Playtime

In the past few weeks Ruby has become much more interactive. Accordingly, she has added a few things to her list of favorite activities, which had previously consisted of only sleeping and eating. Nowadays, she spends part of each day "playing." As she is still a little baby, playing just means staring at specific objects, as opposed to staring into space.

Some of Ruby's favorite playmates are her multi-ethnic friends:



Babies do not have very acute vision in the first couple of months, so they love to look at high-contrast images. We got Ruby a couple of books full of black and white pictures, and her favorites are pictures of faces. She can be entertained for surprisingly long periods of time playing with her friends.

For similar reasons, Ruby also loves her Infant Stim-Mobile.



I often find her staring at the mobile with rapt attention, waving her arms and cooing. I can actually get quite a number of things done while she is entertained by those magical floating shapes.

One of Ruby's newest and cutest favorite playmates is herself.



Who is that little girl, and why does she do everything that I do?

Unfortunately, one of Ruby's least favorite activities is tummy time, and that's something her pediatrician says she has to do for 10-15 min. every day in order to build upper body strength. She doesn't last more than a minute on her tummy before she starts freaking out like a pitiful overturned turtoise.



A couple of days ago I bought her a tummy time wedge, which she seems much more amenable to.



Head lifted high!

Fortunately, Ruby's favorite toys are still me and Steve. She is most interested in staring at us, smiling, and holding conversations in her native Baby tongue.



Who are these grinning giants, and why do they always act so silly?