Seems the baby has developed a squeek

It seems, via various showers, and even for no reason at all, just about everyone gave us some sort of teething thing for Istra to theoretically chew on before and after she was born. They were given to us then, she wasn't expected to use them then. But by now, she's had most if not all of these in her mouth, and licked or slobbered on them. There's rings, there's weird shapes and textures, and an amazing number of them are some variation on the "ring of keys" theme. A lot of them are gel filled and designed to be put in the freezer before chewing. I'm really not sure any of them have been particularly effective.

Probably the one she has gotten most into so far is the simplest hard plastic "ring of keys". But then she was really going at them while taking a bath, so it might have just been the yummy yummy bath water she was licking off of them which was so enthralling.

There is also this super deluxe (for lack of a better term) "ring of keys" that we keep trying to give her because they look so complicated surely they must work wonders. These are freezable, colourful, knobbly things, with a large oval rubberized blue-with-white-pokadots ring, and a big knobby thing that says, oddly, "NUBBY" on it. Anyhow, Istra hasn't really been able to deal with the advanced capabilities of this alien technology. The oval seems not to work for her. The rubberized ring makes the keys not slide as jangly-y as she might like. The NUBBY thing is just confusing... she tries to chew it, but the rubberized oval makes it impossible for her to position it for maximum gnawing potential.

But tonight something changed. Istra discovered, all her own, an amazing new use for this weird device. She somehow figured out how to use an advanced two-handed grip on the wild thing to keep it under control... she then thrusts it into her mouth and prepares the object with copious drool. Having carefully done all this, she then starts rubing the thing up and down and back and forth, hard, across her gums....

And, ladies and gentlemen... it's like her very own baby violin! Or she is her very own baby violin.

Or maybe it's more closely described as someone screeching their fingernails across a blackboard... except in this case the thing being scraped against is baby gums...

Ah! Eiiiiiiiiee! Make it stop!

It makes our teeth hurt to behold! But she loves it. Astounding isn't it? She's only 5 and a half months old, and she's already discovered how to play music to drive her parents mad.

Anyhow, I grabbed my camera and for this rare event actually put it on video mode... so here is a link for your enjoyment. (Warning: it's 30 megabytes big. I'd suggest right-clicking on the link and saving it to your desktop or some other folder before playing it.)