Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Outsmarting the parents

Sara Beth is one smart cookie.  I've mentioned before about how she really does not like naps.  She will get fussy if she is allowed to stay awake so we put her down in her crib for naps.  If she fusses over every little thing then we have let her stay up too long, so typically we keep an eye out for the cues that SaraB gives off when it is getting to be time.  Yawning; rubbing the eyes; that sort of thing.  Well, in the past week she has stopped with the cues.  She will still get fussy when she is overtired, but all the cues up to that point are no longer there.  She has learned that if she yawns, then she gets put down for a nap, so she stifles them.  Heather has only seen a single yawn recently; SaraB started to yawn when Heathers back was turned and couldn't finish it before Heather turned around.  

Her dexterity has greatly improved.  She loves to stick things in her mouth.  With her new found ability to use her hands, she now shoves anything she can wrap her hands around into it.  One day I was eating cookies out of a large tupperware container.  It had a 10 inch square lid, which I gave to Sara Beth to play with while I continued with my breakfast.  She had one hand on one side of the lid and slowly inched her hand up the other side until it grasped the opposite side.  She then smushed it into her face in an attempt to explore the object with her mouth.  Below is a picture of her trying to decide if she wants to stick a burp cloth or her fist into her mouth:


For Halloween, Heather brought Sara Beth into work in the afternoon.  She was actually able to do a little trick or treating.  I held her next to the candy bowl and she dunked her and in and wiggled it around, and pulled it out, empty.  She then repeated the process.  I was reminded of the plexiglass machine where you pay to use the metal claw on a crane to pull out one of the stuffed animals stored inside.  On the fourth try, she was successful.  Her hand came up grasping a sucker, which she then immediately tried to stick in her mouth.


I'll close out this post of Sara Beth with my hat.  Aside from the occasional dip in a swimming pool, the hat has not been washed since high school.  I think Heather let me put it on Sara Beth because this was about a minute before bath time, so any horribly infectious disease that might have been on the had would be washed off of her head in only a handful of seconds.

4 comments:

---jen said...

Precious! :)

Jenn said...

Awww...she's so pretty. And such a sweet girl!!

This Sarah said...

She's growing in so many ways.. that's awsome.. i'm glad she's so healthy! Hope all is good... we'll have to get together..

Melissa said...

Okay Peter, I need an update...lol!!! Was so great coming to see you guys the other day. The girls had a blast and I loved playing with Sara Beth, her smile is just wonderful! :)