[That scratch on her forehead? She clawed herself during a pissy moment and while it’s long healed, there is STILL a faint scarrish groove in her forehead. Sheesh baby!]

It’s been rather a lengthy while without the typical barrage of Ronin photos and update on all the new baby stuff she has mastered.

Baby talk. She started in with “der der der” but now favors “Ay-DA!” The der-der-ders were primarily used to yell at her toys or to rant at us when she was irritated with being dressed or put to bed.

[This was taken a few weeks ago. Warning: it is of a lengthy, possibly only interesting to grandparents, nature.]

But she also der-der-ders at things when she is in good spirits; unfortunately, she always shuts up when I get the camera out. Here I snuck up on her and the peacock toy; this is somewhat post der-der-der transition talk.

[Ditto the above video: grandparenty.]

She rolls over now too. I was getting worried that we’d hit six months without Ronin rolling over and the pediatrician would start to talk developmental milestones at us and get us all stressed out. The fact is, we only seldom put her on her belly because she hates it generally and will fuss herself into a full-bore shrieking frenzy if we leave her for more than four seconds (more than once barfing on the bedspread in the process). So… we tried it once upon a time, twice, and then almost never again. We figured she could hold her head up just fine and maybe someday she’ll be more interested in lying on her tummy.

[Ronin likes to suck on the nose of the elephantmouse.]

So, five months came along and I began to worry again so I started putting her on her tummy again four seconds at a time. Meanwhile Joshua and would I do acrobatics in front of her to keep her distracted and not freaking out. We would roll her from back to front, front to back, over and over, and about a week or so later she did it herself. YAY! Whew.

Sitting! Sort of. Close enough. I’ll take it! She can go 15-30 seconds or so sitting up and balancing on her own before capsizing. It helps to have something interesting to look at in front of her (a melamine measuring cup is about the hottest shit around these parts lately) and then she’ll play with the toy while bobbling a little back and forth but ultimately staying upright on her own. As soon as she gets distracted and looks up however, the momentum of her head sends her flying backward.

She also supports her weight in a standing position; for example, we can stand her facing the back of the couch and she’ll hold on and play with her toys. She gets grumpy if you try to hold her sitting in your lap. Sitting in laps is for little babies. She much prefers to be ballanced in a standing position and she’ll hang out for quite some time or until you get tired.

Still no teeth but the slobber is serious. She likes to blow raspberries now and a mouthful of thick drool makes all the difference.

She is not quite six months yet but we gave her a couple of tastes of food last week. First we tried yams. I smashed a bit and gave her a blob on my finger. I think you could sum up her reaction to the whole food thing as “Displeased.” This is a baby who wants everything in her mouth, who opens her mouth wide as you pick her up because she wants to eat you. Yet the barest hint of actual food on my finger and she clamped her mouth shut, wouldn’t open it at all. We sort of waited a while and when she opened it, I scraped it off on her gum shelf and she made a face. After gumming at it thoughtfully for a few seconds, she started to cry. A few days later we tried a bit of avocado and her reaction was more or less the same. Now when she gazes intently at us when we eat like she wants something in her mouth, we remind her of The Lesson of The Avocado and The Yam.

I want to figure out how to wean her from swaddling. Ronin is a lousy sleeper and if she is not tied down, she’ll flail herself into a kicking pissed-off and ultimately awake baby. When we wrap her in a blanket, she’ll generally be okay although she never sleeps for very long. We have tried twice to see what would happen if we didn’t swaddle. The first try we put her to sleep as usual around 7:30 but she awoke angry mere minutes later and it was not until 9:30 when we gave up and wrapped her into a tight bundle that she finally passed out for good. During this time, we alternatively bounced, rocked, patted, soothed, sang, and shushed her nonstop trying to get her to stay asleep for more than (I kid not) five seconds but she’d jerk and flail and start crying hysterically, then she’d finally suck herself to sleep again for another few seconds, then startle awake, cry tragically, etc. over and over. We actually tried it again a few nights later but during one of the midnight feeding sessions when she usually goes right back to sleep as soon as she eats. She went right to sleep and I just laid her on the bed but after about five minutes or so, she started to flail and jerk around. So I held her hands and she calmed and fell back asleep. She did this for the next three hours about every ten minutes or so and I would hold her down basically until she calmed. After I fed her the next time, I swaddled her back up and we both went to sleep. Maybe we’ll try it again in a few weeks. I worry because it’s getting warm at night again and I hate to have her bundled in a blanket.

** I would just like to add that only ONE day after I wrote this, she fell asleep for not one but TWO naps unswaddled and stayed asleep for an admirable period of time and then, THEN, that night broke out of her swaddle around 9pm but stayed asleep until 11pm or so when she woke for a feeding. Miracle. This is not the first time I bitched about something she did that I didn’t know what to do oh wah wah poor me and damned if she didn’t stop the very next day just to prove me wrong. Just goes to show that complaining works.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under ronin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.