Lydia Log: Day 169

Lydia hath sprouted teeth and an appetite for oatmeal and pureed veggies. The teeth were a surprise, having snuck silently up through her gums to be discovered one morning as Terri was cleaning out her mouth, and rediscovered a few days later during a now-infamous breastfeeding session. We were expecting her first teeth to be an ordeal, but alas, there were no late night tantrums or fevers or shapeshifting or molting. Phew. Lets hope the remainder of the teething process is equally as painless (not likely I know).

On the other hand, the introduction of veggies and "solid" foods was part of THE PLAN (that we are making up as we go along, which is I suppose is only half true - the other half is being made up by a collective of mothers one to eight months ahead of us on the baby growth curve... actually this is not true at all, we do our research, and by we I mean Terri, I tend to write with a lot of commas and asides). As I noted last week, this solid food business is a cute and messy affair. Lydia lurches excitedly for the spoon - eyes wide open, arms straight back, mouth gaping, food pouring out - and if you the feeder are not quick, she'll take a spoonful of mush up the nose, or with her cheek, or in her eye (that was me, woops). That said, she only really gets upset when you don't feed her fast enough, or if you continue to feed her when she's had enough. Note that one annoyed grunt means "yes", a continuous string of progressively-louder annoyed grunts means "no". While everyone is improving at this process (read: black art), it is still advisable to wear old clothes or raingear.

In the dexterity department, Lydia is now grabbing things and passing them from one hand to the next, then into her mouth. She can pick stuff up that she has dropped, provided it is within reach, and then put it into her mouth. Her depth perception is improving also - she is able to grab a pastel plastic teething moth toy from the air at arms length, aaaaaand put it in her mouth. I really pity germaphobe parents...

Lydia also smiles lots. It makes everyone happy.