Voting...research subject...busy day

I brought Leah along with me to vote today. I tried to explain to her that voting is every American's civic duty and that she'll get to participate in 17 1/4 years. I tried to tell her that this is a historic election - the first time a black man is a presidential nominee. I'm not sure she understood. But someday I'll at least be able to show her pictures of her sitting on my hip while I turned the knob to vote for Obama.This afternoon we went into Manhattan to participate in an infant study at NYU. The study was about sounds and how infants learn language. Leah sat on my lap while looking at a screen and they played sounds and showed still pictures on the screen. They videotaped Leah and apparently the study has to do with her eye movement and such related to the pictures and the sounds. They told us that Leah was a great test subject...she was paying attention and didn't squirm too much. And they gave us a cute t-shirt and certificate as a thank you for participating.

Leah continues to improve her standing and sitting back down skills...and continues to find more places to pull up:

Leah likes beef stew

Who would have thought? Maybe she just likes her food with more seasoning than the Gerber and Earth's Best people put in the jar. I made beef stew last night - with beef broth, Guinness, beef, tomato, carrot, potato, onion, garlic, and some other seasoning. Don't worry, after cooking it for over 3 hours I think the alcohol was cooked out.

Since everything was cooked to fairly soft and Leah seems to be into finger foods more, I decided to go ahead and give her some of the stew for lunch. I tore the chunks of beef, carrots, and potatoes into very small chunks and fed them to her with my fingers. And I spoon fed her the stew. It took her a couple bites to decide it was okay, but she did. And then she ate a good amount of it. So I gave her more for dinner.

She also had the majority of a kiwi - some for lunch and some for dinner. I've got a fresh direct order coming tomorrow with some other goodies to feed her. And I think tonight I'll try soft cooking an apple so that she can eat some of that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I witnessed Leah figuring out how to sit down after pulling up at the coffee table...and I caught some of it on film. So now when she appears stranded in the crib, I will leave her stranded...I know she can sit down...and now she needs to know that standing and crying in the crib when she should be sleeping will not bring Mom's attention.

After standing up straight, Leah started to bend at the knees and lower herself towards the ground:
And then she sat down:

I also got her a new toy - a busy cube - that is nice and heavy so she can pull up on that without pushing it or turning it over - and it's got fun stuff to play with on each side:

Leah likes disco...but I wouldn't say she loves it

Yesterday we went to Baby Loves Disco. It's a disco party for kids approximately 6 months to 7 years old. The Brooklyn one is held at Southpaw, a cool bar / live music venue in Park Slope. There's a DJ playing disco from the 70s/80s, a bubble machine, and egg shakers and scarves to play with on the dance floor. There's also a cool chill out room with books and toys and comfy couches to rest on.

There are all sorts of sponsors, so we definitely felt a little bombarded by advertising and such for children's products and services. But it meant that the price was pretty cheap ($12 each and free for "non-walking humans") and there were nice healthy snacks including cheese, grapes, guacamole, goldfish, Cheerios, Chex, juice, and soy milk. And for us big kids there was also a cash bar. We gave Leah a taste of some new foods. She did not like the Happy Baby quinoa, black bean and banana we gave her a sample of, nor did she like the guacamole. But she liked the goldfish crackers, rice Chex, and wheat Chex. And she loved the bits of mozzarella and cheddar cheese.

So in addition to having a fun time dancing and hanging out...we discovered that Leah is really starting to like finger foods. She still doesn't seem to want to feed herself. And she doesn't seem to like purees with chunks in them. But she likes finger foods that she has to "chew" - and not just Cheerios. So for dinner last night when she rejected several stage 3 foods - apricot with fruit chunks, spaghetti with cheddar in tomato sauce, and salmon with french lentils (although she did eat prunes and oat flour) - I tried cutting up some fresh kiwi. First I cut it up into very small pieces, and she liked it. Then I tried giving her bigger but thin slices, and she liked it. She was pretty good at chewing it up and she ate a lot - over 1/3rd of the kiwi. And when she'd had enough she started spitting it out. Not exactly how I would choose for her to tell us when she's done eating...but it works.

Dancing with Baba:


Singing and dancing with Baba:
Dancing with Mom:

Hanging out in the chill out room:
Partying with Leah's friend Tyler and his parents Jan and Nu:

Now we are six

Six teeth that is. The couple of front teeth that have been thinking about making an appearance for the past couple of weeks have finally broken through the gums. Leah now has 4 top front teeth. They're all pretty small at the moment, but it won't be long before she's really got a toothy grin.

