It's a time full of little milestones.
Sophie is learning that her mouth isn't only for eating - and she wants to put everything into it! Fortunately she doesn't have quite the dexterity for everything yet, but when she does get her hand, fingers, rattles or the wrong end of her dummy into her mouth, she has a rather excited chat about it at the same time. It's awefully cute. I'll have to get it on video soon.
She's also learning to hold her head up, and bit by bit getting more confident with tummy time. She loves to look at pictures and at that strange little person in the mirror. But the absolute best way to do tummy time is on Mamas knees! Yes, she's now strong enough to play airplane on my legs...and I can do my sit-ups at the same time. She thinks that's fantastic. I've got that on video - we'll upload it soon.
She still hasn't mastered the head control thing. She wants to be held upright and look around, but you have to spot her with one hand, cause without warning she'll start throwing her head around and butting into things. If your collar bone or shoulder is one of those things, it's not very nice for anybody, and she lets you know all about it! But she can sit up on a lap with support quite happily, and insists on being included in family chats on the couch.
She's learning to laugh! she has all kinds of unusual sounds for it, but she definately finds life amusing. Just in the last 2 days she laughed at me - twice! I did something funny and she found it hilarious. Both times I was reading to her... she was listening intently and looking at the pictures and occasionally telling me about it...
The first time it was a picture of a yellow fish. I made a fish face, and crossed my eyes and she squealed and laughed! The 2nd time I think I was trying to do a voice of a donkey ... it was something really low and unlike my normal voice, and she thought it was hilarious. ahhh...some of the best moments of my life to date.
And speaking of dates... I am slowly learning to leave her with family for an hour or 2 ... she got to hang out with Nana on Tuesday, since she was taking the world's longest nap and I absolutely had to get to the shops. So I left the sleeping baby and plenty of milk and a very happy grandmother in my house, and I did the fortnight's shopping all by myself. It was weird. But not too bad. I'll work my way up slowly so that soon I can go out for a dinner date with Dan, and then eventually back to work. And I might not cry buckets. maybe just cupfulls.
I've also learned tonight that I should never be allowed to make clothes for Sophie (or anyone I like for that matter) in any way shape or form! All I tried to do was put an iron-on transfer onto a plain pink romper, so she could wear something cute and unique. It's much more unique than I wanted it to be! It's off center. Instead of having a beautiful artistic dragonfly in the middle of her chest, it'll be in the middle of her armpit! okay, it's not quite that bad. I thought I had it centered when I put it on the ironing board, but I was off by about half an inch. Amazing how obvious that distance is on a 3-month old! I'm so glad I've learned this now, when she can't be embarrassed by me. At least I won't ruin her prom dress. (If I forget by then, email this to me and remind me.)
And the best thing of course is that we're both learning each other. My mothering confidence in the last 2 weeks has more than doubled. I don't really know how to do math on confidence, but it was just a little bit and now it's a lot. Well, a lot more! The difference isn't that I really have that much more information... I've had lots of information and it's sent me batty trying to figure out which of it was right for us, right for her. They say to just relax and do what works for you, but I didn't know what worked for me or for her yet. The difference now is that I feel like I know her. I have a sense of her personality, her needs...the way she eats and sleeps. I can make some predictions about how she will respond to various situations. She keeps changing and I'll keep learning her as she grows, but now I feel like I have a baseline. And she knows me. She trusts me. It's like we're discovering a world together, and figuring it out together, and teaching each other new things everyday. And it's beautiful and I am unforgivably sappy now, so I'm going to bed!
On Thursdays we go to Mothers' group - it's a bunch of mums with bubs born around the same time, who all live in our area. Here, Sophie is pretty confident in her tummy time skill, and it helps her keep an eye on absolutely everyone!
Oh, this is a bit out of order... this is just Sophie waking up after a nap and being adorable :)
Now we're back to Mums' group. We decided to make a long line of babies. It was funny the many ways that the different babies reacted to this . The girl on Sophie's right was just squealy with joy. The boy on her left was pretty unhappy about being set down. And Sophie just pretty much had that look on her face the whole time - content and quiet curiosity.
It's so fun to watch them grow...and to start to akwardly interact with each other. The girl in the red was happily throwing her arms around, and she often had an arm just resting across Sophie's chest. She didn't seem to mind, but she was studying that arm and I knew what was coming! Sure enough, that arm went straight into Sophie's mouth! I didn't get a photo of it, as I was busy rescuing her victim! Fortunately, her busy little mouth doesn't have any teeth yet, so the girl in red didn't seem to mind at all. They're still friends :)
