More sisterly love.

I am overjoyed to see how much Lyla loves her little brother. We weren't sure how she would react to the new addition, so to have this response is another wonderful blessing on top of all the other blessings we have been blessed with. Bless.

Not sure what inspired this other than Lyla sitting in Will's chair and a desire to see her holding him. I think it's hilarious that she laughed everytime his arm jerk hit her in the face. We're still working on teaching her to be gentle and, well, as you'll see at the end of the video there are a number of other things we're going to be on guard for as well.

Yes, she bit his finger.

Marveling at my little girl

*Cue Cats In The Cradle by Harry Chapin
It seems that just today Lyla has advanced developmentally in leaps and bounds. She's been more interactive, more attentive, more content, and more vocal over the past few days. But today she did three things that blew me away and brought a tear to my eye. (I know this is just PFS - Proud Father Syndrome, but three things all happening today made her seem so grown up and that just got to me.)

When I was feeding her peaches and apple sauce she grabbed the spoon and guided it into her own mouth. Wow. From what we've read that signals that she's starting to want to figure out how to feed herself. It was just neat, not too big.

The second thing was more impressive. I was sitting on the ground and letting Lyla sit on my crossed legs. I held my hands stationary in front of her and she proceeded to reach up and place her hands on each of mine (left on left, right on right). She then pulled herself up under her own power and stood up. It was awesome and she did it a number of times including twice starting from sitting flat on the ground.

The third was after bath time tonight she stood up again pulling herself up on my arm. She then turned and faced me, grabbed each of my thumbs in her opposite hand and walked about one foot towards me supporting herself (usually when she walks I provide counter force to steady her... not his time). In addition, she had this intense determination as she was walking. As if each step was a real triumph. When she finally did it (i.e. reached me) she had the most excited look on her face. She had done it!! It melted me. Big smile, teary eyes, visions of my little girl growing up into a young girl. I wish you could have been there to share it.

Sittin' in the tub.

Guess who's a big girl and no longer needs a sling when she takes a bath??
Good work, baby.

Last week wrap-up: RANDOM CUTENESS!!!!

For no other reason than to include you all in the smiles that Lyla creates daily for Katherine and me:

Like mother, like daughter.

You've seen sitting expression-lessly; smiling; and sleeping. Here it is, finally: Lyla waking up!!!

Smiles and sleep.

I realized last week that the majority of pictures we'd taken of Lyla were of her awake and looking kind of emotionless. For the past couple of weeks we've been really enjoying the period between when Lyla eats and when she starts to get sleepy again. It lasts about 20 minutes and she's always really happy, smiling and talking to us.

I usually sit and hold her and ask her what noises different animals make (gorilla : ooh ooh ooh; monkey : aah aah aah; tiger : raaawwrrr; kitty cat : meow; doggie : ruff ruff; mouse : squeak squeak; froggy : ribbit ribbit; mommy : la la la la laa) or I ask her is she can say different things ("daddy;" "mommy;" "I love mommy;" "Stephen is the best!!!"). Every time I ask her a question she smiles and sometime she even answers me. It's great. These are a couple different pictures of her smiling. I love every one of these.

After about 20 minutes she gets tired and starts to yell/cry. Then we usually swaddle her up (using these awesome blankets that our friends J and D got us; they're big enough to swaddle an 11 week old) and if she's really fussy we'll jostle her to sleep. But sometimes she just sits and stares and ultimately falls asleep. I decided to take some pictures of her sleeping because she does look so peaceful when she sleeps.

Usually when she wakes up she smiles when she recognizes me and Katherine. That's another fun period which will last awhile unless she's hungry; then things usually deteriorate pretty quickly. Overall, she's such a good baby. We're really fortunate.

Baby bumbo

Lyla sure is developing. We put her in the Bumbo seat today for the first time and she did great. Now before you all freak out and tell us that Bumbo seats were recalled last year, we know. The seats weren't recalled, just the safety warnings. Some parents were leaving their children in the seats unattended on top of tall surfaces like tables and counters and well, bad things happened. You'll notice that Lyla was seated firmly on the floor. Anyway, she's a champ. She holds her head up very strongly (probably because she's had to develop neck muscles because dad swings her around so much). Here are a couple pictures of her in the seat. Katherine's seated in a chair in front of her. Also, you'll notice that she's smiling. I was showing pictures of Lyla to a friend and realized that we don't have that many of her smiling. I realized it's probably because whenever she is smiling we're so attentive because she such a joy to interact with at those times. Please enjoy the pictures.


And finally something different from what you've seen on this blog before. A video of Lyla being cute and making noises while Katherine and I talk to her in funny voices. I hope you don't mind that I'm shaking it up a bit. Enjoy!!