Tummy Time and other Things to Cry About

Well I'm a bit late in posting this week's update in the life of Harriet, sorry about that. She's had a fairly even week, no big news to speak of.
Last week we went to my Pilates instructor's house because her normal room at the hospital was booked out. This meant that the babies were all in a small room together and the mums were out doing the class in the outdoors. Now normally in Pilates Harry just sleeps the hour away and is none the wiser. Unfortunately the new arrangement meant that all of the babies were a lot closer to each other in their prams, which meant they started setting each other off. Once one started to cry, then another went and another. We could hear them from where we were but there are babysitters who are paid to look after them so unless it's really bad you don't have to get up during the class.

Well Harriet is known as the angel child there because she has yet to cry at a class. But I just *knew* that her first time would be a doozy! I heard her break into her insane "I-won't-settle-for-anyone" cry whilst trying to keep a neutral spine during a leg lift. Everyone was saying "Wow, someone's a bit upset in there". I knew it was Harry, went into the room and every single baby was crying and there's Harry being held by one of the old ladies who babysit. I took her, settled her down, and ended up bringing her out to watch me finish off the class. Turns out that every single other baby had cracked it. Harriet slowly woke up finally, sat there looking around her for a few seconds, scrunched up her face and just let rip with the most terrified cry - the babysitters said they nearly died when they heard it! Hee hee, gotta love it. She looked more like this last photo than the previous one. ;o)
In other news I have finally got a baby that will tolerate some tummy time - yay! For those of you not in the baby way right now, there are recommendations that you place your baby on their belly for a few times each day. This is because now that SIDS say that you should have babies on their back all the time they tend to have fairly puny upper body strength (like a few people I know). I was at Grandma's house telling her all about this and described how whenever I put Harriet on her belly she would immediately start *screaming* like an insane woman.

I decided to demonstrate such behaviour to Grandma and of course as soon as I put her on her belly there, she just laid there cooing and smiling at me. Rascal!

So since then she has been getting a little bit of tummy time each day. She has managed to lift her head off a little but most of the time it's just way too much fun to lie there, sucking her fist and gazing around at the world. Since in that position her world involves my bookcase full of vet books and miscellaneous cds I can only surmise that she's interested in becoming a vet or she's a little simple. I think the latter pays better.

Harriet has also starting grabbing everything brushing past her hand...including blankets (ooohhh), toys (cute) and hair (OW!). The dog hanging down in the last couple of photos is from one of the grooming and training girls at work. It normally hangs above her change table but she is SO fixated with this thing that I decided to bring it in to her play area.


Although she was momentarily interested in what I was doing there, she quickly turned her attentions back on to the dog. It has a couple of legs that rattle but in this last photo it looks like she's just given it a bit of an slap up the head to keep the thing quiet. Maybe I should start taking parenting tips from her treatment of the toys.