Megan will be four months old on Wednesday. To commemorate the event, Megan has set about to tackle a few milestones a couple of days early.
First she got her go at "real" food. Megan has been scoping out real food for about a month now. She watches people eat. She follows forks from plate to mouth. She lunges at Logan's bowl of cereal in an attempt to get fistfuls for herself. (Lucky Grandma intercepted.) This weekend we decided to give her a shot at her own food. She sat up in her high chair shoving her bib in her mouth as she waited for the soupy blah rice cereal to arrive. With the first spoonful she made a little face and pushed the rice back out at us. The second was different, as was the third and the fourth. By the time she was into her fifth small dab on a spoon she was laughing and flapping her arms in glee.
Now she's an old pro. Even as she mangles her tongue around her mouth a bit trying to figure out what to do with this thicker mush, she keeps a good 98% of what she gets in and swallows it down. Logan has also taken his turn in the fun. He sits next to her and takes over for a few spoonfuls - gently placing the baby spoon on her lips as he says "Here! Eat this!" She smiles at him. She watches him carefully and when she opens up, he sticks the spoon and waits for her to slurp. We are working with him to slid the rice cereal off into her waiting mouth.
Sometimes she steals her spoon from Logan. She waves it around like she's showing off her prize. She gets rice cereal in her baby-fine red hair and across her cheek - sometimes even in her eye. Then she shoves the spoon in her own mouth and sucks away on it which makes Logan laugh and announce that Megan is a big girl who can feed herself. Then he holds his hand out under the spoon and says (as we all to do the dogs!) "Give. Megan give."
The bigger milestone, perhaps, is that Megan has begun to roll over. She did it tonight for the first time although she's been toying with it for weeks by getting herself up on a side. Tonight, however, she surprised herself by flipping all the way over from belly to back. I had just laid her down on her stomach and she was happily playing away. She got herself up high on her arms - elbows nearly locked tight - and then she did it. She leaned to her right and found herself smack on her back lying half on the toy center of her activity blanket. She laughed about it and kicked those round legs a bit. Then I put her back on her belly. She got frustrated then and instead of rolling a second time she buried her face in her blanket and screamed about it. Hey, she's got a true red-headed temper.