====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather'' 19 September 1994 Vol. 1, No. 1 Editor-in-chief: Heather Contributing Editors: John & Marie -- HEATHER NEWSLETTER STARTED BY POPULAR DEMAND Due to the inability of Heather's parents to keep up with the flood of requests for Heather status updates, the Pebbles Press has been founded. With an initial circulation of approximately one million, oops, I mean 50, it is expected to quickly become the most popular publication in the English-speaking world. (Or at least we expect the grandparents to enjoy reading it.) For subscription changes (but who would turn down the exciting offer of a free subscription, available only to charter members and to those who join later) please contact marie@erg.sri.com. The initial response to the Pebbles Press has been very positive. "Drool, suck, gurgle" says our Number One editor-in-chief, the Sultana of Sitting, the Empress of Roll herself, Heather Elizabeth (Soo Hyun) "Pebbles" "Muffin" "Punkin" desJardins-Park. -- SULTANA OF SITTING Heather has been practicing sitting for a couple of weeks now. Mostly this involves us propping her up in a more-or-less sitting-like position with her hands in front of her for "support," her lifting up the hands and immediately flopping to one side or folding in half forwards. Yesterday she finally managed to combine the required lower back strength with a modicum of balance, and started sitting up on her own! She still topples over, but she can sit for a few minutes by herself, and even reach forward to pick up a toy in front of her without collapsing. Well on the road to independence... -- EMPRESS OF ROLL Heather has been actively pursuing her resonsibilities as the Empress of Roll. Now averaging 10 to 12 rolls per day, her back-to-front position-modification algorithm is nearly perfected. However, this advance has come at the expense of the front-to-back algorithm, which seems to have been wiped from her memory. Hopefully she will be able to rederive or retrieve the erased algorithm in the near future. In the meantime, after rolling onto her front, she proudly holds her head up for anywhere from one to twenty minutes before getting tired. As you may know, she hates being on her tummy when she's too tired to hold her head up, so she then begins to squirm and cry, and has to be rolled over manually. Of course, she immediately thereupon rolls over onto her tummy again and repeats the cycle... this goes on until we get tired of it and strap her into her infant chair. -- DAD'S DAY OUT Since early July, when we returned from the SOTB (Show Off The Baby) Tour of the east coast, John has been staying home Thursday and Friday with Her Highness. A typical day for father and daughter begins with a lazy wave goodbye to Mom as she rushes off to work. Then a leisurely bath together, followed by play (rolling, sitting, grasping -- an exhausting array of activities). Then it's into the car and off to pick up Mom at work; a quick feeding for Heather and Mom and Dad have a lovely lunch together while H. naps peacefully. After lunch, Mom heads back to the grindstone while Dad spends a sunny, mellow afternoon working at Cafe Borrone as H. plays quietly in her carriage. Later in the afternoon, it's home again, a little nap for the little one while Dad prepares a gourmet dinner. When Mom gets home, it's hugs and kisses all around, a candlelit dinner with a cooing baby looking on, then more enjoyable play time. Promptly at her bedtime, H. yawns and falls gently to sleep, leaving those precious few hours for Mom and Dad to renew their relationship. Oh, wait, that's a different family. But seriously, he does hang out at Cafe Borrone with her, and sometimes she even deigns to let him drink half of his caffe latte before attracting the notice of all of the other customers with her wails. All of that will, of course, end next week when he starts graduate school. -- BACK TO SCHOOL (well, "to school" anyway) Friday was Heather's first day at day care. She'll be spending the mornings for the rest of September at the Stanford Co-op day care center on campus, and then will be full-time except for Wednesday and Friday afternoons (so that we can spend some time with her during the day). So far she seems to like it -- all of the activity and toys to play with keep her awake much longer than she usually would, so the nap schedule is slowly being reduced. Hopefully there will be a corresponding increase in nighttime sleep hours! (Lately, she's been sleeping through the night pretty well, except for the occasional middle-of-the-night feeding or baby-sized nightmare.) -- CARDS AND LETTERS Being as this is our first issue we don't have any cards & letters. Send in your comments and questions, and watch this space for answers to all of your Heather-related concerns! -- BABY TALK Lately, Heather's been waking up in the morning and singing to herself. She makes the sweetest little coos and gurgles. Sometimes she'll just sit in her chair and talk to herself - "aahh" and "oohh" are her favorite sounds, but "ngahh" runs a close third. We think she's definitely going to be a talker (chatterbox, blabbermouth, yammerer). -- COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT UPDATE Her latest cognitive trick is that she no longer treats objects that aren't within her reach as fundamentally different from those that are. This is a good thing in some ways... but it means that if she's playing with a toy and drops it, she WANTS IT BACK NOW. It also means that she sometimes notices when mommy leaves the room. And most frightening of all, it means that she is starting to understand that it's possible to MOVE oneself to the vicinity of a desired object. How far can it be from this recognition to actual mobility? We don't know but babyproofing is moving up our list of things to do. -- STAY TUNED for further (cognitive and motor) developments!