- We have come to realize that Anna
has three different laughs. One when she thinks she's being funny
and/or copying us. One is a kind of courtesy laugh. And the third is
her authentic, whole-hearted laugh. The first is a very high-pitched
"ha-aha" and it's pretty funny. The second is very deep and she'll do
it under her breath sometimes. It's almost like a repetitious cough.
The third is kind of a combination of the two. It's the most fun and it
usually is made when we tickle her.
- She loves to copy our sounds. Whenever we cough or laugh, she'll look over and start doing the same with a smile on her face. It's ridiculously cute. She loves to do the same stuff Mom and Dad can do.
- When she sees her doll that rattles, she gets super excited. It's one of the craziest things I've seen. You'd think she had never seen anything so cool in the entire world. I love seeing her get so happy.
- She is so
chatty! She likes to use her tongue now to make more indecipherable
sounds. I've still yet to hear her say a real word with meaning behind
it.
- I love putting naps in the positives!
Yay! She's doing so good. Both during the day and at night.
Occasionally, she'll wake up in the night, but that rarely happens.
-
She's eating so well. It's pretty funny actually. She's very
interested in food when we are eating. Whatever we got, she wants. I'm
trying to get into a better habit of eating when she does because it
really motivates her to eat better. She will completely refuse to eat
something when we first offer it to her, but then she see us eating and
she wants to join the bandwagon. Mommy just needs to feel more
comfortable with her eating more solid foods. We bought these Gerber Graduates
Puff cereal snacks and I felt so anxious and left the duty to Ty. She
did great and loves to have these little snacks once in awhile. She
also has a small transitional sippy cup that she drinks water from and
loves to play with. It's pretty funny to see and hear her gnaw on it.
-
She continues to crawl, pull herself up, and walk along furniture. I
think she's getting pretty close to standing on her own. In fact when
we were in Moses Lake, not long after we arrived, I walked her to a room
and when I let go, she just stood there for about two seconds before
sitting down. Excitement rang out my mouth and I texted Ty right away
to let him know of his little girl's new achievement. She's done it one
other time after that, but not as long. I think one day she's going to
let go of something and realize what she's doing and surprise herself.
- She always responds to her name. And by respond, I mean she turns her head and gives this look of, "What? I didn't do anything...........yet." Even if she doesn't look the first time, it's a guarantee once we throw the middle name in there. Just say "Anna Renee" and you've got her full attention.
- When we get her ready for bed, we read her one of the little board books we have for her. During one of the times I was saying family prayer Ty used one of the books to distract her. While he was turning the pages, Anna reached out and started turning them! Now we always lift up the page and she turns it. Yeah, my baby is a genius. She's also fiercely independent, so we try to give her opportunities to do things for herself.
- She's a bit used to it now, but when Ty whistles she used to brace herself. Even if she wasn't close at all to him. She would squint her eyes and put her head down, as if shielding herself from a fierce wind. She'll also do this when Ty sneezes. If you know Ty, you know that his sneezes are kind of intense and loud. She will give him this look as if to say, "What in the world? Why would you do that?". It's pretty funny. You'll hear the second laugh she does for the first part of the video and the second half is when she braces for the whistle.
- This girl is the teething master. She now has four new teeth on top and I seriously didn't know until they were breaking through, only because we saw them. Today, we actually discovered another bottom tooth that has popped through mysteriously. I was preparing myself for so much worse and she has really been a trooper. I know it's not likely, but I'm hoping the rest of our someday children will be as amazing as she is.
- We recently bought a video monitor and I love it! It's so much fun to watch her and see what she does in her sleep and even more so when she is awake, but thinks no one is watching. She cracks me up.
Some things we aren't loving so much:
- Stinky poopy diapers.
- The Rash. What's worse is her incessant scratching, which doesn't help the rash. It is a lot better than it used to be though. We've started using Aveeno eczema lotion morning and night and also Aveeno bath wash and that's helped, but the scratching really hinders it from fully healing. You can see her doing this in this month's growth pictures. I couldn't get her to smile because she gets this look of concentration when she's scratching and nothing can break it.
- Changing her clothes. Whether it's putting them on or taking them off. It's incredibly frustrating. She screams, she trashes, and she tries to scratch the living daylights out of her skin. You'd think we were performing some kind of torture on her.
- All off limits areas are the one that she is drawn to the most. We have a speaker that we have covered by a really big pillow, but she still pulls herself up and grabs the wire and gets in trouble every time. Doesn't matter how many times I pull her away, she goes back for it. Hopefully, we can get something more stable to keep her from it.
- Whining. Oh my goodness. I thought this kind of behavior wasn't going to start up until she was a toddler. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when she is one.
- She
puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Except for new things that you choose to
give her to eat. Most of the time it's not bad, but there are plenty
of things that must be kept out of reach. We've realized that even though she's good at turning the pages in her board books, she isn't allowed to hold them because she fancies the taste of cardboard way too much. It's a little bit gross to me, but there's no accounting for taste.
