will have seen from the videos of Jeyanth, we live in a very open plan house. This is lovely in all sorts of ways, especially for parties, but does mean that Jeyanth is not very easy to contain.
Thanks to some generous friends at our baby shower, we do have a playpen, which is sufficiently flexible to be used to fence off some corners of the room, but we can't stop Jeyanth, now he is crawling competantly, from getting into the kitchen, hall, dining room, stairs...
So, another playpen is on order, this one to be converted into a fence to cut our lovely open plan house into a Jeyanth friendly half. I fear he will not be impressed to find his freedom to explore so rudely curtailed.
Crawling Video
Sureka pointed out that we didn't yet have any video up of Jeyanth crawling properly. Since he can now get around at a disturbing pace, here it is...
Really Crawling (2.6MB)
March 23, 2004
Anti spam measures
Because of the emergence of spam comments, I've installed MTCloseComments on this blog. This means that no new comments are allowed for any post more than 14 days old. Hopefully this will not inconvenience any of our real readers, and should cut down the number of adverts for dubious pharmaceutical products I have to delete from the blog. Kudos to Alan M. Carroll for developing this plugin for MoveableType.
March 22, 2004
Grape Solving
As you may have seen on video, Jeyanth has recently entered the world of 'things you are allowed to put in your mouth'. Every day he is offered a bit of finger food and given the opportunity to try to get them into his mouth.
This, needless to say, is an extremely random process, with very varied success. We let him keep trying until he succeeds, or, far more commonly, until we get bored of falling about laughing watching him.
Yesterday we watched him try a variety of techniques to solve his basic co-ordination problem with 4 quarters of a peeled grape. First, he grabbed the grape in a clenched fist - but as there was no bit sticking out to grab with the lips, he couldn't work out how to get the grape out of fist and into mouth. Then the pincer grip (after much strenuous effort, and a decidedly squisher grape) - but here he was let down by his inability to time his release - when the grape came back out of his mouth, still gripped between finger and thumb, he gave it a look, half disappointed, half accusing.
At this point, Jeyanth decided to dispense with finesse, put the grape back on the plate, and bent over to put his face on the plate, trying to lick the grape up with his tongue. By this point, Chris and I were laughing so loudly, we were worried we'd scare him. But poor Jeyanth's tongue-eye coordination wasn't quite up to eating doggie style, so he tried one more time, picking up the entire plate, bringing it up to his mouth, and licking at it. Sadly, even this didn't work - but you have to give him credit for trying.
Chris and I occasionally wonder whether it's OK to laugh so much at our child's attempts to learn, but then we get over it.
Oh, he never did end up getting a grape in his mouth in the end - until I helped him with the only unsquishy bits left after his attempts.
So, what's new
A few days without an update... so, what's new?
Most of Jeyanth time is currently spent practicing his crawling. He's discovered that he can terrorise the dogs, and thinks that them licking his face is incredibly funny. The dogs don't feel the same way about him grabbing their ears, so there is some parental intervention required. Unfortunately, crawling also means that he gets out onto the slate tiles (off his nice think rug) and then occasionally falls on his face, so we have a few more tears at the moment. But as he gets better at crawling that ought to be less of a problem. Then, of course, he'll stand up and fall over, which will be even worse.
He's also learnt to clap in the last few days, which is really cute. I'll try to get it on video.
Unfortunately, it seems as if he might be thinking about dropping his morning nap. At the moment he still goes down for it most of the time, but his nice reliable, regular sleeping patterns are getting a bit frayed...
March 18, 2004
Dispensable parents
So, Sureka and I went out this evening, leaving Sureka's parents to play with, feed, bath and put Jeyanth to bed. They've done the last bit on their own before, but never the whole last 2-3 hours of his day.
They, and he, coped fine.
So, the next challenge is to leave him with them for a whole weekend...
March 16, 2004
The best bit of the day
OK, so reading that last entry, I realised there was one time yesterday when Jeyanth was happy - the time he is happy every day. When Sureka comes home.
A couple of things recently have made me realise that Jeyanth is capable of anticipation - that he can see or hear something, and know what comes next. One of these is when we count the scoops of formula into his bottle - even with the bottle out of sight, Daddy at the kitchen counter saying (rythmically) "One... Two... Three..." is enough to bring a huge smile to his face.
But even more obvious is what happens between 5 and 5:30 each afternoon. At the sound of the key in the lock, Jeyanth stops what he's doing, sits up, and looks towards the hallway. At the sound of shoes on the tiles, he starts to laugh and wave his arms. And at the sight of Sureka coming into the family room he shouts with pleasure and reaches out to be picked up.
It's almost unimaginably sweet. Except on a day when he has been a complete rat to his Daddy, when it's the final straw....
How different two days can be
Yesterday was the first day that I've wished I was back at work. Not because I missed Avaya, but because Jeyanth was at his most painful throughout. Howling with tears for no apparent reason, refusing to eat, refusing to nap, refusing to play, not cheered up by milk, cuddles, fresh air or anything. It was what Sureka calls a "moving to Queensland day".
