Peggy is gradually being introduced at the Logo Lab. On Saturday, the 25th, she, Gretchen, Robby and I trekked over to loan Robby’s camera to Jose Valente — who needed such a one for his project at Fall River. Peggy met Jose and Greg at that time. Yesterday, I took in part of a paper to Seymour — and we took the whole family. And encountered Danny, Hal, Glen, Seymour, Gordon Oro, Gary Drescher.

Within the past week Peggy has become much more alert generally and in far better control of herself than before. This appeared in several ways at once! She now travels around in her crib, she prefers to be carried on the chest and looking over the shoulder to being held by arms in the feeding position, when in the infant seat, she readily turns her head to follow peoples’ movements where last week she did not do so.

Miriam has tried playing with her but is getting frustrated by having too little feedback. Robby has said that he hopes any other child we have will be female “because I like having little girls around.” I interpret this as a hope to preserve his specialness as a son. But Robby some times feels threatened/overwhelmed at the thought of so many girls and says he would prefer a brother.

4/23 Gretchen made additional margin notes on Peggy not wanting to feed in the middle of the night.

Peggy is showing considerable motor development now. Starting yesterday, when left alone in her crib, she has been straining very hard to lift her head and succeeding (before collapse). By lifting her head, I mean raising it straight up by contracting her neck muscles. She gets even higher by raising herself on her arms — this permits her crown to be seen down to the eyes above the top of the crib bumper on a horizontal line.

For the first time, she rolled over on her back when put on her stomach. (She did so at least twice.) Robby took Peggy’s picture while straining to raise her neck and, after, suggested we keep a note book describing her development.

My general impression is that she now shows about the same motor development as a new born kitten (this is a kind of dumb comment — the intent of the statement is to mark how much more competent she is now than at birth).

text recovery needed for this vignette

The second group of interesting observations with the toy focus on my first observations of Peggy’s crawling. Gretchen has remarked on Peggy’s ‘falling sideways’ and thereby going forward a little over the past few days. Today’s behavior was a clear extension of what may have been chance advances into a directed and repeated series of specific actions for accomplishing an obvious objective.
A little reviewing before description. Robby has given Peggy demonstrations of how to crawl. Yesterday Miriam was giving Peggy direct instruction in how to crawl by what is best called “shaping”. Miriam set the clown on the floor beyond Peggy’s reach from her belly based position then lifted Peggy’s hips high as Peggy flailed with her legs, so the legs came up under the hips. Miriam let her go and made encouraging noises as Peggy fell over and a little forward. Miriam repeated this a second time and pushed the clown to Peggy’s grasping hands at her second forward fall.

Today, on the bed in a field of scattered rings, when all had been knocked out of her reach, Peggy set out to get the purple, green, and red rings – a good six inches beyond her. It could be no clear(er) that Peggy wanted the rings. She reached out toward them and cried when they were not accessible. Peggy pushed her hips up, falling forward and sideways at least half a dozen times as she reached out for and focused on the rings. She did get the purple and red rings but the green escaped her. Peggy gave up on the green ring and dropped the red. She rotated on her stomach and started to go after the orange ring with the purple ring still in her hand. Peggy intermittently reached for the orange ring and failing, brought the purple ring to her mouth. She reached with one hand as the other – when reaching with her right hand, holding the purple ring, she knocked the other ring away, but did not stop reaching for the orange ring with that hand. The ring was escaping faster than her progress. this activity all took place on an unmade bed where a crumpled sheet lay alongside the path between Peggy and the orange ring. Peggy pulled HARD on the sheet several times (but the ring did not move – being on a separate under sheet) then pulled the loose sheet to her mouth. Is this an accident ? Or is it a good trick Peggy has already mastered for drawing to her things beyond her reach ?

When Peggy finally began crying over her failure, I placed the orange ring on a different part of the bed, on Peggy’s other side at the outer periphery of her reach. In her first attempt to get it, Peggy pulled on the bed sheet (the undersheet, on which she lay and which was not moveable as the over sheet was). Next, she reached with her hand. when she hit the orange ring, it flipped over the near edge and came within easy reach. When she finally grasped the orange ring, Peggy ended her excursions by rolling onto her back.

My conclusions from these observations are that Peggy does not take account in her reaching of whether she already has some object in her hand; she knows that some surfaces are separable from their substrate and can be manipulated — but she doesn’t yet realize that to access a desired object by pulling at a surface that object MUST be on the surface; the second attempt to get the orange ring by pulling the fixed sheet indicates why this may not be so easy to figure out as one would first imagine.

One of the toys not shown on videotape is Dapper Dan — a baby-size cloth doll. After the session, I propped Dapper Dan in the corner of Peggy’s playpen and left her with the two older children reading in the library. From my reading alcove, upstairs I heard a conversation going on. Robby “hid” outside the playpen behind Dapper Dan. When Peggy started talking to Dapper Dan, he responded in the appropriate turn. After a while this lost interest for him. Over following days, Peggy addressed Dapper Dan on occasion and received no response and has stopped doing so (recall she also used to address Scurry with the same expectation).

