Feb. 23, 2000 - Wednesday
Harry is using his arms more now, but not to grab and pick up objects. Instead,
he has found that his hands reach his mouth and is taking advantage of them
there quite a bit. Every now and then he succeeds in the delicate and charming
baby-staple of sucking the thumb, but more often it's some other part of his
hand that finds it's way less elegantly into his mouth. Often it's the side
of his index finger, but sometimes it's as if he's trying to get his entire
hand in there. At these times the idea that he will be a prodigy becomes somewhat
more distant.
The worst part of Harry's hands discovering his month - or vice versa, I'm not
really sure - is that his hands end up all over his face. Most disturbing, he's
taken to aggressively rubbing his eyes. Since he is not terribly coordinated
yet, it often seems that he will put his own eye out with a thumbnail or something.
Of course, his forehead is a veritable scratching post for his errant fingernails.
I'd think that it would hurt to scratch himself like that and he'd stop. However,
with a two and a half month old baby just learning the ropes, I suppose it's
more likely that it does hurt and, since he doesn't know why there's pain, he
just gets cranky. He's also taken to the awkward habit of pulling his own hair.
It's hard to know how hard he's pulling and whether it's making him cranky -
he's usually in a cranky mode when he starts - or whether he pulls just long
enough for the pain to make him release his grip. Either way, I think we're
still a step or two from genius.