Today, Jeyanth was the perfect baby. Played happily, laughed with (at?) Daddy, crawled around the floor chasing his toys, and scolding them when they kept on rolling away, ate all his meals, napped on request, enjoyed his outing and went to bed smiling.
March 15, 2004
Learning Curve
OK, so most of you who saw the 'First Crawl' video made some patronising and indulgent remarks to yourselves. We admit, it wasn't smooth, it wasn't polished, and it wasn't very far - but it was forward movement!!
Over the weekend we've been watching Jeyanth practice his new skill. That is, when he remembered that he's got a new skill. He still hasn't quite got to the scuttling stage, in fact, he's still a long way from it, but the distance covered before unexpectedly sitting up is getting longer. And the dogs are no longer safe.
Yesterday, I witnessed the first Dog-Jeyanth interaction that wasn't initiated by Chris or myself. Jeyanth wants toy, Jeyanth crawls towards it, every time he gets within reach, he manages to knock it out of reach by too-enthusiastic swiping. Jeyanth perseveres after toy, finally managing to get himself and the toy all the way across the room to where the dogs are lying on their bean bags. Dogs in deep consternation at what has just arrived on their doorstep (bagstep?). Jeyanth inordinately pleased. Dibley and Quin leap off their bags excitely, Dibley delivers a well aimed lick on J's nose (yes, I scrubbed it afterwards) and Quin, audacious mutt, steals the toy that Jeyanth's been chasing (yes, I scrubbed that too).
At this point, I stepped in before the relationship could build further, but the days of peacefully sleeping dogs may well be numbered.
March 12, 2004
CRAWLING!
2:30pm, Friday March 12th. Jeyanth crawls for the first time. (3MB, higher quality than usual)
Yes - this is his very first crawl. Five minutes before he had done a sort of commando-crawl, pulling himself on his tummy, which was also a first, so I got the camera out and teased him with the ring for a minute or two until he took the plunge...
Eight Months
Wow. Incredible. 2/3rd of a year old.
The most significant step in Jeyanth's growth that I've noticed this month (since he's still not crawling!!) is the capability to express anger/annoyance. You're used to a baby indicating displeasure by bawling from birth - but to get stroppy because you take away a toy, get him out of the bath when he was happy splashing or just because the next spoonful of food hasn't arrived in the mouth quite as quickly as he wanted it, is a definite change in the level of complexity of response.
I'm glad he's growing up, but I must admit that it's quite a rude shock when a previously placid and managable child suddenly develops a way of telling you off pretty vehemently. I think I'll need therapy by the time we get to the terrible twos.
March 10, 2004
Feeding Myself
Get your video of Jeyanth feeding himself here (1.4MB, .wmv)
March 09, 2004
Second nature
Over the last couple of days, I've been watching Jeyanth get himself into a sitting position from lying on his stomach. He first did it by accident six days ago; over the weekend he got the hang of backing into the window in order to get the leverage to sit up, and today it's impossible to keep him on his tummy - I put him down, he tucks his right leg underneath himself, pushes with his hands and hey presto, a sitting baby.
What has amazed me is just how quickly a skill like this moves from being unimaginable (when I first read that babies learn to get to sitting from lying I couldn't even figure out how they would do it), to possible, to second nature. Rolling over, then picking things up, then banging them together - each in turn, in a matter of days, goes from not dreamed of to the easiest thing in the world...
March 08, 2004
Pleased with himself
I expect this has been going on for a little while, but it really struck me over the weekend just how pleased with himself Jeyanth looks every now and then. At the moment it's obvious when he manages to sit himself up with a toy in each hand to bang together that this is exactly what he had wanted to do, and he is very smug about the fact that he did it.
March 05, 2004
Carnivore
Jeyanth has just had his first taste of meat. Medium-rare steak, grated very finely into his pumpkin and rice lunch. Probably not enough to taste, but we have to start somewhere.
I don't think we've mentioned yoghurt yet? Jeyanth loves his yoghurt. Natural Yoghurt mixed with Pear or Apple, and perhaps a little mixed cereal to thicken it up, is definitely the best way to start the day.
More video
Here's another video clip, Jeyanth playing with his rings (with a bit of help from Amma).
By the way, if any of our regular readers can't use .wmv files, please just let us know...
Playing With Rings (2.9MB, .wmv)
March 03, 2004
Sitting up
About ten minutes ago, I left Jeyanth lying on his back, playing with his plastic rings, to make myself a cup of coffee. A couple of minutes later I came back to find him sitting up.
One more milestone ticked off by Jeyanth's results-obsessed parents :)
March 02, 2004
Video
Here's some video...
- Playing with my wooden dog (1.3MB, .wmv)
- Not really getting the idea of playing ball (0.7MB, .wmv)
- Trying to crawl (1.8MB, .wmv)
- Playing with my musical table (1.8MB, .wmv)
