books, baths, babbles and bubbles

Eddie's really moving along on his developmental milestones, in particular he seems to have very advanced fine motor skills. He is handling all objects now, often putting them in his mouth. And can pick up objects, pass them from hand to hand and at times it seems like he throws them. He is starting to get really into books. He handles them and turns the pages (mostly turning them backwards). He also puts the corners in his mouth. I have realized why they make those board books and cloth books now - while reading "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (a non-board book) he got a papercut from trying to turn the crisp, white pages. Another one of his recent favorite things to do is take a bath with Mom. We have retired his small plastic tub that we would put on our bathroom counter - he seemed to get cold because he was only 1/3rd submerged into the water. In our regular sized, antique clawfoot tub he "swims" and kicks, and tonight also started to bat at the water creating heavy splashes. And he is finally laughing more and making a lot of squeals, screams and general happy sounds. One morning we awoke to him "talking" to himself at 5:30 a.m. His talking is still pretty inconsistent - one day he will be a loud mouth and the next he will be silent, so not sure exactly what brings it on.

Today we also attended our first music class, a gift that Daddy Eddie gave us for Christmas. The class has 6 other babies and Eddie is by far the youngest - the others are in the 9-11 month range. He spent much of the class starring at all the other babies and studying their more advanced movements. He liked the finger puppets, an activity called "parachute parade" in which all the babies are on the floor while the adults lower and lift a large, brightly colored parachute over there heads and last but not least, he had his first encounter with bubbles...fascinating!