So, I am working on making the shift to organic foods. I’m starting with produce from a local CSA (community supported agriculture). This is relevant to Joy because hopefully I can raise her on mostly organic food. I’m not quite there yet, myself, but I’m getting there. Produce is the first step. At some point, I want to start buying only cage-free eggs and chicken, and also get my other meats from places that treat animals well and feed them organics)

Here’s my fridge right now, after a CSA order:

So, I have been told that the first things a baby will do to make music are:

1) wiggle to music
2) “sing” notes, one note at a time, for as long as their breath can hold it, which is not very long
3) bang on stuff

Joy is officially doing all 3!!! The first time I noticed her wiggling to music on purpose was at my Halloween party, and I still see her doing it sometimes now. Especially if I dance with her to music, when I stop, she’ll keep going. She does move a lot more now in general, it seems like she is always bouncing. But, sometimes, it does seem specifically driven by the music or by my own dancing.

For the last week or two, I have noticed her banging things with her open hands, making loud noises. Sometimes, when she does this, I’ll let her beat out a little rhythm, and then I’ll imitate it myself back. She seems to enjoy it. She’ll usually wait until I finish before she bangs a new rhythm. A couple of times she’s banged a rhythm much longer than I can remember in one go, but I do my best to repeat it anyway, or at least I try to get the last part of it. She smiles whenever I do this.

Today, I heard her sing. She may have done it before, but this was the first time I was pretty sure that was her intent. I was singing “Yellow Submarine” for perhaps the thousandth time, and she started making notes. She did four notes, each note on one breath. I stopped singing to listen to her. Then I did what our music teacher recommended, which was repeat the notes back to her, except holding them longer so she can really hear them. I do that as often as I remember to, whenever she makes a vocalization that sounds even remotely musical. Anyway, today when I did it, I realized they were all notes from “Yellow Submarine!” They weren’t in any order from any part of the song, but they were all in that key!!!! She is singing!!! Wahooo!!!

Woohoo! Developmental Milestone… Joy has started to try out the pincer grasp. She’s a couple months early on this, so I wasn’t quite expecting it yet, but very cool, huh?!!!!

The pincer grasp is when babies start using thumb and forefinger to grab things. It’s a big deal because it means their fine motor skills are developing. This skill is foundational for things like buttoning a shirt, etc. Joy’s a little different, because sometimes she is using her middle finger and thumb, but often she uses the forefinger.

Being she isn’t eating finger foods yet, I can’t give her what most people give their kids at the pincer grasp stage, which is usually Cheerios or little pieces of other food. But, she is grabbing lots of things with this little maneuver, including fabrics, toys and people. It’s really cute!! I’ll try to get a picture soon.

One thing that she may be able to practice this move with is blocks. I got her a really nice set of HABA blocks, which I will introduce to her once we get a new high chair (I don’t want to give them to her during tummy time or floor time because of the risk of head-bonking). Here’s a picture of the blocks (which have non-toxic environmentally friendly paint, I am really loving those German toy makers!)

Today was Christmas. Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took today are on Brian’s mom’s camera. Which means, I can’t show you pictures of Joy all dressed up, just yet. But, trust me that she looked very pretty in her burgundy velvet dress, black hose and black patent leather shoes. I will post pictures when I get some.

We had a very nice time today, and Joy got a lot of nice presents. Her favorite actual present was a baby doll, but she really, really liked all the wrapping paper!

Later in the day, when things were a little quieter, we decided to feed Joy some more carrots. Dixie held her and I fed her. I think she enjoyed them more this time!

We headed off to Brian’s folks today for the Christmas holiday. Here’s a couple cute pictures of Joy on the train:

Today, Joy moved a step up in the world, and ate carrots for the first time! Her reaction went something like this:

From her expression, it seemed to me like she didn’t like this new taste. And yet, she continued to reach for the spoon and help me guide it into her mouth. Even though she looked horrified, I think she may have enjoyed it anyway.

When I was taking her out of the high chair, it broke. So, there may be a small delay before we can do solids here at home again….