Can we figure out some simple experiment which will permit us to determine how Peggy classifies things into speakers and non-speakers (or interactors and non-interactors)?

Last night (9/12) Peggy sat in my lap as we played some records I brought back from Boston. Robby and Miriam had been cooped up inside this rainy afternoon, and when they heard some fast jigs and reels by De Danaan, went into their own version of step dancing which rapidly became a session of dancing around the house. Behind the couch, behind the chair where Peggy and I sat, around again and past the piano. Peggy turned and twisted to follow their path. Out through the short hall past the fireplace — then Peggy saw them reappear through the glass doors on the far side of the fireplace (a see-through one). Peggy was engrossed. Here were important people in her life doing unusual things, appearing and disappearing. These sequences must have been very mysterious. Especially when hidden factors and actions make prediction impossible. Sometimes the older kids would dance past the far side of the fireplace and could be seen. Other times they would crawl past the opening below the level of the high hearth and reappear in the fireplace window from the wrong side.

RELEVANCE — The first incident testifies to Peggy’s experimenting with objects and space. The second highlights again the problem of conceiving of object permanence (in terms of predictable movement) when people with self-control behave in ways difficult to predict. Is object permanence developing the perspective that some things are not willful and mobile?

IMITATION — Peggy was sitting in her seat at the dining room table. Robby was seated at the table also. He made a series of loud kissing noises directed to her. Finally I asked him to stop. In the silence that followed, a soft but distinct repetition of the sound came from Peggy. Robby cried, “Look, Mom, she’s doing it! She’s answering me!”

Tech note 1:: the “P18D” above the clip in the right cell, links to a larger display with subtitles and transcript of both speech and action. The creation of these alternative representations takes time but will proceed as rapidly as the process permits.
Corrections to subtitle errors: One subtitle text reads: Are you sticking your tongue of her? Post subtitled clip renderings will be made in the transcript by following the error by a bracketed { text} correction, as shown in episode B, where “of” is followed by “{at}”.

Today Peggy started calling Robby by name. She called him repeatedly
during this day and the following. Gretchen.

Going upstairs to have her diapers changed, Peggy recited a litany as we
passed.

Robby was given a chair by his great grandmother when he was 2.
It was handed down to Miriam and now to Peggy, but he still feels
privileged to sit on it (though much too big).

Peggy asserts the chair is hers (after all, she is the only one of an
appropriate size for it). When Robby sat on it today, she became very
upset and, near tears, commanded “Robby, offa chair!” The sense of
what she meant is very clear. How can one explain the surface features?

(Bob calls to Robby from the living room -> no answer). Peggy says
“Robby” and heads into the living room. I expect her to summon
Robby, but as she heads out of the room she calls “com-pos-si-tion.”
(She has heard us reminding the two older children about writing
compositions for their journals and for Calvert School Tests.)

Robby was repairing the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. His use
of an electric drill frightened Peggy. She came up to me, “Robby
scared.” “Are you scared?” I asked. She replied, “Yes, Robby scared.”

Peggy has two toys, a dog and a cat, which were once containers of
bubble bath. The blue cat she refers to as “kitty.” The pink poodle she
formerly referred to as a dog. Recently I told her the dog was an
animal. Thereafter she denied the “animal” was a dog and also denied
“kitty” was an animal. I then asked Peggy if she was a good girl. She
replied, “I’m a toddler.” I continued, “Are you a good kid?” She
responded, “Robby’s a kid. Mimi’s a kid.” I pushed on, “Robby’s a
person and so is Mimi. Are you a person too ?” Peggy concluded, “No.
I’m a toddler.”

My interpretation is that Peggy has used labels, names, as unique
identifiers (as proper nouns more than common nouns; this is no
problem – if people have the same names in different families, why
shouldn’t objects have the same names in different families, while
maintaining as much individuality as people do?) This issue led to
raising this sort of question in VT _____, where Peggy first admitted
she was both a toddler and a person.

Everyone got up early to get Bob, Peggy, and Miriam off to Boston.
Robby was still in bed, so Peg went in and called to him “Wake up
Robby. time to get up.” Then she came out to the sitting room and
said to me, “I woke him up but he didn’t wake up…. Can I tickle him…
in his bed?” Then she said something about Robby not being alive in there.
Gretchen

Watching Robby trot down the drive to the mailbox – “Robby run.”
Later, when Scurry was tearing around inside “kuldae run.” Gretchen.

Peggy was sitting in the big chair with Bob when Robby walked in and
sat down on the other chair. Peggy suddenly said to him (for no known
reason) “I throwed up on the furniture.” Robby looked startled and
prepared to leap up, before he realized it was a “joke.”
Gretchen