====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather'' 20 March 1995 Vol. 1, No. 7 Editor-in-chief: Heather Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- MOTOR DEVELOPMENT UPDATE Both gross and fine motor development have taken amazing strides since the last issue (though no *actual* strides have been observed, if you get my point and will excuse the pun). Heather has decided to follow in her Uncle Jim and Aunt Anne's footsteps and pursue a career in climbing. She thinks that the main thoroughfare from one side of the living room to the other is the coffee table: she climbs up one side, crawls across, and climbs down the other side. Yikes! Being typical nervous parents, our instinct is to either stop her, or stand there hovering anxiously every time she climbs up. But she'll never learn that way, so we watch her instead -- and so far, she hasn't taken any serious tumbles. She really understands about climbing down from high places, turning around and sliding her legs over the edge carefully until her feet hit the ground. Of course, if the high place is too high, she just says "go for it!" and drops, even if she can't reach the ground, and has taken a couple of spills that way. But it doesn't stop her from climbing again! We also had a bit of a scare on our recent trip to Tahoe (see SOCIETY PAGE). On the last morning, when we were all packing up to go, we lost sight of Heather for a few minutes. I was downstairs; she was upstairs. I heard her voice as I came up the stairs, realized that the door at the top of the stairs had been left open, and ran up to the landing -- only to see her there ON the stairs, five stairs down from the top! I was so surprised to see her there at first (did somebody put her there as a joke? was my first thought) that it didn't occur to me to panic. Only later did I realize what a good thing it was that she climbs so much, because otherwise she wouldn't have known about stairs and might have fallen. On the fine motor side, In-Putting and Pointing are the two main activities these days. One Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, I had gotten up with her while John snoozed a bit more, and was sitting on the sofa watching her play. She picked up a cup and put it INTO a box. Thinking that it must have been an accident, I sat down next to her and took the cup out again. She looked up, smiled, picked up the cup, and FLUNG it into the box. For the next few days, she just couldn't get enough -- she wanted to put anything and everything INTO something. (Of course, Out-Taking is still higher priority, so everything always ends up scattered everywhere at the end.) She's gotten very good at precisely placing things Where They Belong -- cups in boxes, pacifiers in Mommy's mouth (one of the funniest things on the planet, by the way, according to H.R.H.), books in bags. Sometimes she puts them, sometimes she gets excited and hurls them in so hard that they bounce back out. Very puzzling, she says. She started pointing last weekend, first at food she wanted (the box of Rice Krispies was first, I believe). Then it generalized to any object of interest (that includes books, toys, dogs, walls, sky, and dust motes, near as I can tell). Now she's really starting to use pointing to communicate. We can almost have a "conversation" -- last night before she went to bed, I was reading books to her, and I'd hold up two books and say "which one should I read?" She'd point to one, I'd open it up, and she'd settle back contentedly. Speaking of books, I don't know about her, but I know Dr. Seuss's ABC by heart. She made me read it to her THREE TIMES the other night. "Don't you want to read Red Fish, Blue Fish?" -- SOCIETY PAGE In February, we went up to Lake Tahoe with Rick, Pauline, and Daniel; Jeannette, Ashok, and Bacchus; and Sissi, Nicole, and Spike. Heather loved following the big kids around and trying to do everything they did. She also loved climbing up on the granite hearth. Yikes. And then there was the stair incident... (see MOTOR DEVELOPMENT UPDATE). But other than the occasional near-brush with catastrophe, we had a great time. John and I took the big kids (Daniel (almost 3) and Nicole (3 and a bit)) sledding one afternoon while Pauline rested in the Green Giant with the napping Heather. Good break for both of us. John and I actually managed to get a bit of skiing in -- on the way home, we stopped off at Sugar Bowl, and took turns watching Heather while the other skiied. So we can't complain that we NEVER get to go skiing now that Heather's around. Oh, well, that's okay. Soon enough she'll be blowing us away on the slopes. Another brilliant idea that Marie had was to start up a babysitting coop with some other parents at day care. So far we've sat and been sat for. A couple of Fridays ago, John and I took Heather over to Owain's house (Owain is a 5-month-old in Heather's classroom at day care). We went out to dinner AND a movie. Heather, by all reports, was a perfect angel: played happily with Owain's 3-year-old brother, Rhys, for an hour, then rubbed her eyes and went to bed, and slept until we returned and walked into the room where she was sleeping. (*Amazing* how she could detect our presence without us saying a word.) On Saturday we babysat for Cory, an adorable 16-month-old at day care. He had a great time playing the piano with John. Heather tried to join in, with great exuberance, but doesn't quite get the concept of *gently* pressing the keys. Wham! Crash! Bang! -- SCHOOL DAYS We're really happy with Heather's day care, the co-op center on campus at Stanford. The teachers are wonderful (and have been there for years and years), there's lots of space and toys for the babies, Heather loves interacting with the other children. (Her best bud is Tatiana, a 20-month-old tyrant. Heather plans to depose her as soon as she can walk.) When we first started taking her there, I was a bit worried about whether she would get attention, and whether she would