Infant Pointing

Wren points all the time so I was interested to receive reports of a new study on babies' pointing:

A new theory of infant pointing provides evidence that when 12-month-old infants point for an adult, they are trying to influence his or her mental state, rather than using the adult as a "tool" to obtain a desired object. The evidence suggests that infant pointing is produced by the uniquely human motivation of cooperation, and that it is an essential milestone in the development of language skills.

Source: Child Development 78 (2007): 705-22.

"Ah ha!" or "What?"

I guess this theory suggests that when Wren points at a ball or fan or cat he is not wanting me to say "CAT" or to GET THE CAT or "LOOK, A CAT" he is trying to co-operate with me in things CAT.

Still, its ambiguous. Influence the adults mental state how exactly? Drive the adult nuts? Get the adult confused? Get the adult co-operating in pointing?

This adult's mental state is influenced, okay!

MEANWHILE:
This is Frost's poem of the morning:

If you heard a bang in a park
Then there would be two things waiting for you
Because if you take the b off the bang
Then that spells Ang, the avatar
And if you put the reakfast in front of the missing B
That spells BREAKFAST!!

Nightdark Losing

Last night our clocks switched back an hour at 2am. This suits everyone except those with young children. Young children cannot be switched back an hour at 2am. They want to go to sleep an hour early and wake an hour early. In Wren's case, morning was 4.45am which had just become 3.45am. Yuck.

I let him cry for 15 minutes and he fell asleep for an hour until 4.45am nightdark losing time and we got up. Through diligence and perseverance I managed to get him to bed at the usual time by the clock rather than by the body. It was seven thirty BTC and he was exhausted.

I bet he will wake in the 4's so I am going to bed in an hour or so in resigned anticipation.

Got to love those long hours of darkness in which I drink instant coffee, clean up the living room, unpack the dishwasher, make Frost's lunch and watch half a CSI by 6am.

Like greased lightning

Wren does not like me to go out of his sight so when I had to do the laundry I put him in the sling and carried him and the huge pile of laundry to the basement. Wren helped me pull the laundry out of the basket but when I had finished stuffing it into the washer he motor-crawled out of the laundry into the basement. I quickly poured in soap and pressed start before following him.

I found him 4 steps UP the basement stairs with a horse chestnut in his hand. He kept on going full speed to the top with me following close behind.

What was the hurry?

He had left a half chewed Swedish Fish on the carpet when I picked him up. It had been dropped from Frost's stash of Halloween candy. He picked it up and looked up, pleased.

Wren has been enjoying a wider range of food recently (including the candy fish) due to my decision to allow him wheat, a bit of dairy and some fish. Josh has felt its okay to give him these things but I have been vacillating between naturopath advice to hold off until age 1 or more and pediatricians who seem to advocate excluding different foods. Our pediatrician says no fish but wheat okay. The Current Time magazine even talks of introducing peanut butter before age 1 (verboten in the US but not in most African and many SE ASian countries) to try and reduce peanut allergies. This is all speculation but shows how little science is in the current dietary restrictions for Western infants.

Wren had French toast for breakfast. It was wheat toast made with milk and whole egg. He thought it was delicious and washed it down with pear sauce and baby cereal.

Bub-bull

Halloween was lovely. Frost was ecstatic in his ghoul outfit and Wren accepted being dressed as a lion. Frost collected almost 3kg of candy and would have eaten a large portion of it were it not for bedtime. I am not sure if or when he will sleep.

Frost loved going door to door and saying "Trick or treat". He was very chatty and complimented people on their decorations, asked for "more" candy and discussed which his favorites were. The only house he did not like was my favorite - an almost-mansion which had converted the front porch into a haunted house with ghoulish animated figures, black-light, creepy bloody limbs and spooky voices. Frost hid outside and asked me to get him candy. As we left he shouted out to groups of kids approaching "watch out for that house it is super-scary!"

Wren is becoming a good mimic of real words although he has yet to use them intelligently on his own. At Infant co-op he was watching bubbles being blown and staring intently. I said "bubbles" and pointed. He pointed and said "bub-bul, bub-bul." I was not the only one who heard him and a number of people commented on how clear it was. On the weekend he did a similar thing with Josh when he was watching the fire and Josh repeated "fire, fire." Wren said "fie.... fie..."

Wren enjoyed a lollipop while trick or treating. It kept him very very quiet and sticky for a very very long time. After it was gone he sucked on his mane where some sticky sweetness remained.

Monsters in the night

Last night, on the eve of halloween, we were visited by a few different kinds of monsters.

The first is our familiar beasty - Wren - who has taken it upon himself to wake at midnight and wail and shriek like the most fiendish ghoul. He will not settle himself even after 20 minutes of crying. He won't settle if Joshua goes in to him and so I have to get up and soothe him. Last night I did this by patting his back and singing. This is not easy because the crib has high sides and the position cuts of circulation to my arms while hurting my back. If I lower the sides he could fall out but the click and squeak of raising the sides would wake him so I do not risk that move. He fell asleep after 20 minutes of hiccoughing and fixing me with a baleful eye when I broke the rhythm of my rubbing and patting and singing silly songs about mocking birds and diamond rings.

The next beast comes out of the darkness to our back door. I come out each morning to find the cats' water trough knocked over and their bowls empty. Now, Kasharoo could empty a catfood bowl but I would not expect her to knock over the water. This morning I found the ceramic catfood bowl smashed at the bottom of the back stairs. It seems an uncatlike thing. I suspect a raccoon. I am not sure what to do other than buy a plastic catfood bowl and put the water at the base of the stairs.

Tonight is Halloween and I shall post pictures from our own trick or treating tomorrow.