If you're happy and you know it....

Picture time frame: 07/26/09 to 08/03/09

Dylan loves his feet. When he's happy, he kicks them crazily. When he's sad or angry, he kicks them crazily. Put a toy close to his hand, he will bring his leg up and touch the toy with his foot. Put your hand in front of him, he will smile and kick it with his foot.

The first time I realized that Dylan was intentionally using his feet, I was giving him a diaper change. He was flat on his back on top of the changing table and I was standing next to the changing table. His foot kicked me.

"Oh, was I in your way?" I asked him aloud. I usually engage him in my imaginary conversations as I go about my business. I moved to the side so that he could kick freely, and I continued with the diaper change. He kicked me again.

"Hmmm," I said, and I moved to the side another step, not really thinking twice about my baby's apparent random flailings. He kicked me again.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, realizing that the bottom half of his body was stretched at more than a 90 degree angle to the changing table and his foot was near his head as he was kicking me in the belly. Dylan smiled at me.

We were actually a little concerned about his lack of use of his arms and hands. At one of his checkups, the pediatrician held something in front of his face and asked him, "Do you want to hold this?" She was testing to see if he had cleared the developmental milestone of reaching out with his hands to touch something. Dylan's face lit up in excitement as he lifted his leg up and kicked the item away with his foot. He smiled at her, waiting for her approval. His arms remained at his sides as if they were pinned to his body. I expressed our concern about Dylan's seeming inability to use his arms and hands. She reassured me that he would figure it out in good time.

Eventually, Dylan did find his hands. Or rather, his hands found each other. One hand would creep up onto his chest and reach over to the other side of his body. It would feel around until it found its target. Dylan would grab onto his other hand and lift it up. He would smile at his newly discovered treasure and hold it up to examine it. Then he would look around for someone with whom he could share the thrill of his discovery. He would play this game again and again. He would alternate which hand would be the treasure hunter.

We wouldn't miss this opportunity to take many pictures of Dylan looking so sweet, clasping his hands together next to his chest or chin. So here are a couple.

I would pretend that he was clapping and celebrate, saying, "Yay! You're clapping!" when he clasped his hands together. It's the same game you play when you train your dogs. You take a naturally occuring reaction and repeatedly associate it with a command. Then one day, you reverse the game, and you give the command and see what happens. I play this game, knowing that it will likely come back to haunt me, either by my teenage son one day hating me for it or my friends and family telling exaggerated humiliating stories about me for generations.

The game is really just for my entertainment so I can play it a million times a day, every day, until Dylan has a new discovery. It's a pretend game, so I can also pretend that the results are successful, when he does clasp his hands when I ask him to clap, even though he only does it when he feels like it and he doesn't always do it for everybody else when they ask him to clap.

Once again, I ask Dylan to clap. He stares at me with that stubborn, almost defiant look he sometimes gets. His arms remain at his sides. Both feet slowly rise up into the air. He turns the bottoms of his feet in toward each other, and matches them together. He holds them there. He smiles triumphantly. See? He has already found a new way to play my game. He clasps his feet.

Let the fun begin!

Picture time frame: 07/05/09 to 08/20/09

For the first three months, Dylan was perfectly happy to look at blank walls. They were fascinating to him. The lighter colored and the less textured, the more interesting they were to him. He would choose one and stare at it, unblinkingly, for a disturbingly long period of time.

We took him to Trader Joe's early on in his life. We were eager to see his reaction to the bustling noises and movements of people grocery shopping and the colorful patterns of the cans and boxes on the shelves. As we entered the store, we spoke to him and pointed out people, patterns and things. His eyes became big and round and he looked quickly straight ahead, then turned quickly to the left and right. Slowly, his eyes and head tilted up toward the white drop ceiling. His face immediately lit up in happy amazement. I think he stared in awe at the ceiling for the entire shopping trip.

We would dangle toys over his head using the infant gym. He would quietly lay there, just watching. He would turn his head to look at us, as if to scoff at us and say, "What do you want me to do with that?"

So it was very exciting when he grabbed a toy and his face lit up, as he suddenly realized that it was under his control to make it move and make noise. A couple of the first toys he played with were soft plush toys, that wouldn't hurt him when he quickly kicked it away or flailed his little arms at them. Some were made with various textured fabrics, some jingled when they were moved and some crinkled when they were grabbed by little fingers.

He particularly liked to explore things with his feet. That is how I first discovered that he was playing with his toys intentionally, on his own. I had put him in the infant gym, with noisemaking toys hanging above each foot and above each hand. They were far enough away from him so that he would have to reach out his hand or foot in order to make the toy make noise. The toys were all inherited from older children, both friends and family, who had generously donated toys for Dylan's collection. It was convenient, for the purpose of my little science project, that each toy made a different noise. Occasionally, Dylan would flail an arm or a leg by chance, and one of the toys would make noise. I could tell which limb he flailed by the noise of the toy. I put him in this arrangement for a few minutes every morning. Eventually, he would get tired, bored or hungry, so he would vocalize for me to take him out.

One day, I put him in the infant gym. A minute later, I heard one of the toys sound off with a "ring-ring."

"Oh, great!" I called to Dylan, without even really looking at him, thinking he had randomly flailed yet another time. A few seconds later, I heard that same toy make the same "ring-ring" noise. I moved to where Dylan was and I looked at him intently.

"Did you do that on purpose?" I asked. Dylan looked at me, as if to say, nonchalantly, "What?" And then he stretched out his leg, pointed his little foot, and hit the toy again.

"Ring-ring." Dylan smiled. He was very pleased with himself. Then he kicked the toy several more times. "Ring-ring, ring-ring, ring-ring!" Dylan sang out a loud, high pitched "Aaaaaaa!" in excitement.

He had discovered toys.

Okay, so I'm a bit behind...

Changes have been happening so quickly! Dylan has two teeth now, and is becoming more and more mobile! My mom has been gushing about how quickly Dylan will be changing from here on out.

....From here on out? Obviously I've been neglecting this blog because Dylan has been developing and changing so quickly up until now!

In the meantime, I've been collecting up digital pictures in a folder on my computer, and marking them with topics for the blog. I imagined all these entries, and I have so much to say, but I just haven't written them all yet.

I think I will try to backtrack, noting the date range of the pictures, and tell some of the stories that I have backlogged.