finding the pieces

Over the last week, I think we're really starting to see Hannah Claire's little personality come out. Generally, she's a very laid back but curious baby. When she's upset, there's a reason for it. She likes to babble, read books with others, and play independently. In small groups or one-on-one, she makes cheesy grins and grunts at others to get your attention and to have you make funny faces back at her. In larger groups she's quiet and curious, her little head moving around to check out all of the faces and hear all of the sounds.


As a testimony to how easy going she is, she always sleeps in the car... no matter what time it is. She's fine if her nap is delayed, and as long as she's being stimulated she won't fuss for a few hours. She likes baths, likes having lotion put on her, and really likes her rice crackers. With Gerber baby food she's a veggie girl and gets most excited about peas, green beans, and sweet potatoes... not so much a fan of applesauce and baby food peaches. Daddy made "peaches and cream cereal" two days ago with canned peaches, formula, and rice cereal... and that was a huge it. Yesterday daddy made smoothie with frozen blackberries (seeds strained) and she really liked that. Can't wait to see what colors of poo we'll see today.


Three days ago I taught Hannah how give a high-five, and she picked up on that in just a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, Sedona doesn't understand why I'm talking to the baby and not the babydog when I use the word "give me five" over, and over, and over. Sedona knows a lot of the phrases that we use with Hannah like give me five, no, stay, come here... and seems confused. We're working on waving bye-bye right now. She has started crawling towards us and putting up her hands to be picked up. She does this with Nana (my mother), Kevin, and me. Nana's been spending lots of time playing with Hannah Claire on snowy mornings. It gives Mama and Daddy a nice break to take showers, fold laundry, and clean up the kitchen.


Only in the last few days Hannah Claire has started voicing a preference to be held by me rather than Kevin. She'll cry for me when I do the baby hand off. She'll be content with him and will see me walk through the room, and will start fussing for me. I think this is because I've spent more time playing eye-contact names and singing with her than Kevin has. He thinks it's because he's the one that has done more snot sucking torture with the bulb syringe and thinks she resents him for it. The new deal is that I do the bad cop stuff like nose wiping and using the bulb syringe where he gets to give all of the bottles. I'm encouraging him to try some patty cake, but Kevin's a lot more interested in interactive toddler play than baby play where you're not quite sure if she's really listening to you or not.


We're figuring it out, and realizing that she's easygoing... but it's just really hard jumping into being a first time parent.