No photographic evidence yet (actually we'd probably need video, huh?), but she's zooming all over the place, terrorizing the cats, finding every piece of carpet fuzz in every corner and putting it directly in her mouth. It's so fascinating how these milestones shake out. Our pediatrician in Exton gave us a "normal development" checklist for each month of the first year, and Lea is all over the map:
Rests on elbows. Yeah, months ago.
Sits alone up to 30 seconds. Not even close, not even three seconds most of the time, and even that's a pretty new development.
Sits in high chair. Never tried. I suspect she'd do ok.
Continues to use motions leading to crawling. No comment necessary.
Makes jumping motions when held in standing position. Nope.
Reaches with one hand. Check. Long ago.
Bats and grasps dangling objects. Ditto.
Holds objects between thumb and forefinger. No, I can't even picture her doing this.
Passes objects from one hand to another. Yeah, but I'm not sure how long that's been going on because it didn't even occur to me to pay attention to this.
Adores playing with balls, rattles, and squeaky toys. Yeah, but adores playing with noses, lips, and cheeks more.
Usually sleeps through the night. Ha!
Usually begins teething. No sign of this. Except copious drool.
May prefer some foods to others. I guess. She mostly still just has milk anyway.
Babbles, squeals, jabbers. Depends on her mood.
May recognize own name. Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure.
May show sharp mood changes. Heck yeah.
Displays especially strong attachment to mother. Not so much. She's never been a real cuddly baby (which is why in the first month or two I used to sob "You're giving me a complex! You don't even want your own mother to hold you!")
Develops deeper attachment to father, siblings, and other familiar people. I think so. And cats? We'll test that one next week when she sees cats other than her own.
Distinguishes children from adults. How would I know this?
Smiles at other children. Usually.
May show fear of strangers. No-- a little shyness, but she often smiles too.
Continues to be intrigued with mirror image. Yeah, this just happened today for ten minutes in the glass door of our dvd/vcr cabinet.
Loves games like "peek-a-boo", "patty cake" and "fetch." You're supposed to play fetch with a baby? And peek-a-boo, um, peaked a while ago I think.
Of course the list ends with the disclaimer that each child is unique, etc. etc. etc. For the most part I don't have too much anxiety over Lea meeting her milestones. She's happy, healthy, and interacting with us, and that's good enough for me. I figure all this stuff is on a continuum, anyway. I just never imagined she'd be crawling so soon. Now it's time to do something about our three sets of stairs... (That makes it sound like our house is gigantic, but really it's just a strangely configured split-level, with one or two rooms per level.)
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5 comments:
I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect every baby to concentrate on all these things at once. By a certain point, everything evens out. They all get teeth, they all sit up, they all talk... just not at the same rate. Like all of us, babies tend to find something they enjoy and are good at and work on getting even better at it. Think about the fact that we have dominant hands, and for some of us, it's so profound that we cannot even feed ourselves with the other hand because we were not so adept with it, so we kind of ignored it. I was never good at drawing at all, so I didn't do anything with it, because I didn't need to. If I needed to, I imagine I would have learned.
I'm glad I saw little kids who did all kinds of things at different rates - now the ones who didn't talk until late won't shut up and the ones who were late to walk are running marathons.
Not to worry!
Mom: are both of those examples at the end me?
P: I'm a terrible brother, but the thought of you saying "You're giving me a complex!", even to your baby, is giving me a chortle.
Nope - for the talking one I'm thinking of A. McC. (neighbor across the park) and the running one is a kid I had in school. Eric, you walked at 10 months - across the rug at the shore on Labor Day weekend, 1980.
Haha, I'd say her performance with Eric definitely counts as "May show fear of strangers." Ah, stranger anxiety. Not to be confused with separation anxiety, in case you're planning on taking a medical test anytime soon :)
It is so much fun to share the milestones with you! I love the fact that each of us has our unique journey toward maturity at our own pace, and yet the same journey is what connects us to everyone else. Happy 7 month birthday, Lea!
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