Face Stuffing, Playing Catch, and Noisemaking Toys

I should start by apologizing to all of Anika's fans for my long delay in posting.  Life, work and general busyness have gotten the best of me. But never fear, Anika is back and doing more exciting things than ever before.

Anika is almost daily expanding her solid-food repertoire, which now includes: rice and oatmeal cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, peas, broccoli, avocados, green beans, bananas, peaches, and apple sauce. (I'm told sushi is still off limits.)  And she stuffs her face with all of this food, though she especially loves the orange vegetables and her new exposure to fruit.  She's rarely, if ever, done eating before the food runs out and usually, right up to the last bite, she's rapidly opening her mouth as wide as she can get it to signal to us that we should keep the good stuff coming.  She also seems to like making a lot of noise while she eats--grunting, mmmmming, and generally expressing her pleasure at our feeding her.  It must be a fun time for her.  I wonder if she goes to bed dreaming about what wonderful new food she'll get to try for the first time the next day.  Here are some recent eating shots.

Anika waits with eager anticipation for her first bite.

If I recall, this is squash for the first time. Surprisingly, it's pretty rare for even this much to be out of her mouth.  She doesn't let any of it go to waste.  That's our economical babe!

She approved of the squash, though was not too full to keep knawing on her hand after the food is gone.

Here's a video of Anika's eating in action.  We love the speed with which she opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue when she's ready for more.  This is not a style of eating fit for a state dinner, but we'll work on manners and play etiquette catch up later.  For now, we're thrilled she loves her veggies! 

Not only is Anika expanding her diet, she's changing her leisure activities too.  This is my new favorite game to play with Anika, mostly because it involves something more than Anika and I sitting in one place while I sit and watch her try to eat everything in sight.  (Not all that exciting for me, as you might suspect.)  This is our version of "catch."  The only thing about it that resembles real catch is the fact that it involves a ball, but we have to start somewhere.  This is how it goes.

We set Anika up against the ottoman with her legs out.  We call out to Anika to get ready to catch the ball.  Anika get's pretty interested and focused.  Keeping her eye on the ball is a good start.

As the ball starts to come towards Anika, her mouth goes wide open and her startle reflex starts to kick in.

The ball starts moving towards her at a phenomenally slow rate of about a half of a mile per hour.  But she's still surprised.

By the time the ball actually gets to her, her startle reaction is in overdrive and she can't contain herself.  It's just too surprising and unexpected I guess.

Once the ball comes to a rest and she has it corralled in front of her, all is well in the world again.  She thinks she's the next Ozzie Smith, and is ready to hit rewind and do it all over again.

Once in a blue moon, she'll accidentally nudge the ball back towards us or pick it up and let it go to roll it back to us.  In response to this, we applaud wildly in the hopes she might learn this trick and our games of "catch" will get one step closer to the real thing.  Below is the video of this game in action.  As you can see, she was particularly excited about our game on this afternoon.  (My official apologies for the length of the video--I haven't quite mastered the art of uploading video to You Tube and this site.)

Apparently not fully satisfied with old-fashion things like having a game of catch with her Dad, Anika has started to get quite excited about her more advanced, noise-making toys--toys that Alicia and I loathe.  Here is a video of Anika squealing at perhaps the most annoying toy she plays with.  We just can't bring ourselves to permanently remove the batteries in light of her clear excitement.  We're not quite sure what to make of the strange wheezing.