First Steady Touch - Mara and the Rattles

As a new parent, I get overly excited about the smallest things Mara does. It might seem like that, yet if you think about it a little, we saw this quivering bundle enter life only two months ago with no knowledge of what was ahead. Just some tremendously useful instincts: finding food by smell and wiggling her way to it; suckling; grasping; crying out for help; being ridiculously cute so that you absolutely have to hold her and protect her and love her forever.



Yet she had none of the other skills that we take so much for granted. I'm not even talking about high level things like vocalizing to communicate, but simple stuff like focusing her eyes past ten inches of distance. Recognizing a face. Opening her fists into a palm with spread fingers - see the post when Greg was teaching her to make good use of that on week 5.

If you don't already have these tools in the basket, reaching out to an object in front of you and grasping with your fingers is pretty much an item of rare coincidence. She had done variations of it in the past, she would feel the cloth of my shirt, grab it and pull to reposition herself better while nursing. She would wiggle all limbs and incidentally hit a rattling toy in the gym, then look at it startled because it made a sound.

This tenth week marks the sweet spot for this baby to transition to the world of intentfully grabbing items!
The jungle gym mat with its hanging toys is now one of our favorite things in the whole house, but for a very different reason than it's past uses: nowadays we've been practicing our grasping ability for up to 15 min at a time, every time we wake up! and practice is finally paying off.

Here's the narration of Mara's adventure:

Mara realizes where she is as soon as i put her down and stops all the cooing and wiggling. This is serious business, as serious as it can get. It's either the purple toucan with rainbow beak to which mommy refers as "vrabia mov" (the mauve sparrow), or the blue elephant with soft ears and a magic ball with little colored pellets inside. One jingles back at you softly when disturbed. The other makes all those little pellets rattle in such a friendly rambunction.

One cannot yet determine how this tough decision is made every time. Maybe it's the first of the two that falls into focus. Maybe there's some euclidean distance calculation, which directly correlates to the probability of your ears happily tingling.

This morning, the fates have decided on the blue elephant.
She stares at the the target to take aim, then slowly lifts her right arm. The trip is excruciating, riddled with tension. Her fist is closed tight out of excitement. Her gaze is the definition of focus itself. 
There is nothing else in the world around, just Mara and that tantalizing blue elephant with purple ears. He promises the most rewarding jiggling sound that she had ever imagined, other than the sweet voices of mommy and daddy. Those come for granted. But this, for this you have to work really hard. And even the hardest work has been known to fail in the past. Which is why this time Mara is putting it all out there.

Her abs are tensing up, lifting her feet of the ground. Her extended legs are lightly shaking, mostly for balance but some because her heart is beating faster and faster.

Her right arm is now reaching out, testing the air as if through some viscous liquid that offers resistance with every twelfth of an inch you advance. She quivers her fist slightly. It could be to assess remaining distance. Or maybe her arm just got tired. But she's almost there.

One more determined push and YES!!! This is IT! We have TOUCHED! And oh, the sweet, sweet rattles of joy! Mara wiggles her hand up and down touching her conquest a few more times for good measure, and to hear the sounds of victory to the fullest. Her palm is open, tension is all gone, fingers spread in celebration. Her eyes are no longer locked in the trance, she now explores around to see with whom else she can share her success. The palm leaves, the butterflies, the giraffe, the rainbow, all dear witnesses to the exquisite Touch. They shall all remember this moment forever in mute awe. The first explorer to have undertaken and overcome their challenge.

Then, as if by magic, Mara's chest fills with song. The song of battles past, of fruitless but intrigued struggles, is now
riding a new wave. This is satisfaction! It builds and builds upon itself until it bursts out right through her smile, in a rolling avalanche of cooes and delighted squeaks. She sings to the world and retells her story.

The rattles have been rattled.