Chins turned 3 months old on Saturday. He's now at that awkward age between newbornhood and babyhood, where he's hyper-aware of the world around him but still rather amusingly uncoordinated with his hands. Actually, he's only recently shown the slightest interest in grabbing things at all (a little fleece blanket with shiny little loops of ribbon to chew on), but his obsession with all that is bright, shiny, moving, or otherwise AMAZING is insatiable.
Which means that whenever he is neither nursing nor sleeping he must be entertained. By either d.w. or me. Continually. I guess this is why God (or whoever) invented that baby TV channel.
But we try not to think of such temptations.
Anyway, long ago I ran out of new things to say to little Chins, and he gets rather bored with the same old repetitive, "Whose feet are these? Whose feet are these? Are they Chinsie's feet? Are they? Yes they are! Yes they are!"
Um...yeah.
Having had the last vestiges of a creative spark hammered out of us by a little man barely 2 feet tall, d.w. and I have now been reduced to simply offering a running narrative of activities in our quest for perpetual baby occupation:
"OK, now I'm emptying the dishwasher. Doesn't that sound like fun, little Chinsie? Let's see what we have in here...ooh, lots of shiny glasses! Let's put them away, shall we? These tall ones get stacked over on the right side of the shelf...there. OK, then these short little ones get stacked next to them. Can you see that? Can you? No, of course you can't...you're in your little bouncy seat. OK. Ooh, aren't those knives shiny?..."
And so on.
So when do babies start occupying themselves?
Sigh.
8.5-9 months. At least here.
But then they are crawling and pulling themselves up on everything, so you're constantly following them around, making sure they don't get hurt. Good times, good times.
Posted by: Nicole | 19 February 2007 at 11:34 PM
As soon as they're mobile enough to grab power cords, torchieres, bookshelves, and so on, which will be sooner than you expect.
Posted by: Papa Bradstein | 20 February 2007 at 05:39 AM
I still like it when someone else occupies me :-)
Posted by: Danielle in Iowa | 20 February 2007 at 07:50 AM
Sure, Danielle. Need me to come over and empty your dishwasher? :)
Posted by: zygote daddy | 20 February 2007 at 08:12 AM
Do you have any ceiling fans in your house? Those proved to be great sources of distraction for both of my babies when they were babies.
Posted by: Adrienne | 20 February 2007 at 08:13 AM
Jackson is 6 weeks older than Chins and we were also running out of commentary when we stopped at a consignment store and bought a Bumbo seat and a walker. Beware that both of these require good head control.
He likes to sit in the Bumbo as long as he is elevated enough to see what's going on (totally against the instructions of course). And the walker entertains him for up to 30 minutes at a time! Best $10 we ever spent. The bouncer has been retired, long live the walker!
Posted by: Amanda | 20 February 2007 at 11:26 AM
Babies do learn to entertain themselves. But it isn't long before they go from NEEDING you to entertain them to WANTING you to entertain them.
My daughter is 2 1/2, and has somewhat recently just begun to entertain herself for longer periods of time.
Posted by: Kaz | 20 February 2007 at 02:40 PM
He likes shiny things? Is he part crow?
The running commentary is of course appropriate and is so good for their language development and bonding with you. They all learn to entertain themselves, especially if encouraged and given the tools to do so. Those "baby gyms" that they can lay under and look up at dangly toys are good, as are indestructible books- esp. ones that have real pictures of babies. I used to cut out pictures from magazines and tape them up at baby eye-level- the girls loved it.
Posted by: andrea | 20 February 2007 at 07:30 PM
Gosh, that's difficult. I definitely don't remember a certain brother of mine (you) needing to be occupied...of course if you weren't, you would break pencils in half, stick knives in perfectly shaped blocks of butter and cheese, and break all my hair elastics. Better teach that kid how to entertain himself lest you end up with a little tiny version of YOU!
Posted by: Auntie M | 21 February 2007 at 02:14 PM
At his age, my mom would plop me down on the bed so I could watch her fold sheets and towels. She said I laughed hysterically and it was the easiest thing to do to entertain me.
I was also a strange child, so take it for what it's worth.
Posted by: samantha Jo Campen | 21 February 2007 at 06:38 PM
There is this magical time between learning to sit up without tipping over and learning to crawl. For us, 7-9 months are AWESOME. Baby will sit on the floor with a pile of toys or a laundry basket of underwear and amuse herself for an hour or more at a time, at best. She's been known to happily play with a piece of silk for 45 minutes.
Posted by: another Amy | 22 February 2007 at 07:18 PM