Who Is This Baby?

The Itsy Bitsy Janey went up the Janey spout
Down came the Jane and washed the Janey out
Out came the Jane and dried up all the Jane, then
The Itsy Bitsy Janey went up the Jane again.

At what point do you start to wonder about your child's personality? Should it bother me that she likes songs better when her name is in them? (Her favorite song is Janey Had a Little Lamb.)

I cheered when she escaped from the swaddle blankets in which we wrapped her as an infant. Fight the power! Throw off your shackles! My proudest moment as a dad came when she wriggled her arms out of the escape-proof Miracle Blanket, "the Alcatraz of swaddling blankets!”

Shortly after Jane switched to people food, she started feeding the dog, as all babies do. But sometimes she’d hold food out in her fist and let the dog try to get it away from her. Then she’d pull it back and eat it. Psyche!

We thought that was funny.

She also liked to play “feed daddy” where she’d hold out her food for me to take just like she did for the dog. Ok, a little gross, but cute and I usually played along. But every now and then I’d lean forward and open my mouth and she’d pull the food back eat it herself. Psyche!

Is that funny? Where do kids get these ideas? Obviously, nobody did that to her. On some level, I was as proud of her sadistic little game as I was her escapism of a year ago.

Jane has other games—she likes to flip the light switch to turn the lights on and off. She gets pleasure in manipulating her world, participating, making things happen. Except she doesn’t just flip the switch. She reaches out her fingers to it, then looks at me and waits until I shake my head, “no, Jane, no! don’t do it!” Then she laughs and flips the switch.

The uneasiness grows.

I often hold her in my left arm while I pour milk from a container in my left hand into her bottle, which I hold with my right. I've noticed for a while that she'd pat me on the shoulder while I did it. It made it harder to control the flow of milk and sometimes I spilled it, but I enjoyed the little "atta boy!" appreciation she was giving me. Recently I was holding her facing front while I poured and she couldn't reach my back to give me what until that moment I had interpreted as appreciation.

So she gave the milk carton a kick.