Motherhood, Day 181.
So, much to my surprise, I'm still having fun. Elizabeth is becoming an incredibly sweet, funny, loving little person. She loves to kiss and be kissed. She lights up whenever we look at her. She has the best little giggle, which ends in a sort of gurgling, high-pitched coo (very hard to describe and impossible to imitate).
She's teething, which sometimes results in long bouts of horrible, lower-lip quivering, vibrato sobs that reach in and scrape out my heart. But then whatever we give her kicks in and she turns to sleepy contentment or tear-streaked giggles in the blink of an eye. However, diaper changes, the introduction of semi-solid food and baths are all met with a cheerful willingness.
She's getting very good at grabbing things from my hand, and tracking moving objects and people, both by sight and by sound. She does very graceful plie's in her jolly jumper, and spends a great deal of time playing with her feet. She's _very_ good at picking up an object and steering it directly and unerringly into her open mouth.
We started Mother Goose classes today. Elizabeth was among the youngest babies there, and, I think, the largest! I guess my first impression of her, as being tiny and fragile, has stuck with me, but she was bigger than a baby there who's almost eleven months! It was so odd to see a baby smaller than Elizabeth toddling by herself, when Elizabeth can't even sit up on her own, yet.
Sitting up and crawling are imminent. She can't be left on her back for a moment before she promptly rolls over and pushes up to observe the world from this angle. She's also tolerating tummy time for longer and longer stretches, her legs kicking madly, trying to push up under her. She can either lift her upper body or her bum, but seesaws back and forth, trying to get them both at once.
Her favourite poem is "Jabberwocky", her favourite song is "The Goblin Song" (Blackadder, season II), and her favourite game is "Paddy-cake", especially when I have the baker-man "mark it with an "E" and put it in the oven for Elizabeth and me". Sometimes she goes into a strangely pensive mood, and lies on the couch or her playmat, staring off into space, one chubby little hand shoved into her mouth, as she contemplates the ramifications of her own existence.
We took a nap together, the other day, the three of us (and the cat), and it felt like everything in the world worth anything was all in our bed.
She's teething, which sometimes results in long bouts of horrible, lower-lip quivering, vibrato sobs that reach in and scrape out my heart. But then whatever we give her kicks in and she turns to sleepy contentment or tear-streaked giggles in the blink of an eye. However, diaper changes, the introduction of semi-solid food and baths are all met with a cheerful willingness.
She's getting very good at grabbing things from my hand, and tracking moving objects and people, both by sight and by sound. She does very graceful plie's in her jolly jumper, and spends a great deal of time playing with her feet. She's _very_ good at picking up an object and steering it directly and unerringly into her open mouth.
We started Mother Goose classes today. Elizabeth was among the youngest babies there, and, I think, the largest! I guess my first impression of her, as being tiny and fragile, has stuck with me, but she was bigger than a baby there who's almost eleven months! It was so odd to see a baby smaller than Elizabeth toddling by herself, when Elizabeth can't even sit up on her own, yet.
Sitting up and crawling are imminent. She can't be left on her back for a moment before she promptly rolls over and pushes up to observe the world from this angle. She's also tolerating tummy time for longer and longer stretches, her legs kicking madly, trying to push up under her. She can either lift her upper body or her bum, but seesaws back and forth, trying to get them both at once.
Her favourite poem is "Jabberwocky", her favourite song is "The Goblin Song" (Blackadder, season II), and her favourite game is "Paddy-cake", especially when I have the baker-man "mark it with an "E" and put it in the oven for Elizabeth and me". Sometimes she goes into a strangely pensive mood, and lies on the couch or her playmat, staring off into space, one chubby little hand shoved into her mouth, as she contemplates the ramifications of her own existence.
We took a nap together, the other day, the three of us (and the cat), and it felt like everything in the world worth anything was all in our bed.