My Experiences as a Father... March 5 to April 4, 2000 (11th month)

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Sunday, April 2, 2000
Maeve has been doing lots of waving for several weeks now. It all started when she discovered that her wrists rotate. Today she even waved good bye to a diaper going into the Diaper Genie.
 

Monday, March 27, 2000
My friend Marianne came over tonight to teach us CPR. Even Maeve participated. We got pictures and hopefully will have those back and on the web page in a few weeks. We were also having food delivered so we had some cash around. It was just over $25, but we had gotten two $20 bills from the bank, and we had a $5 bill. Maeve had a $20 bill in one hand and the $5 bill in the other. I had the other $20 in my other hand. I didn't realize that Maeve could count or understood the value of different bills, but she dropped the $5 bill and took the $20 bill from my hand.
 

Sunday, March 26, 2000
While we were in line at the store today we saw a family getting Isomil. Jill whispered to Maeve about how the "baby wants boobie, not that formula". The baby started crying, and the mother handed him a bottle. He threw it on the floor. They handed it to him again, and again he threw it on the ground. That gave Jill another opportunity to point out to Maeve that "the baby wants boobie, not that formula".

When we got to the car, Jill said she feels very strongly about the importance of breast feeding. She said that she just wanted to go up to that mother and ask her, "Don't you love your baby?" because she is giving the baby formula instead of breast feeding.

I said Jill might turn out to be one of those militant people who get up in your face about some issue that they feel strongly about. She would have all sorts of statistics, and talk of medical studies on the difference of babies who breast fed and who were given formula. She would have pamphlets for people who would listen, and would try to get the name, phone number and license plate number of mothers who wouldn't listen so she could post them on some "Non-Loving Mother's" webpage someplace. I also mentioned that she might wear a beret, because my stereotypical picture of that type of zealot/activist is someone wearing a beret. Jill said that it would be a pink beret with a nipple on top, and she would start a group called the Boobie Patrol.

She shared this conversation with her Breast Feeding mailing list. One mother talked about wearing her husband's military BDUs and making nursing openings under the pockets on the front.  One woman said that during winter you could easily get the pink beret with nipple appearance with a pink ski cap by putting a brown tassel on top. Two other women came up with this cadence for the Boobie Patrol:

I dunno but I've been told...
Mama's milk is never cold!
Sound off...

sound off 2,3.....yes!
I am nursing 2 and 3.
Plan on doin' so 'til they flee!
sound off....

Saturday, March 25, 2000
When Maeve eats, she will take a handful of food. She puts her hand to her mouth and it looks like she just opens her hand. Somehow the food gets into her mouth without falling all over. We have found an exception to that, though. Cornbread does not stand up to her crushing when she takes a handful. From what we found in the highchair when she was done, it didn't look like too much got into her mouth.
 

Thursday, March 23, 2000
Maeve started clapping today. I saw the baby in the Michelin commercials on The Weather Channel clapping, and he looked about Maeve's age. So on Sunday we started working with Maeve on clapping. As Jill was driving to work, she looked in the baby mirror and saw Maeve clapping all by herself.
 

Sunday, March 19, 2000
We had a rubber band in Sunday School that we had used to bundle some slips of paper that we were using in the lesson.  Maeve got the rubber band after we handed out the slips of paper and she spent a while stretching it, like she was doing some sort of resistance exercises to strengthen her hands and arms.
 

Saturday, March 18, 2000
I got a haircut today.  Maeve had some hair that was in her eyes and was bothering her, so Jill cut that little bit.  I offered to take Maeve for a haircut that would last her a little longer, but Jill wouldn't let me.
 

Friday, March 17, 2000
When I try to hold Maeve and work on the computer, she is very eager to play with the keyboard.  I decided to ask Peggy at work if I could have a broken keyboard that one of her employees had worn out.  I also got out an old keyboard that I had before I purchased my current keyboard.  Now Maeve has one keyboard in the living room to play with, and one in front of the computer.  She gets really excited when she gets close enough to press the keys.  She gets a big smile and presses keys all over the keyboard.

She can put her hands on the home keys and can reach the rows above and below those keys, but her hands aren't big enough yet to press the top row or the keys in between the home keys (such as G and H).  Last Friday I wrote about trying to teach Maeve things like her name or phone number.  Once I saw how much Maeve liked the keyboard, I decided to start teaching her to type her name and phone number.  That will probably be faster than teaching her how to pronounce her whole name or all of those numbers in the correct order.
 

Thursday, March 16, 2000
One of the legs fell off Maeve's high-chair.  I got a screwdriver and screwed it back together.  I left the screwdriver on the floor where Maeve could get it.  She has recently discovered how to rotate her hands and feet.  When she picked up the screwdriver, she started rotating her hand just like she was screwing something in.  That is almost as helpful as the picture I have of her with the hammer.
 

Tuesday, March 14, 2000
Nanny Carol was sick today, so Jill stayed home with Maeve.  Maeve has a habit of taking some of the food that she is supposed to eat and putting it on the high-chair seat.  Invariably some falls on the floor.  Jill found that Maeve hates the vacuum cleaner so much that after she is done eating and has been put on the floor that she will eat it.  If Jill stops her from doing that, Maeve will stand up and get the extra food from the high-chair seat.  It's just like a chipmunk storing food in its cheeks for later.
 

Saturday, March 11, 2000
Today Jill had to vacuum up what was left of Maeve eating a pancake for breakfast.  It doesn't help that Jill cuts the pieces up so small that Maeve can't choke on them, but Maeve still doesn't need to throw them on the floor.  When Jill started up the vacuum, Maeve started crying.  I picked her up, but she kept crying until Jill stopped.  I remember vacuuming with Maeve in June.  She pretended to be asleep.  If she could sleep through it before, I would expect her to be able to at least tolerate it now, instead of crying so much.
 

Friday, March 10, 2000
Earlier this week Jill insisted that Maeve was saying, "Da da da".  As soon as I come in, she stops.  Towards the end of the week, I heard it, too.  Jill says Maeve is trying to say, "Daddy".  I don't know how this is happening.  I'm not trying to teach her to say that.  I don't think that Jill is.  I think we should be teaching Maeve to say her own name, in case we misplace her or something.  If a mall security guard asks Maeve her name, "Da da da" isn't going to give them much to go on.  Something like "Maeve Perrin" or "(978) 453-4636" would be a lot more useful to teach her.
 

Monday, March 6, 2000
Maeve seems to be getting a lot closer to walking on her own.  She is still crawling a lot, but she is also "crab walking".  She is getting even more interested in what is on shelves.  She is always standing on her tiptoes to grab as much as she can.
 

Sunday, March 5, 2000
Since we never used Maeve's playpen in the living room for anything other than a toy bin, we replaced it today with a plastic "yard", complete with a garden gate, mailbox, flowers, vegetable garden, etc.  She especially likes to stand inside and play with the flowers.  Even though there is a garden gate to go through as well as a tunnel sort of thing that she could crawl through, when Maeve is standing and wants to get out, she surmises that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Since the wall comes just below her waist, she just leans over and topples out.  Needless to say, Maeve still has a little to learn about going down.

She has the same problem with the stairs.  She can climb the stairs fine, but she thinks the first stair is a play area.  Once she gets there, she likes to turn around and sit down.  If we weren't there to catch her, she would fall right off.
 


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