have difficulties with separation anxiety. Well, as it turns out, she's very attached to her marvelous parents, but is also quite attached to her caregivers at the day care. So even though she's often sad to see us leave, they can soothe her without much difficulty, and she perks right up and starts playing again. At first, when we were co-oping, she wanted to be RIGHT NEAR us every second we were there, or she'd get very upset. Lately, she often has better things to do than hang around her old stick-in-the-mud parents. A couple of weeks ago, for example, and it was my turn to fold the laundry, so I was back in the laundry room, off to one side of the play area. (For context: there are three infant rooms at the day care. Heather's in CIP1, which is connected to CIP2 by a doorway that's usually open; CIP2 is connected to CIP3.) I heard Heather's laugh coming from the main room, so I peeked my head around the corner. Theo was crawling at top speed towards the exciting frontier of CIP2, with Heather in hot pursuit. She was crawling somewhat awkwardly, because she had a rattle clutched in her fist (presumably to trade with the natives in the wilds of CIP2). She looked up, saw me, laughed again, and continued on her merry way. Other favorite activities: crawling into the playhouse under the raised playpen for little babies, and playing outside on the porch. Just wait until she can walk, then she can go in the real yard! She likes to be outside so much, that one day I came to pick her up and noticed her arms were freezing cold. Carol came over and told me that for the last half-hour, she had been leaning on the gate to the outside, just looking and waiting (pining for the fjords, I suppose). -- ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT Well, hmm, let's see here. Heather plays *very* well these days, and I think her separation anxiety is lessening, so that she can go off and play with other people or in the far corner of the room, without us needing to be there. But the new attitude problem is... tantrums. Yep, I'm talking about back-arching, ear-piercing, gen-yoo-ine terrible-two tantrums. We're gradually developing methods for coping with them, and it helps that she's starting to be able to communicate a little, so she's not always so frustrated. (It's not that we REFUSE to give her what she wants much of the time, just that we don't KNOW what she wants.) Meals, on the other hand, are becoming more and more challenging. Sometimes she wants something other than what we're serving her, and sometimes I think she just doesn't know what she wants. She'll still eat just about anything -- just not when she doesn't feel like it. And you never know what her food du jour is going to be. For a couple of weeks she was hooked on bagels. Then bagels were out, pancakes were in. After that it was Rice Krispies -- usually one tiny little krispy at a time. Lately she's been a cheese fiend. Go figure. Up until this last week or so, she was eating a HUGE amount, so maybe she was storing it up, and now she's cutting back for a while. She does seem to have a growth spurt recently -- she's definitely taller and heavier than just a couple of weeks ago. Recently, bedtimes have been getting more and more difficult too. (That includes naptimes.) She'll be completely exhausted, rubbing her eyes and ready to collapse from fatigue, but will refuse to lie down and go to sleep. Last night was the worst night yet. We're starting to think that maybe she's teething, and when she lies down quietly she doesn't have a distraction from the discomfort. I finally got her to sleep by curling up with her and reading the same book over and over. Eventually she drifted off, and then she slept (more or less) through the night. (I think she woke up once or twice, but we were too exhausted to go get her up, and she must have gone back to sleep on her own.) -- HEALTH NEWS Heather finally succumbed to the classic day-care-baby illness: about a month ago, we took her to the doctor because she had been cranky, had a bit of a fever, and was generally not acting like herself. The whole way to the doctor, I was defending the trip to myself. ("I know we've had false alarms before, but she really seems to have something wrong with her.") Sure enough, Dr. Laurie took one look in each ear and told us that she had two beautiful ear infections. We gave her a course of antibiotics (amoxicillin) and within a couple of days she was much better. A week or two ago, she seemed to have some kind of infection in her right eye -- it was gooping up and tearing a lot, and was a little bit pink, though not really bad. Once we noticed it, it seemed to get worse very quickly, so we called the doctor for advice. She prescribed some eyedrops over the phone and told us to call back the next day if it got any worse. It cleared up pretty quickly -- we're still not sure whether it was an infection or just an irritation from something that got in her eye. One thing we did learn is that Heather HATES eyedrops, and can squeeze her eyes shut tighter than you would think possible. Hopefully we won't have to give her eyedrops for anything really serious, because it's basically an exercise in futility. What a kid. No new teeth (but see teething hypothesis in previous section). -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT [Warning: not for the squeamish] An archaeologist would have a field day with Heather's poops. "Ooh, orange, looks like we had sweet potatoes AND apricots yesterday!" "Hey, this one's chunky. Undigested peas, perhaps?" "Wow, raisins!" One morning Heather must have had an early poop that was missed by the Dadster, because when she pooped again, he found a stratified diaper, with two layers of completely different colored and textured kaka. Simply fascinating. [I TOLD you it wasn't for the squeamish. Sheesh. I didn't even MENTION the variations in smell!] -- BABY TALK As mentioned in MOTOR DEVELOPMENT UPDATE, we actually have "conversations" with