I recently mentioned that Mary Virginia is squarely in grabbing-mouthing stage. Holding her is like holding an octopus; the moment you break her grip on those tiny hairs at the nape of your neck, she grabs your ear and the next thing you know she’s sucking on your chin.
(Until we try to give her a spoon of food. Then she won’t even open her mouth to laugh or cry or say, “You want me to eat that? What do you think I am? An idiot?”)
I can describe her fixation on grabbing things, but in these photos you can see it.
Behind the scenes, Mary Virginia’s six-month photo shoot was tough. Taking photos of little ones is always hard, but this was a battle of ingenuity.
I put her on a blanket and scattered ornaments around her. She rolled her eyes at my stupidity and grabbed one and started sucking off its paint.
So then I put them just out of her reach and figured I could take a few shots before she moved forward to get them. We were on a bed, which made it harder to crawl (she moves best on the floor).
Home field advantage: Mama.
It started out like this.
I’d put her down and place a few ornaments out of reach…then she’d get really mad.
I’d snap a few frames, chirp, wave a stuffed animal and trill my tongue…
Then suddenly she had an ornament in her hand. I couldn’t figure out how she was doing it, she wasn’t crawling or hurling her body forward. But it kept happening.
Exqueeze?
I watched her. She was pulling the blanket to get the ornaments. You can sort of see it happening in the next two photos.
How did she figure that out so fast?
You can really see her at work in the next photos.
That 6 is out of reach.
And then, slowly,
Surely,
It’s not.
And this? This is a very happy baby.
Who is also very good at problem solving.
Baby girl has her daddy’s intelligence and her mama’s appetite.
Your last line totally cracked me up
She is so precious!
That is impressive problem solving, and adorable photos!