Anna's 3rd Month

Anna is 3 months old today!

This month has been marked by SO much interaction!  Her smiles and gurgles, her facial expressions, everything about her has begun to blossom into a full-blown personality that is absolutely captivating to witness.

Around the 9 and a half week mark, Anna hit a growth spurt, I'm guessing.

Her eating went way up, she was suddenly clingy and would cry if I set her down, and her sleep went down the tube. Dave tried running her around in the car at one point late at night, and even that didn't work. I was literally dizzy with fatigue.  Nothing has really been the same since then, especially the sleep (all of the veteran parents of the world are laughing right now).

Remember how she loves to sleep in the swing?  Me neither.

She has discovered that bright colors are an amazing part of life.

Blue is a particular favorite.  Particularly vibrant blues.  Particularly this water bottle blue.

Man.  She will stop nursing to look at this bottle, smile at it, and sometimes launch her whole body at it.

She has also started reaching for and trying to grab things.  It's still mostly with closed fists, but she sometimes succeeds in navigating a toy into her mouth.  Or close to her mouth, at least.

If you touch her cheek, her little fists fly up to "grab" your hand and pull that finger into her mouth as fast as possible.  And then she'll happily suck on you for the next half hour if you let her.

And she loves singing!  Her favorites right now are "Sing a Song of Sixpence" and an Italian art song that I remember most of the words to.  "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is a good one, too.

Also, as a side note, did you know that the song "Allouette" is actually not French but French Canadian?  And its chorus says, "Sweet lark, I'm going to pluck your feathers out."  And then you proceed to name all the parts of the lark that you're going to de-plume from head to feet.  I guess it's a "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" kind of song for learning body parts, but geez....kind of a sadistic premise, don't you think?

Also new this month: Anna has begun rolling over!

Well, she hasn't done it in several days now, and it still seems to surprise her whenever it happens, but...she can do it.  Just front to back so far, not back to front.

In very recent news (the past two nights), Anna has slept a whole 5 hours at night!  We are hoping and praying that this is progress that's here to stay (veteran parents of the world, just keep laughing).

We attended a wedding.  How do people do this?  I ended up holding Anna tight to my chest through a hard-won half-hour nap at the reception that she desperately needed.

Anna, we fall more in love with you every day.  You are bright, strong, and beautiful, and we love getting to be your parents!  We would do anything to see your gorgeous smile.  As I tell you every day, you are definitely the cutest baby in the whole world, and we adore your budding personality.

Happy Month 3!