Heather these days. I'll say "which cereal do you want?" and she will actually inspect them and point to one. If she's playing, or we're taking a walk outside, and she sees something interesting, she'll point it out to me. She's gone through a couple of words ("gakka," "uh-oh" (after dropping or DELIBERATELY TOSSING a toy on the ground), and "bah!" or "dah!" which seems to be a general statement of interest in an object). None of them have lasted for more than a few days, though. (After the big "gakka" breakthrough, she said it constantly for the next couple of days, and we've hardly heard it since.) But I have a feeling that she's getting close to real verbal communication. She seems to be starting to classify and "name" objects and concepts in the world, which is a big cognitive shift. Not exactly talking, but she plays lots of little games with us these days. If John oscillates his hand in front of her mouth, Heather will say "aaaaahhhhhh," so it comes out like an "Indian war cry" -- "aah aah aah aah," in a high-pitched little voice. Too cute. She loves the Pacifier Game, where we take her pacifier and put it in our mouths. She finds that hugely amusing. Sometimes she'll even put her pacifier in MY mouth -- now that's love. (And good hand-eye coordination, too!) She also likes "I'm gonna get you!" where we chase her around the house, though she's as likely to crawl TOWARDS us as AWAY, silly kid. But it's really funny when she does crawl away -- she'll start crawling towards me, and I'll say "I'm gonna get you!" and slowly start moving towards her. She laughs and keeps coming, then suddenly I make a move for her, and she cackles hysterically, does an about face, and crawls away as fast as her little hands and legs can go. When I catch up with her, I grab her, yell "gotcha!" and tickle her until she pukes. Lots of fun. -- FASHION Too many clothes, too little time! Spring is just around the corner, though, and we're avidly looking forward to wearing warm-weather clothes, especially the 11-month outfits from Aunt Susan (and Grandma Mary?) (a purple romper with red chili peppers and a yellow-and-orange-striped Brady-Bunch-style romper with groovy '70s flowers). -- IDYLLIC WEEKEND Mostly we have good days. Sometimes we have days from hell. But every once in a while we have a really terrific day. Saturday, February 4th was one such day. It was one of these idyllic, homey, domestic days that sound unutterably dull to the hopelessly cynical, but make life worth living to hopelessly romantic people. Since I'm split about evenly between H.C. and H.R. I can deeply enjoy the day while making fun of it shamelessly afterwards. :-) I got up with Heather in the morning and gave her breakfast, letting John go back to sleep. (Sunday, it was my turn...) She ate like a champ, then played happily exploring the living room for a while, while I sat and read a novel. She mostly spent her time taking out and carefully inspecting (looking at, turning over, shaking) each toy in her toy basket. Every once in a while she'd look over at me, get my attention, and laugh. Too cute for belief. I can sit and watch her play indefinitely. When John got up, he gave Heather a bath, then I got her dressed while he took a shower. I've been going through her "Too Big Clothes" drawer, and discovering that a lot of her "Too Big Clothes" were about to become "Too Small Clothes" -- I need to go through that drawer more often! I found a cute Osh Kosh shirt that we'd bought for her when I was pregnant, and dressed her up in that in preparation for our first playground visit (that's foreshadowing). We all went out for lunch at Ann's, this great old coffee shop with Brady-Bunch-era art on the walls and waitress uniforms to match. They didn't have a high chair, so we had to sit Heather in a booster seat, monitoring her continuously so she didn't hurl herself over the edge. She ate half a jar of green beans before our food arrived and distracted her. Then she had some of John's hash browns, some of my potato salad, the usual complement of Cheerios and crackers, the rest of the green beans, the crust of my rye toast, and anything else that got within reach. What a pig! After lunch, we went to the playground in Burgess Park and videotaped Heather on the kiddie swing for the first time. She LOVED it, I mean really went nuts! She just laughed and laughed, like it was the best thing in the universe. Her laughter is so pure and full of joy, it makes you think that maybe the world isn't so messed up after all. Between the swing, the slide, and her first taste (fortunately not literally...) of sand, she was exhausted afterwards and fell asleep in the car. We went to Toys R Us, and she slept while John went in to return a defective booster seat. (If *you* were making a booster seat, wouldn't you make the loop in the strap big enough to fit the buckle through? I thought so.) Then we went over to K-Mart. Heather loves to ride in the cart, and was doing great until we had to stand in the checkout line, when she started to lose it, so I went out and nursed her in the car. After that, she seemed to be in a great mood, so we went into downtown Palo Alto. We stopped at Blockbuster to rent a video, then went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. Heather GOBBLED down a jar of rice-and-lentil dinner, and a jar of peaches, PLUS cheerios, crackers, rice, sweet potatoes from one of our dishes, fish from another... I repeat: "What a pig!" After dinner, we walked Heather around in the stroller for a while, until she fell asleep, then went to Swensen's for a hot fudge sundae (what decadence!). She hardly let out a peep when we transferred her to her car seat, or when we got home and put her in her crib, then slept through the night. Almost makes YOU want to have one, doesn't it? -- STAY TUNED ...for the next exciting installment. Next time: Volume II, Number 1: Reminiscences on Heather's First Year. (Yes, it's almost that time. April 2 is her birthday!)