All In The Name Of Science

Julia and I went to UT's Infant Development Research Center yesterday for her big debut on the scientific scene. :) We had fun. I dressed her in her LSU/UT sweatshirt so she would fit in a little bit. (It was a strange experience walking around a college campus with a thirteen-month-old and being 33 weeks pregnant. We got some looks.)

I made a mistake right off because I left her in the room right when we got there because I had to visit the restroom. When I got back, she was crying ... a first. She usually doesn't even notice if I'm in the room when there are toys to play with. So we had a clingy moment while I filled out all the paperwork. It took a little bit, but Ben was very patient with her and eventually got her over to the stairs for the experiment. There was a set of four stairs, a platform and then four stairs going down the other side. The stairs were narrow enough that Julia could stand on them and reach out and grab the railings with both hands. I stayed at the bottom of one set of stairs while Ben put Julia on the platform. Then I tried to get Julia to come down the stairs to me. We were supposed to do that five times and then after Ben put Julia on the platform for the sixth try, I was to move to the other side and try to get her to go down that set of stairs.

The first time, she wasn't too sure, but she eventually turned around backwards and made her way s-l-o-w-l-y down the stairs. She stopped about halfway and looked to me to pick her up. When I wouldn't, she turned her sad eyes on Ben. When he wouldn't pick her up, she eventually went down the last two stairs. I think maybe we've been helping her out too much and need to leave her to accomplish more on her own and experience a little more frustration.

The second time down, she slipped on the third step and fell forward a little bit. It scared her enough that she was DONE. She just stood there and screamed. When Ben tried to restart her on the platform, she just turned around and grabbed his shirt and screamed! So much for the experiment!

At the end of the experiment, we were supposed to get a picture of Julia on the stairs. I set her on the platform and Ben snapped a great shot of her screaming! :)

Julia had little enough exposure to the stairs that we were asked to keep our name in the database and see if we could come back in two months when they start gathering the actual data. Apparently, this was a test run so they could adjust the method and setup as needed. I warned them we might be unavailable in two months (New Baby!), but they were welcome to give us a call and see.

I took a few pictures of my own of Julia playing on the stairs after her hard work was finished ...