I recently showed mommy the answer to the above question.
1. Use my fingers to pick up small pieces of food and put them into my mouth:
A little over a month ago, mommy was trying to test my readiness for chunkier solids. She put a small piece of cereal on her palm, asking me to grab and munch on it. I looked at the cereal like I had no idea what it was. I stared at it for a few seconds with no intention to pick it up and eventually ignored it. When mommy put it closer to my mouth, I tried to take a bite but ended up gagging myself with it. In just 2 weeks time, however, things have changed completely. When mommy offered me the same kind of cereal on the food tray, my little fingers would quickly approach it, carefully pick it up and slowly shuffle it into my mouth. According to the peds, this is a small milestone called the development of a "pincer grasp".
2. Say "mama" and "baba" like I know what they mean:
Since 3-4 months old, I started to make different random sounds like "wa wa", "ah ah", "da da", "ehhhh", etc. I might also have said "mama" and "baba" at some point in time while mumbling other syllables. But today, for the first time, I responded to mommy when she asked me to say "Mama" and "Baba".
As far as I could tell, mommy and daddy were pleasantly amused by #1 and totally over their tops with #2. Well, there are more surprises yet to come, I promise!
Lucas A. Lum, 9 mths old.
