To set the record straight, no I don't feed our son in dark shadows. However, he has started to learn how to hold his own bottle and in regards to shadows, he is fascinated by them and tries to grab them when they are on the floor. Both of these things started yesterday as I watched him throughout the day. His fascination with shadows may have been present previously, but it wasn't until yesterday when we were laying on the floor with the early morning sun beaming through a window that I really discovered this about him. As he was on his belly, working on figuring out how to crawl, I saw him grabbing at the rug, hitting it and scratching it. Curious about what he was grabbing at, I held out my fingers so they cast a shadow in front of him and walked my finger shadows back and forth. Sure enough, he followed the shadow on the floor back and forth reaching to and fro and attempting to grab the illusory fingers. He has yet to figure out that it is my fingers in the air that are causing the shadows, although in an attempt to show him the connection, as I was walking my fingers back and forth, I would fly them in to his hand along with the shadow. Still no connection though. All in due time. I personally find it fascinating that shadows have such an appeal to him, but then again, it is something new that he has had relatively little exposure to in such a direct fashion, and we all now how babies love anything new around them. He even tried to taste the shadows once, but found the rug instead and kept on tasting that.
After he was done on the floor, it was time for his morning brunch. As is usually the case, I lay him in his boppy on the couch next to me and held the bottle for him. Yesterday he seemed to be overly fidgety when I was feeding him however and it was taking quite a while to get him to eat from his bottle. It wasn't that he was fussy, he was just trying to move constantly. He would swipe at the bottle, knocking it out of his mouth. He would push off the back of the couch with his legs all while twisting back and forth and again, force the bottle from his mouth. After about 20 minutes of this and only half a bottle gone, I decided to start teaching him how to hold his own bottle. So as he placed his hands on the bottle as he occasionally does, I took my hand away. The bottle stayed there for a few seconds till he moved one of his hands and it fell. I lifted the bottle slightly off of his chest so he could grab it with his hands. I didn't, however, lift the bottle up so he could get any milk, I let him figure that part out himself. And he did. It wasn't immediate, but it got to the point where if the bottle simply fell on his chest, he would grab it himself and lift it up to his lips. Occasionally, his hands would slip, sending the bottle soaring onto the floor or the couch around him, but that mostly happened near the end as he was slipping into what we call his "milk coma". Obviously when that happened, I picked up the bottle for him and handed it back. Regardless, I didn't know if he would figure out how to hold the bottle correctly and feed himself, but he did. He is definitely not to the point yet where I can just have him feed himself entirely, but it is a lot easier now that he is in partly in charge of getting the milk from the bottle into his mouth.
So those were the two big occurrences yesterday, just after I said that he wasn't making any enormous strides. I guess it just goes to show that everything happens according to his schedule and no one else's. The end of the day was fantastic. After my wife got home from work, we set our little man on the floor for some more tummy time. It seems at this point, he has mostly lost his fascination with rolling and is intent on figuring out how to crawl. That isn't to say that he doesn't roll anymore, it is just that the majority of his effort is spent on forward movement, which it seemed like he almost got yesterday. But anyway, back to him on the floor. While he was down there, we would each take turns tickling him and I must say, he had us both cracking up as well. His laugh is just so precious and infectious that you can't help but laugh along with him. I couldn't even begin to describe it, you would just have to hear it yourself. But I will try a little description. It starts almost as a grunt, morphing into a little giggle which occasionally turns high pitched, and then on occasion he will get out a little hiccup laugh or two. Like I said, the description doesn't do it justice, but I had to try. Overall, though, yesterday was a wonderful day. He was in good spirits for the most part, took his 2.5 hours worth of naps, and whatever we were doing, he was fascinated by it. Next week I will only be watching him for one day instead of two and it will probably be that way from here on out. I will miss the two days, but will cherish the one that I have alone with my little man.
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