ReNe: pretend play

Ryan engaged in imaginary play yesterday. He probably had been doing it for a while, for example he'd stir a stick in a cup, but I wasn't sure if he was doing it just because he wanted to stir, or insert a stick into something, or because he was imagining something else. But yesterday morning, his actions were very definitive.

We (me, Ryan and Mike) were all lying in bed Sunday morning, and Ryan was nursing. When he was done, he grinned and sat up, and fingers closed in a pincer grip, pretended to feed me something carefully a few times. Then he turned around and pretended to feed Mike as well.

For a few weeks already, he has fed us food (usually food he doesn't want). For example, I was feeding him grapes a couple of days back (giving them to him to feed himself) and when he was full, he turned to Mike and gave Mike the grape instead. When I stopped handing him the grapes, knowing he was full, he opened his mouth instead. So I popped a grape in. And he promptly took that grape out and fed Mike again.

ReNe: he looks evil because he is

Two cute photos. Here we are, looking quite synchronized. Ryan was actually waving his index finger around and pointing, and I was copying him. Then he put his finger down. So I end up looking a bit silly.

And the back to his onesie, which I like very much. It reads "He Looks Evil Because He Is."

ReNe: evolution of play

It's extremely interesting to watch Ryan as he plays and learns to manipulate objects. When he initially learned to grab hold of a toy some months ago, he would look at it, and then put it in his mouth. He still explores everything that way, by first using his eyes and mouth. Then, because many baby toys rattle, Ryan soon learned to shake everything we give him to see if it makes a sound.

Then he learned to hit objects together. For example, he'd hold a wooden block in one hand and use that to hit the floor or table leg. Since the table legs are made of metal, a nice ringing sound is produced. Later, he learned to hold two hard objects in each hand and strike them together. It's not easy, when you think of it, to manipulate tools as an extension of each hand simultaneously.

He also learned to pull. He'd pull open drawers and doors. The only kind of drawers he can't open are those where you have to rotate your hand such that your fingers come up (palm up) and under the handle. He could pull a toy that has a string or ribbon attached, though hand over hand pulling is beyond him. When we played peek-a-boo, he knew how to hold the cloth/blanket himself to raise (pull up) and lower it.

Recently he started dragging objects along the floor. His favorite is a cookie tin; banging on it makes a satisfactorily loud sound and dragging it along the floor produces a wonderful racket.

Right now, Ryan's learning to drop things. While either seated or lying on the floor, he'd hold up a toy to the height of his head and drop it repeatedly. He does it with all sorts of objects but he especially likes the objects that make an interesting noise. I gave him an empty plastic ramekin, the kind was used to hold a mini lava cake, and the flexible plastic makes a vibrating sort of ringing sound when dropped. I guess he's learning about gravity. Interestingly, I think he's starting to understand the concept of 'falling'. He fell off the side of his crib once, and now he hovers at the edge, wanting to move forward but remembering that it hurts to fall.

When presented with a new object, his exploration sequence goes like this: examine first with eyes, then shake. Put into mouth, and finally drop it.