Marcail has been coming on in leaps and bounds from a cognitive perspective over the last couple of days. She started to find her eyes, maybe three days ago and along with that has been getting more interested in the world outside her own body. The first thing, after looking up into our faces, was looking at her high contrast mobile which she got from the Drs. Schleubledeuble.It’s been an evolution from that point to a more general tendency not just to look around but to spend time looking at one thing. She is now spending considerable time awake when she is not simply either feeding or crying to be fed, but taking in her surroundings. This seems to have coincided with an ability to be soothed by external stimuli like comforting, moving around / rocking or going out into the garden on Daddy’s shoulders; which I like as much as she seems to! We now have the beginnings of a two way relationship with our daughter, which is yet another special step forward.
Debs had looked for a baby gym when she was Ikea recently, but without success. Now that Marcail is starting to be interested in such things, we made sure to add this in to our shopping trip with her today – it was another miserable day of heavy thunder showers and oppressive heat so we weren’t going out in the pram again! We got the gym and a cute little cushion (black with colourful flowers) for her to lay on when she’s feeding, amongst other things. Ikea has this ability to infect even hardened skinflints with a need to impulse buy. How do they do that? Must be a combination of the ‘Ooh, that’s handy!’ and ‘Ooh that’s cheap!’ responses.
Having said now alert and awake she is now, she slept through the entire trip; Maplin, Ikea and Mothercare. Ho hum!
Aside from that we are noticing a real difference in her physically. Her face, hands and feet are all starting to plump up nicely; as they should with all the goodness she is hoovering out of Mummy at every opportunity. She seems to be getting longer as she continues to straighten out, though it’s probably just that and not actual lengthening. Of course, she’s getting stronger by the day too. She’s got the ability to be a real little fighter, and if she doesn’t want you anywhere near her with that cotton wool she can make it damned hard.