i guess if a baby’s going to get one tooth, he may as well get two. seb has the first bottom tooth pretty much in and a corner of the second. *sniff* from here on out we can say bye-bye to his little gummy grin. it’s a fairly sad occasion for me, but there is also much cause for rejoicing–FINGER FOODS! and the commencement of seb feeding himself… needless to say, brian and i will be going out in the next day or two to purchase some sort of mat to go under seb’s highchair.

i am endeavoring to teach seb sign language. apparently, babies around 7-8 months of age begin to have the motor skills present to manipulate their hands into simple signs. so for the past couple of days, i have begun to show seb signs for “eat”, “more”, and “milk.” the plan of attack, according to this is making eye contact with baby, then saying the word as you sign it in his field of vision. this sounds simple, but it is surprising how little seb actually makes eye contact with me. i guess that makes sense since he usually doesn’t have to look for me, and i’m always pointing his gaze away from myself to other objects anyway (“seb, lookie…look…look at the light, seba… lookie”). although it will take him a month or two until he can use the signs, it’s amazing that i can actually see the beginnings of language comprehension in his eyes. i’m pretty sure he knows “light,” “fan,” and “cat.” and he’s “pointing” and grunting at things too. he doesn’t use his index finger yet, but sometimes he practices. when he is sitting on my lap before a nap or bedtime, he will stick his index finger out and look at it for a few seconds, just to make sure it works.

Posted on January 15th, 2004