Learning to grab
Holden has been watching his hands quite a bit in the last few weeks, but most of the purpose of his cross eyed staring seemed to be aiming his fingers in the general direction of his mouth so he could get some quality sucking in. And while he’s been looking at us in the eye for a long time, he’s also started looking more directly at things. (rather than just gazing vaguely around the room) I think he’s finally started to put these two things together!
Since the moment he arrived, he’s closed his hands around whatever touched his palm. Yesterday while he was lying on the floor, I thought I would see if he could do anything else with his hands. I held up a little cloth butterfly in front of his face. He regarded it with some amount of acknolwedgement, but then to my surprise I saw his left hand moving jerkily in the general direction of the butterfly. Now granted it was very subtle but I encouraged him by moving the butterfly towards his hand and into his palm. He immediately grasped it. I could barely contain my excitement!
As excited as I was, I wanted to make sure this wasn’t just some fluke. I proceded to show him the butterfly within arms reach over and over. Each time he would move his left hand towards it, fingers splayed randomly each time… but amazingly each time he became more accurate with his reaching. That was I think the most amazing part of all of it: That over the course of about 10 minutes, he seemed to be learning about grabbing the butterfly!
I think its the first time we’ve seen him demonstrate some intention behind any physical movements. I have been rereading parts of The Scientist in the Crib, about the ways that babies learn, but its really a rather amazing thing to actually witness and be a part of! It really puts you in awe of humanity, the amount of experience and learning it takes to accomplish what is admittedly a simple thing.
As for Holden, I hope he can be as proud of his accomplishments as I am.. but I’m guessing that comes later!
