New Tricks

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I've mostly been consumed with day-to-day stuff: Marina, Arti, work, projects. I thought it would be good to write down what Marina has been up to in the past month or so.

As the <a href='/video/'>video</a> shows, Marina is now really really good at rolling herself onto her belly. She did it for the first time maybe three weeks ago, but only did it once. Then days passed, and she did it twice. There was a 1+ week lull of any rolling activity, then she seemed to just get it. Now when she wants to be on her stomach, she is!

This made me realize that kids (and adults?) develop all skills in much the same way. First, there is the element of "beginner's luck", where the skill is stumbled upon. In the case of rolling over, I think Marina was kicking her legs around, and everything just fell into place. When the luck fades, then frustration sets in. The person thinks "well, I thought I could do this!". At this point, it's all Practice Makes Perfect. Repitition and practice is key to building the muscle memory around the skill. After that comes mastery.

Marina is just grabbing at everything right now. She used to struggle with her arms to grab and hold on to something waved in front of her. Now she just can't get enough holding and examining. The exersaucer that James and Teresa gave us has really helped hone her eye-arm-hand coordination, since she can spend long amounts of time playing with things around her.

When she's fussy at dinnertime, I'll sometimes put her on my lap while I eat. Last week, she started grabbing at my food! She has also started watching Arti and I very intently while we are eating -- I think something is clicking in her mind about what we are doing. I'm not sure if she knows that we're eating, but she's interested nonetheless.

Arti has been doing a great job with her "EC" (Elimination Communication -- a fancy word for "Potty Training"). Lots of people think we're nuts for putting a 4 month old on the toilet, but we've been rewarded with almost zero poopy diapers for nearly a month now. Hopefully once she is more skillful at communicating, she will no longer need diapers. This is a common thing outside of the US -- notably in China and India, babies older than 1 year usually are done with diapers. We hope we can get there too!

So that's about it for baby tricks. Check out <a href='/pictures/'>pictures</a> and <a href='/video/'>video</a> of our little one!