a tiny step for mankind, but a giant leap for my baby
Yesterday, Felix discovered reduplicative babbling. Now he will spend long stretches of time testing that new-found ability. He has been practicing his (adorable) little voice for a while now, but now that he can babble "properly", much has changed: instead of demanding input from me, he wants to hear himself talk! And so it goes "dadadaDAdadoydoyda!" and "nganganga" and "lalala" and "yayaya", interspersed with random other syllables. All with a very serious expression on his face as if to say "LISTEN MOMMY THIS IS IMPORTANT". When he is done with a string of syllables, he grins and waits whether anyone replies. Either way, he'll then launch into the next "sentence" - loud if necessary to drown others out. Yesterday we were trying to watch Avatar with the MIL, but not very succesfully because babbling!Felix was just more interesting...
*melts into puddle of linguistic goo*
Yes, you've all been waiting with bated breath for this exciting announcement, I know! :P
Other than that, he has also started to discover his body - favourite parts are, so far, his right ear, his left foot, and (when he is not wearing a diaper) his crotch. And when his fingers find a texture he likes (or finds interesting), be it wood, plastics, glass, different kinds of fabric, paper or skin, he repeatedly closes his hands so his fingertips and -nails brush over the exciting surface. When he kicks his legs and they hit something hard, he'll repeat the experience as well - my heels hurt just from watching. Somewhere in that little brain, I'm sure, all these sensations are filed away by the dozen!
Sometimes he is also succesfully proto-crawling, and the day before yesterday he intentionally turned from his back to his belly for the first time - previously he only did the other way round.
He wants to touch other children now, rather than just smile at them - the "mirror baby" (our bathroom mirror is now full of teeny tiny fingerprints!), our tenant's small daughter, Baby Quinn - whereas when a friendly acquaintance said hello to him in the supermarket today, he first pouted and then wept. He's a bit young to grow shy of strangers! But you never know. Maybe he was just tired.
Unfortunately, after a few weeks of succesfully eating his pureed veggies with great joy and appetite, today he has so far refused them pretty much completely. Same recipe as the past days, so it can't be the taste. And it's not that he isn't hungry because when I offered him my breast instead, he latched onto it at once and sucked as if starving. He just... doesn't want veggies today.
This is a little awkward as our pediatrist found him slightly underweight after all, and suggested that Felix should get veggies (with potatoes and fat) TWICE a day...
Oh well. Maybe he's just overwhelmed by his new abilities and thus longing for something familiar. >_> We will see!