mar, 31st - this little piggy....

day 52:

According to our growth charts, Limi may discover that she has hands and feet at around this stage. This is a big deal because up until this point, eyes and hands have done their own thing: eyes looking in one direction, while hands move randomly in another (feet don't even feature!). If we have any hope that she will one day be the first girl to play for the national South African/ Australian/ English cricket team (depending on how good she is..in that order :)...then hand-eye co-ordination is a necessary skill....okay well maybe not, in all cases!

The science says that: 'newborns are unaware that their hands and feet are part of their bodies. Most of the time, their hands are outside of their vision, and they are not even aware of them. To hot-house this hand-eye co-ordination, you should encourage them to grasp rattles.' The theory is that their automatic gripping reflex, will mean that they grasp and shake the rattle, look for the noise and then voila...see their own hand! You can then throw the rattle out of the window because their hands will become their new, most fascinating toy. Waving them in front of their face in amazement.

Well, hands have not been a problem, Limi discovered their chewability a few weeks ago and has been trying to gain control of them ever since. Not always successfully...as she still often pokes herself in the eye or punches herself in the nose!

Feet on the other hand, have remained an out-of-vision enigma. This may be because for the majority Winter, they have been encased in fabric....not exactly enticing fascination. I have tried to encourage things with endless games of 'This Little Piggy', even making things more topical by Piggy 1, being a tie-dye, t-shirt selling, market-stall owner, Piggy 2, showing agoraphobic tendencies and Piggy 4, being vegetarian.....but this has only resulted in Limi looking on (whilst chewing on her favoured left fist) with mild interest.

But today....she made the great discovery! There was a definite moment of: 'Hey, I have a foot..hey there are two of them! And they have grabbable 'pigs'....Now I know what she was on about!' This was followed by some intense attempts to grab them. Hand-eye-foot co-ordination! (Painful to watch...but ridiculously cheered by myself when she succeeded....in a cheerleader-leaping-clapping sort of way!)

Anyway, we wait with anticipation for the next step.....discovering the double-whammy of fist/toe chewing. After that, we will start with some fancy, face-on, footwork training!