Baby games

Since I last posted about Sera, she has hit a developmental sprint. She is still small for her age. She just now weighs 18 lbs (with clothes and shoes). However, in the past month, Sera has started crawling, pulling up to stand, and teething. She now has a total of three teeth and is working on her fourth (the two bottom ones seen below):

I have found her cognitive and social development to be the most amazing of all. Her pediatrician has also been impressed with Sera's intelligence. He has commented on how observant she is and is astounded by her clapping, waving, and pointing abilities. If only he could see her at home. Sera has been quite the crafty little baby in the many games she has invented and how she manages to amuse herself (and thus her parents). I have identified four new games that Sera has created recently.

1. You do this!
Since Sera had mastered waving and clapping, I really wanted her to learn how to blow kisses. Her education involved me holding her and demonstrating how it looks when I do it. Then I took her hand and placed it over her mouth to show her how its done. She then took my hand and I immediately thought she was going to place my hand over her own mouth. However, she took my hand, placed it over my mouth, and then pulled it away. She has taken to grabbing our hands and trying to get us to do things for her. In the tub, when she tires of splashing, she will grab our hands and move them up and down to splash in the water. She will take our hands and move us to pet the dogs.

2. Where's Sera?
Where's Sera? is our version of peek-a-boo. Sera will cover her face behind anything handy: towels, bibs, and hats.

She has also taken to ducking behind furniture and then peeking around at us. Where's Sera? seems to be a good way to calm a fussy baby. If she starts to become fussy and cranky, we toss a burb cloth over her head and she immediately starts giggling. She has recently started to modify this game to Where's mommy? However, rather than covering mommy's face with a towel or cloth, she likes to pull my hair over my eyes and then laugh.

3. Containers and baby fetch
Sera, much like every other baby on the planet, has an odd fascination with the dog dishes. She loves to splash in the water bowl and play with the dog food (and I will admit that I fished a piece of Beneful from her curious mouth about a week ago). Her newest fascination involves taking magnetic letters, dropping them in the bowl, and then removing them. In my attempt to curb this behavior, I then provided Sera with an empty plastic container as a substitute for the messy dog food bowl. Sera now likes to drop letters in both the plastic container and dog dish. One afternoon, as I washed dishes, I looked over and watched Sera for a moment. She had created her own game of baby fetch. She would drop letters in the container, remove them, toss them across the room, chase after them, bring them back, and then drop them back into the container. Then the process would repeat again.

She really enjoys putting smaller things into bigger things. Much to my satisfaction, this also involves putting her toys away in her new toy box!

4. Everything's a hat!
Sera is pretty tolerant of hats, but loves to place anything on her head (or my head for that matter). A teething ring becomes a tiara. Her plastic container becomes a helmet:

Its an easy distraction. If she is getting fussy at the grocery store, I can pretend to crown myself with the teething ring and then bend over and allow her to crown me and herself. This game usually ends up with adorable giggles.

Baby giggles are the best sound in the world and we are incredibly blessed that Sera is such a happy baby. We spent Mother's Day at the zoo and Sera enjoyed calling out to the peacocks and smiling at the giraffes. We had a very low-key Mother's Day, which was fine with me. I know I waited for Mother's Day for quite some time and it was previously a very painful holiday. However, it was nice to spend a nice day as a family without all of the fanfare (which I think would only feel like I'm trying to "make up" for lost time).

Our next adventure occurs next week when Sera gets to ride on an airplane for the first time to meet her grandfather, uncle, aunt, and cousin. I am not as concerned about our nonstop trip into BWI. It is the drive in DC traffic from BWI to Virginia that frightens me. Wish us luck!