Grabbing: A Perpetually Charming Skill

[Editor's note: J actually wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but there have been any number of good reasons why it hasn't been posted until now, including J's not having become familiar with WordPress yet and thus relying on your anonymous Editor to post things, the existence of the Scramble and/or Wordscraper games on Facebook, and possibly the raising of the child described herein. My apologies in getting this to you so late; please do not see this as reflecting poorly on Simon's development.]

A few weeks ago [which would now be about a month ago --Ed.], Simon discovered that his hands are useful tools. Previously, he had been keeping his thumbs tucked tightly into his fists, thinking, I guess, that they were useless vestigial appendages. Then one day, all of a sudden, grabbing started.

It started with grabbing my hands. As I was rocking Simon before his nap, he got really interested in what my hands were doing (which was ”just sitting there”) and grabbed my fingers and flailed them around. This, of course, had the added benefit of derailing the nap-prep, much to his delight.

Then he started face-grabbing, also while rocking. On days that I wear my glasses, this is especially entertaining for him.

At his last physical therapy appointment, his therapist held him all scrunched up in her lap and showed him how to touch his toes, and it was like a lightbulb went off. Prior to that, he had shown no interest at all in flexing his stomach muscles, and would just lie around with his legs straight out. But, literally, the next day after she showed him this new skill, he was all about the toe-grabbing. All day long, all the time.

At the grocery store, I’ve taken to letting him pet the produce we’re buying, just to show him what food is and get him interested in it. Last week, I was absent-mindedly holding a peach up for him to touch while I looked over the vegetable display, looking for something Todd would eat. I looked down, and the peach had little gouge marks cut out of it. I figured I had just picked up a bad one and was ready to put it back when I realized there were bits of peach under Simon’s nails.

And now, he’s into grabbing toys. He’ll pick up cups from the stacking-cup display and wave them around. The other day I saw him grab one with one hand, then hold it with both hands, and eventually transfer it to the opposite hand. Clearly this boy is very advanced.

The most popular game by far is bopping the stacking cups. We have two sets of seven, one of which sits higher than eye-level when Simon is sitting in front of me on the floor. He is perfectly content to spent twenty or so minutes bopping the cups with hands and feet, trying to get to them before I have a chance to stack all seven back up for him. He also likes to grab them and shove them in his mouth.

In other news, he has started up the most mellow bedtime routine I could imagine. After his bottle and a few minutes of rocking, Todd and I kiss him and put him in his bed and leave the room. I’ve spied on him to see what he does, and it consists mainly of looking around for a few minutes, sometimes with singing, settling his arms straight back by his bottom, crossing his legs at the ankles, and gazing dreamily off at nothing until he falls asleep. Sure beats the days when we had to stand over him breathing on him and holding the pacifier in his mouth indefinitely.