Baby Laughs, Babbles, and Mr. Grabby

From the Twin-Daddy:

In my last serious post on October 1st, I talked about how both boys were engaged in social smiling and beginning to  enjoy playing.  We are still moving on from there and now playing usually involves baby laughs.  The baby laugh is a lifting of the chin with a big smile and a long drawn out “Huuuuh!” or sometimes a “Huuuuh huuuh!”  Baby laughs are terribly cute and tend to make life just that much better.

Dom lifts his chin to laugh at Daddy.

This week we have also seen Dominic take the lead in babbling.  Dominic has been desperately trying to articulate with his Mama, and he’s started experimenting with the different vocal noises he can make.  Keep in mind that we’re already building on a veritable symphony of grunts, snorts, and various expressive wheezes as well as the different shades of crying, squawking, and wallerin.

On Using the Hands

“There is nothing in the world which Nature, wise mistress and benign mother of the universe, with greater genius, and more diligent regard, provides Man for the conservation of his self (of which, more so than any other noble creature, he shows himself very dear of its safety), than the singular privilege of the hand, with which not only does he go procuring all things necessary for the sustenance of his life, but arming himself yet with the sword, noblest instrument of all, he protects and defends himself against any assault whatsoever of inimical force; following nonetheless the strict rule of true valor, and of the art of fencing.”

~Ridofo Capoferro, 1610 (as translated by Swanger and Wilson)

While Alex doesn’t babble as much, he is the Master of Grabby.  He is the one most likely to stealthily grab your shirt while you are changing his diaper.  He has also started guiding random objects towards the all-tasting baby sense organ.  His motto being, “If I can hold it, I might be able to eat it.”  This is the same kid who was tasting his brother’s head and the Great Dane to see if they were edible so this makes some sense.  I don’t know if Alex realizes he has hands yet or if Mr. Grabby is only an opportunistic grabber.  (What this says about his future love life remains pure speculation.)

Alexander flashes the big pickle smile which is certain to charm the ladies

With that in mind, both kids have now figured out that they have hands which are useful as snacks when the going gets tough.  Each boy is regularly sucking on his fist, and it’s gone from being a target of opportunity (“What the heck!  Hey, can I eat this thing?“) to an intentional target (“Hungry hungry baby fingers!!  Nummy nummy nummy nummy!!“)  I have heard that figuring out you have hands and can interact with the world is the beginning of knowing that you are an “I”.  For the record, self-awareness begins with “Nummy nummy nummy nummy!!”

Tummy-Time

Friday I put both boys down for some tummy-time which they endured with good grace.  Within moments Alex actually managed to roll over for the first time!  I don’t think he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t able to recreate the feat of dexterity again, but he certainly surprised his parents by doing it.  On the other side of the blanket, Dominic worked on baby push ups, lifting up his head to look around and tasting the blanket to see if it was perhaps made of ice cream.

All of this seems to be happening at a blistering and breakneck pace.  As someone who spent months working on collision avoidance algorithms for an autonomous robotic rover, the continous cycling to greater levels of sophisticated behavior seems nothing short of miraculous. No programmer I’ve ever met could match the developmental pace of these two children.  We have come to accept this tsunami of growing intelligence and behavior as normal in babies, but knowing what is required to produce this kind of behavior from a construct like my rover, it shifts this mundanity from the ordinary world into a realm of wonders.

Other Development?

Without a precise scale at the house, I can’t get more data points for my growth chart.  I can tell the boys are gaining weight, because lugging them around in the car seats is getting more difficult.  Just eyeballing my previous data they have been gaining roughly 1000 grams per month thus far.  If that trend continues, we are probably looking at roughly another 2000 grams per kid which comes out to about 7000 grams (7 kg) each or somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds each.

Twinsanity Countdown – Sleep Will Come

Most baby web sites seem to indicate conservatively that babies will sleep better sometime around the 6-month mark.  We could be sleeping through the night as early as 4 months.  With that in mind, I’m bumping up the Twinsanity Interval up to 6 months.  (Of course, this assumes that we will be entering a new phase of twinsanity, but at least it will be a better rested one.)

Alexander and Dominic are 86 days old

12 weeks and 2 day

2 months and 25 days

• Sunday, October 31 is the boys’ first Halloween
• Monday, November 1 and Dom and Alex are 3 months old
• Wednesday, December 1 and the boys meet the pediatrician again for their 4 month appointment
• Saturday, January 1 and the boys are 5 months old
• February 1 is the end of the Twinsanity Interval, and the kids have a half birthday.