11-week development update

Well, before I get to posting all of the holiday stuff, I'm going to write about the changes in Rowan's development. Over the past two weeks, there have been quite a few exciting changes.

Sit-up game
For the past few weeks, I've been playing a sit-up game with Rowan. Basically, I take both of her little hands in mine and pull her into a sitting position (with lots of support, of course). She seems to really like this game. Once I have her hands in mine, she has some body language cues that indicate that she is ready to sit-up - she lifts both of her legs and makes sparkling eye contact, sometimes grinning at me as well. But, just in the last two days, she has taken to *offering* me her hands and lifting her legs to indicate that she wants to play before I take her hands.

This is a big thing because it means that not only does she understand what she wants, but she knows how to communicate her desire to me using clear body language cues. Very exciting! I think that I should try to do some baby sign stuff with her, since she is clearly interested in communicating.

Vocalising
Rowan's range of sounds has been quickly increasing - today she squealed! A happy noise, but much louder than most of her vocalisations. And of course, lots of cooing and more complex sounds as she uses her tongue. There are a wide range of happy noises, some sounds that seem to indicate that she is concerned or not completely satisfied with the state of things, and of course the I'm-not-happy sounds which is about the only time she full-out cries.

Grabbing and mouth-feel
Rowan is getting more coordinated at grabbing things, especially things that are offered to her, like the handle of her musical bugs mobile and her squeeky monkey's arms. She now has her hands open almost all the time - rather than just making fists - and she tries to grab our clothes and fingers and toys when we play with her. And she is definitely trying to get anything she touches into her mouth.

She has also taken to licking anything that gets close to her mouth. Clothes, bibs, toys, my hand, washclothes. She is learning about her environment in so many ways!

Fist sucking
Rowan has taken to sucking her hand for comfort and this seems to allow her to sleep for longer stretches. Unfortunately, sometimes she shoves her fingers in a bit too far and sort of gags herself.

Our little fist-sucker

Teething?
We are a bit concerned that Rowan might teethe early because she has taken to chewing and sucking on her hand. Very frequently. And drooling, although Greg & Madeleine claim that there will be much more copious drool when she actually teethes. She was also pulling on her ears yesterday, which is apparently a sign too. *eek* She is WAY too young to be teething.

G&M gave us Rebecca's vibrating star teething toy and Rowan just LOVES it even though she can't bite down hard enough to make it vibrate on her own. We press on one of the star's other points while she chews to make it vibrate for her.

New toys
After using G&M's rocking vibro-chair at Rebecca's birthday, we decided to pick one up for Rowan so she would have a sitting-up alternative to the play mat. It has an arch with hanging toys much like the play mat and the toys can be swapped. She LOVES the seat and is particularly interested in the sheep rattle, which has a spinning red-and-white ball part that she can hit and watch. She doesn't seem to notice the vibrating chair part yet.