Finley is attacked by an octopus, for science!

Today we ventured downtown to participate in an infant study for 7 month olds (eek, he's a week short but I already feel like he's growing up too fast). We parked in a most poorly designed parking garage and made our way to the Children's Hospital research building. We met Eliza who was conducting the project and learned all about the study. Ours was about how infants process faces, specifically in terms of gender. I filled out a form about how much time Finley spends just with me, just with Dan, or with both of us during his waking hours. Kinda shocking that he's only awake 8-10 hours a day with his night sleep and naps--how can he still wear me out to the point of madness??

Anyway, once I signed the paperwork, saw the "hat" Finley would wear to monitor his brain waves, and fed him--it was time to get the lab rat into the maze, so to speak. Eliza warned me that sometimes babies just can't handle wearing the hat, so she has to cancel the session and they can be "all done." I gulped since Finley has been a bit irritable lately...and told Eliza that we'd hope for the best!

Her partner got the hat ready while Finley sat on my lap and Eliza gave him a super cool toy phone to play with (we don't have anything as fancy and flashy, so he was certainly smitten with it). The hat is hard to describe, so I'll just show you the picture they took of him once it was on. He remained happy as a clam chewing on the phone despite the hat needing several adjustments. He smiled on cue once the digital camera appeared, poor thing is like a trained seal!

We got the picture in the magnetic frame after we were done, what a nice souvenir!

Finley sat on my lap while watching images of men and women flash on a screen. I thought he was quite distracted and more interested in Eliza who was sitting next to us than the screen, but when we were done--they had recorded him watching the first 75 pictures before he started to look elsewhere--apparently, that's very good! Then, they took the hat off and Finley's head was covered in little octopus bites from all the suction cups. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that, too. He got some playing time before the second part of the study which tracked his eye movements when shown a pair of faces. No hat for this one, phew!

The second part only took about 5 minutes and then we were done. Eliza was pleased with Finley's participation and told us the best part was next because it was time to pick a toy. She showed us to a closet that was PACKED with all sorts of neat stuff, some items we already had but many we'd never seen! Thankfully, Finley would have been happy with anything handed to him so I selected a bag of bath squirters and he happily chewed on the packaging. Eliza also gave us $10 for our travel expenses (they pay for parking, too) and a cute snack box for our little neuroscientist. Not a bad haul, huh? All in the name of science :) I'll be sure to tuck the $10 into his piggy bank and not spend it on half a pedicure...

We walked back to the garage and Finley was already beginning to nod off, but he managed to keep his eyes open until just before got back onto Storrow Drive (a 10 minute feat!).

I was SO proud of him since we'd had a crankypants morning and I just didn't know how he'd respond to all of this work. Phew! We get to go back for two appointments next week to participate in a similar study that is about processing emotion through faces and facial expressions. When the studies are completed, all participants will get a copy of the report which I know will be fun to read. It's neat to live in such a bustling medical and educational community!