She's Getting a Little Long in the Tooth

Saturday, Aug. 19 was a hallmark day in the life of Brigid Baby Girl. With very little fanfare and attention, BB not only took her first real crawl, the hand-knee, hand-knee combination so crucial in forward locomotion, but also sprouted her first tooth -- her lower front right -- all in one day. We marked the occasion with a cheer as she slowly moved her way across the living room floor at camp. She seemed pretty satisfied with her accomplishment and has been making her way all over the place ever since. Slowly, to be sure, but she knows now that slow and steady wins the race hands down. At five months, one week, Brigid wins the title of the Downs Girls Derby in earliest crawling. Margaret clocked in at just over six months; Patricia clocked in at five and a half months. In tooth eruption, she places second, after Margaret (at four months) but before Patricia, at about eight months. We're all so pleased and proud. ;)

I think BB is sleeping better, now that the tooth has poked through. For the last couple of weeks, she has had a bad time of it, and I'm pretty sure that's why. She's also been drowning in her own spit. But I'm afraid with 21 teeth to go, she'll have a lot more choking before her work is through. She is still sleeping in the co-sleeper but we're getting ready to move our bedroom downstairs and with that move she'll also move to the crib. Now that she's crawling, pulling herself up can't be far behind and she'll topple out of the co-sleeper if she were to pull herself up in that. Jack set the crib up the other day, and I've actually gotten her to take a couple naps in it, and she's been in there to play a little, kind of like acclimating your puppy to his crate.

BB is also beginning to pay more attention to what we are putting into our mouths, and I'm reluctant to acknowledge that she might be longing for a little solid food -- rice cereal for instance. But so far, she is thriving and doing well on breastmilk alone, and I don't want to move her from that exclusively until absolutely necessary. But, unlike the other girls, who were content to nurse exclusively until they were 8, 9 or even 10 months old as in the case with Patricia, Brigid may well trod her own path to solid culinary delights. We'll see how many times she can slap our forks out of our hands before we cry "uncle!"

The other two Downs Girls are gearing up for school and are even excited at the prospect of attending the public school for the first time in their lives. Patricia wants to go to Oak Street School to meet her teacher before the start of the school year, and Margaret wants to go to the middle school to meet with her guidance counselor before their orientation on the 30th. I hope we can work both visits in. I think it would go a long way to smooth the transition. The biggest challenge has been finding clothes for the girls that are modest enough, attractive enough and cool enough without making them look like tarts. Of course, they've worn uniforms until now, so this whole school-shopping thing is new to them. I remember the anticipation I felt every year at this time when we'd all get a day to go shopping for a few new outfits, shoes, sneakers and supplies. There's a line from "You've Got Mail" I've always liked: "Don't you just love New York in the fall? It makes you want to go out and buy school supplies. I'd buy you a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils." I hope to do one more school-shopping trip with the girls soon, maybe to Burlington. You can never have too many sharpened pencils.