The added benefit of having bottom (2) and top (4) teeth is that she can now grind them. That's right...this morning she was grinding her teeth. No, not because of stress. Just because she figured out how and apparently liked the sound. Shafi and I don't agree with her though...we definitely do not like the sound. Hopefully she'll tire of it soon.

No pictures of her new teeth yet - she makes it difficult to get a good look at them. But some cute Halloween pics.

Lots of adorable babies at the Halloween playgroup at the Brooklyn Dojo:
Leah showed off her latest standing skills:

And crawling skills:

And she tried to use James the bee to push up to standing...looks like a circus elephant:

Playing with her friend Avery the frog:

Another tooth...more pulling up on the furniture...and a new sound

Yes it's been an exciting couple of days. Yesterday her top left front tooth broke through the gums. She officially has 4 teeth. Luckily the 2 that have come in on top are not very big yet, so she doesn't look like a jack-o-lantern. And the other 2 will be close behind, so I think they'll all be approximately the same size when they get big enough to be seen.

She also started making a clucking sound a couple days ago. She just smacks her lips and tongue together and makes a soft click-click-click. She especially likes to do it in response to someone else doing it first. Very cute.

And today she truly conquered pulling herself up to standing. When she was supposed to be taking her afternoon nap she pulled herself up in the crib. She got stuck there and started wailing. I went in and helped her down and then picked her up to calm her down. After a couple of minutes I put her back down...she still needed to nap. A few minutes later she was wailing again and we went through the same process. Then she cried herself to sleep without standing up. After her nap, which was only about half an hour, I decided to try to teach her how to get back down.

I stood her up and stood in front of her and played a little. Then I sat down in front of the crib and poked her in the belly until she looked down to see me. First she tried peering over the rail to see me - but of course she's not tall enough. Then she figured it out. And she leaned back and plopped down onto her bum. We practiced the same thing about half a dozen times...she would pull herself up to standing when I stood and tapped on the top of the rail - and then she would sit down when I sat down and poked her in the belly.

And I know that I was successful in teaching her, because all afternoon she practiced by pulling up on the coffee table and the musical table and once the entertainment center. She did have a couple of rough falls - not that she really hurt herself but she bopped her head and face a couple times. But mostly she lowered herself down succesfully. I was surprised she was able to pull up at the entertainment center - figured it would be hard for her to get enough traction on the hardwood floor. And as soon as I saw her I moved her over to the carpet - if she took a tumble down on the hardwood it would certainly hurt a lot more than when she does it on the carpet.

I guess we've entered a new phase of Leah really getting into everything. Now I have to hope she doesn't figure out how to walk too soon!

Yesterday Leah enjoyed pulling all the DVDs off the shelves:

And she showed off her Halloween black cat hat, bib, mummy, and pumpkin bear:

And her very cute Halloween onesie:

Today we practiced standing in the crib...in order to practice getting back down:
And I left the room for a few seconds and came back to find Leah standing at the entertainment center:

Leah's first Halloween costume

It's not yet Leah's first Halloween. But she did wear her costume for the Brooklyn Heights Childrens Halloween Parade yesterday. She's an adorable elephant. And she seemed fairly comfortable in the costume, so we didn't feel like we were torturing her.

We had a nice weekend all around. She slept better both Friday and Saturday nights...until 7:20 yesterday morning and 7:50 this morning. Maybe we can get back to the 8 a.m. wake-up time. Much better than the 6:30 we were getting last week! And today the weather was gorgeous so we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and to Chinatown for dim sum...and back across the Manhattan Bridge just to change it up a bit.

It's been a very exciting day already

At the end of Leah's nap this morning she was crying hysterically. I had been in the shower so it took me a few minutes to get to her. When I went in she was standing up in the corner of the crib closest to the door. Not sure how long she was standing there, but she was pretty upset. Tears and snot were streaming down her face. I think she had pulled herself up and gotten stuck there. She didn't stand up during her afternoon nap as far as I know, so it's not exactly a regular thing yet, but she did pull up in the crib for the first time today.

Then we had swimming class. She was the star pupil. When the teacher pushed her toward me in the water she stretched her arms out for me and kicked her legs and closed her mouth - she was able to move forward underwater for a foot or so - and when she came up she didn't even seem to mind that she'd been underwater. This was only week 3! We've got 7 more weeks to continue to improve on that. I think she'll be doing laps by new years.

And what blog post would be complete without cute pics?
Yesterday she pulled up to her knees at the musical table:

We went to play with Leah's friend Erica yesterday - Leah was being very sweet with hugs and kisses - and randomly they happened to be wearing matching coats:

This morning Leah pulled up to her knees at the coffee table - and happily watched me at the computer for a few minutes:

She was happy as a clam after her afternoon nap - a little stretching:And then some ear-piercing squeals: