Morgan Month 6

Morgan seems to be developing exponentially in the physical sense. Playing stretching games in his cot seems to give him an incentive to extend himself all the time. In addition to reaching out he manoeuvres his body so that he moves forward from one part of the cot to another by simply rolling over. Another feature of his development is his capacity to raise himself with his arms. He has now reached a stage where he is able to push himself up so that he rests on his hands and not his arms. This is accompanied by a marked arching of his neck and upper back so that he is now able to look almost vertically upwards. He is now able to swivel through more than two hundred degrees. This enables him to look for sounds that he hears around him.
He is handling objects with greater competence. For example, he is improving in his ability to pick up a small ball from a pot. He is beginning to hold the ball and other objects with two hands, thus increasing his capacity to grasp them. In addition, he seems able to judge when a dangling object held close enough for him to reach up for it with both hands simultaneously. A major development is his dexterity in handling small objects successively. The breakthrough was his readiness to grasp and shake a rattle vigorously rather than taking it to his mouth. He then immediately dropped it to take another one offered to him. Then using a succession of objects he kept dropping the one he was holding when offered another. He realised he could not hold both so he relinquished the one he was holding. He rapidly grasped this. A recent development is his over-vigorous pummelling of the cot bars and his reaching up and grasping the top rail, this morning with both hands. Soon he could pull himself up so the base of cot has now been lowered.
His responses to books continue to be positive. His dialogue with the books sometimes leads to a frenzy of shouting that sees his face getting flushed. This is also the case when he is on his own and in company trying to tell us that he wants attention for one reason or another. He is certainly very vocal when he wants his milk and whispering to him can sometimes calm him down a little. It is amusing but his series of sounds seem to rise to a bellowing that looks like a real strain. In addition he is still managing a range of sounds that often indicate contentment or an attempt to dialogue with the characters in a book. He still insists on attempting to pick up pictures that attract him: he has yet to distinguish between two and three dimensional figures.
Some interesting elements have emerged. He now clearly identifies some pictures with which he is familiar. For example, the little seahorses in the Mr. Seahorse book soon gets him going. The page with a sheep in the Ollie book does the same. He enjoys looking at these flash cards but, unlike the books, they do not generate a verbal response. He seems mesmerised and focuses very hard when watching animated films and photographs on the computer. Yet these evince no verbal response but he enjoys them passively. This put me in mind of MacLuhan’s ideas about hot and cold media. The reading books and their pictures seem to generate significant interaction, whereas the TV and computer foster a far more passive response. The books are rather like radio, a hot medium, whereas the computer is a cold medium, like TV. Certainly the responses to each are in marked contrast.
There are other signs of social and physical development. Our ‘walks’ around the block helps his social development. He now responds to assistants in the food court and bestows smiles on them much more readily. In the playground Morgan shows greater willingness to interact with both adults and children and he notices the latter much more. He seems to smile more readily to adults with Chinese features – perhaps because they remind him of Joelle. He enjoys the noise he makes by scratching the sofa and is almost sitting up on his own. He enjoys the game of pulling the little bee into sight using the string attached to it, thereby getting some idea of cause and effect.