Raspberries!

Unfortunately we ran out of battery and didn't capture the real hearty giggles but here is a taste of her first laugh!!

Little Milestones

When I see a little glimmer of advancement I run to the computer to document it. I am so aware of every minute change in her behavior. What I am realizing though is that I am just seeing a glimpse of an even more acutely developed behavior. For example, she is REALLY engaging now with her dangly toys on her play gym. She is batting at them and gets excited when she sees something new. I imagine this is only going to become even more obvious in the weeks to come. It is so exciting but at the same time very sad for me because I am returning to work in a couple of weeks. I don't want to miss ANYTHING. I am so afraid I will miss her sit up for the first time, crawl, speak...I am actually very fortunate that my job does not require me to be away from her 9 hours a day, every day, but I am still already mourning the loss of spending every moment with her. Even as I type this, she is on her play mat and I can't stop looking at her.
She is getting so big too! She is in her 3-6 month clothes now. Not sure her weight but we need to pop over to the doctor next week to get some note for the airline- hopefully a quick weigh in will be done.
She has a pretty obvious case of cradle cap which I am trying to stay on top of but it just keeps re-appearing. It will go away soon I imagine.
Chris and I say every day that we don't want her to change from how she is presently but then she smiles at me so big and bright, and she didn't do it yesterday, and then I realize that all the changes make me love her even more- even when I didn't think that was possible...

Roll Over Liliana

The Laws of Physics

First of all, I want to express how excited, hopeful and relieved we are here in the Kminek household that Obama was overwhelmingly elected president!!
We voted early so election day was very relaxed. The weather here was beautiful- 72 degrees and sunny. We met our new friends Ashley and her baby Ezra for lunch here in Oak Park. We ate lunch in the park and strolled for a little bit. It was a really wonderful afternoon that was capped off with an explosive poo- yes, I mentioned Poo again, did you expect anything less? Just to get it all out, my world now consists of spit up, poo, sticking my nose right up to baby butt to sniff for poo...and I wouldn't trade it for anything!
Okay, back to the explosive poo. It basically determined that it was bath time. Most times I get in the bath with Liliana and she sits in her bath seat. I didn't feel like getting in the bath so I sat on the outside of the tub while bathing her. She LOVES the bath by the way- just like mom! Chris came in the bathroom and decided he wanted to get in the tub with her which I thought was a great idea. What I didn't think about was the effects of a 200+ lb person getting in a full tub of water...yes, the water came up so high and Liliana went under for a millisecond. I was so completely freaked out! She started crying and Chris felt horrible. I was worried she would hate baths from here on out. Chris promptly got out and she stopped crying and went back to enjoying her bath...thankfully! I felt so horrible though. I had my hand on her the whole time but I felt guilty because I am supposed to watch her and keep her safe. She is so helpless and 100% reliant on us and we were so stupid that we put her in a harmful situation. Luckily no harm done though...
On the developmental front, she seems to be reaching mini milestones. She is smiling a lot more and has become aware of her hands. Beth mentioned that it is so funny when it happens. Suddenly her hand goes by her face and her eyes follow it like- "whoa, look at that". She is also grasping more and batting at objects. We have put the toy part on her bouncy seat which lights up and makes noise when she bats at the animals. It teaches her cause and effect. Not sure if she has made that connection yet but when she is in the zone she bats at the animals a lot. We are reading to her more now too. I read the Hungry Caterpillar and How Much Do I Love You. She likes the pictures in Hungry Caterpillar. I also bought a few Baby Faces books and she is enthralled. Her attention span for them is short but those first few baby faces make her smile so much and she is glued to the pictures.
Her sleeping has been really pretty good the last few days. Lots of napping and no problem going down at night. She will sleep 4-5 hours the first stretch before waking up. Then it is 2.5-3 hour stretches after that. What I have realized is what is true today may not be true tomorrow. When I complain about her sleeping then the next few days she is a sleeping rock star. Then I brag about that and she goes to being a sleep deprived zombie for a couple of days. I think the net total though is that we have a really great baby- no major crying issues, no major sleep issues. We are so deeply in love with her-more everyday. I can't wait for her to meet family in 3 weeks!