Lilah has been a blessing to our family for going on 5 weeks now. She has accomplished so many things. Obviously, I think she's extraordinary, but I've been told she's pretty advanced. She smiles all the time, and she tries to laugh. She has this weird, quiet sort of chuckle. She also tries to talk to us. If we hold her in front of us and talk to her, she smiles and opens her mouth, moves her tongue, and makes strange noises in reply. She always looks like she's very proud of herself, too. Lilah's main fault is a short temper (which she inherited from her mama) and intense jealousy of anyone near her who happens to be eating.
I've already noticed strange traditions we've started with her. Dano calls her Bean, Smiles McGee, Chubs McFace, and many other things. We all watch NCIS in the evenings. We have weird names for certain outfits of hers - the "chili pepper" outfit, "short-bus bunny" sleeper, and the "fluffy-puff marshmallow" suit. She tries to hold her head up, she can roll over, and if we put her on her stomach, she army crawls away. It's been a crazy month. She slept in her basket for two whole hours last night before demanding to be put back in bed with us. She's gone from being a few minutes old and just lying there all the time to having such a fun, crazy personality. We're planning on going to see "X-men Origins" in a week or so, to leave her with Dano's parents as a practice run for me going back to work. I'm scared to death to leave her alone without us, but I know it's necessary. As much as each new stage scares me and makes me miss my tiny little baby who needed me for everything (okay, so I admit to crying when she slept in her basket without crying to be held right away), I love each stage more than the last, and watching her grow these 5 weeks has been the most rewarding labor of love I've ever experienced. I can't wait to see the rest of it.
