His first love was fingers. Anyone's, really. He lamely let all dozen varieties of pacifiers that Shawn and I purchased plop unceremoniously from his mouth. To hell with those orthodontic nipples, he seemed to say through his expression of newborn disgust. Give me some fingers. And so, for the first four weeks of his life, Connor spent nearly every waking moment sucking on somebody's pinky.
By the time he would finally abide being set down for a few moments, he discovered the majestic glory of his jungle gym play mat, in all its dangling, blinking, battery-powered glory. Never has a tinny version of "skip to my lou" so inspired a human soul as it did the first time it graced Connor's infant ears. He would give himself over to that mechanized melody, spastically pumping his arms and legs while entranced by the disco-baby lights flashing above his saucer-sized eyes. With a frenzied, flapping, jerky rhythm he would move to the sound of the music with enough enthusiasm to convey his message: "These hanging elephants are making me dance. I hope you stocked up on D batteries."
Then, one day (which day, exactly? only mothers who fill in their baby books would know) I unglued my eyes from Jack McCoy long enough to realize: my kid has grasped an object! His once-random drum-major arm gyrations have been channeled into productive use! He has a plastic parrot by the jugular!
Eventually, he further fine tuned his motor skills with some enthusiastic throat punches directed at the blue elephant. {yeah, this video is sideways with no sound. I think i have a really promising future in videography}
Since then, Connor has spent many happy hours on his mat, while Shawn and I smile and watch and wonder if we will ever hear the end of my lou's skipping. and then wistfully remind ourselves that one day {too soon} he won't be so little anymore, and this 3x3 jungle mat will no longer be his play universe. So we put in a fresh set of batteries, and hum along.
Connor is 4 months and {nearly} 2 weeks old.
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