A few weeks ago she figured out that she has feet, and how to grab them. Now she has cleverly devised a technique to take her socks off, due to her new found skill of feet grabbing. When she's in her bouncy seat, she slowly squirms down until she's half hanging out of the chair. She then bounces the seat a little, which slings her legs towards her face. It takes a few bounces, but eventually she literally catches her foot with her hand and grips tight to the sock. That's when you hear her struggling. She pulls hard on the sock, and it slowly comes loose. But she can only do it for a few seconds at a time, because at the same time she's pulling, she's also squeezing her insides in half. She has to stop, in order to catch her breath. In all, this activity takes about ten minutes to complete. There she lays then, half hanging off the chair, kicking her feet and crying, because now the socks are off and she's no longer comfortable. She does this a minimum of twice a day, and its quite amusing to watch.
Today she rolled from her back to her stomach for the first time without any help from daddy. She was determined to do it too. I was folding some clothes and I had her on a blanket on the floor. Normally she just lays there and looks at the television or the ceiling fan, today she had other plans however. I heard her start to grunt, which usually means she's had enough and wants to do something else. To my surprise, though, she was flipped all the way over, and laying on the arm she rolled over. The grunts were from her trying to pry that arm out so she could lay flat on her stomach. I wanted to help her, but instead laid down next to her and started cheering her on. Remember when Apollo Creed became Rocky's trainer, and was yelling out to him encouragement. That's how I was approaching this situation. She was starting to turn a little red, and suddenly sparks flew out of her eyes and she raised her head and screamed to the heavens. I gave her a quick squirt from the water bottle and suddenly she started doing a one-handed push-up! She quickly released the trapped arm and pushed herself up with both arms and screamed with joy. That was short lived though, because now she needs to figure out how to flip over from stomach to back. We'll train for that this week.
I've decided that companies that make baby products such as toys and furniture, have no compassion for parents. You would think that they would ship their products assembled or at least partially assembled. Nope. They send everything in a million pieces, because they know parents have nothing better to do than read through 32 step instruction booklets in order to put one leg on a high chair. Every time I open something new, I'm praying that its going to be the one where all I have to do is snap two pieces together and start using it. It has yet to happen. I now know why parents are able to put together things likes bikes, wagons, and tinker toys together in record times. They've been doing it since the kids were born. I'd bet that if you get a bunch of seasoned parents together, gave them some hard to read step-by-step instructions, and a philips screwdriver...they could build a space shuttle...AND...have it ready before the kids wake up Christmas day.
Heh.
Here's some pictures of Madison right before bathtime, during, and then after.
