January: smiles and cries

This is another guest post from the proud daddy!

In the past few weeks, Alex is smiling more than ever. Her vocabulary is also improving by leaps and bounds. OK, she isn't actually saying any real words (although it sure sounds like she says 'Hi' every now and again) . But she sure makes a lot of different sounds. One particular cute habit she has is to let loose a rather loud, high 'whee' sound if she wants attention and we are not looking at her. As for the smiling, she usually is in her best mood right after she wakes up; at that point, she sometimes smiles almost constantly. One of the big challenges has been trying to get a pic of her when she smiles. It seems like every time we get the camera ready, she stops smiling the instant before the shutter clicks. But in the last few weeks we finally got a few photos of that elusive smile, although they came out a bit blurry.

But the last few weeks have also had plenty of tears. Alex has started to teethe; we can even see the little teeth starting to push up through her gums. It's a bit early, but every baby is different, and she seems to be ahead of the curve on this one. Maybe she didn't like it when I playfully made fun of her for not having any teeth? Anyway, with teething comes a lot of crying, and her sleep is sometimes not as smooth as it was before.

She is also getting more into playing with her various baby Einstein mats. She especially likes looking into the mirrors and grabbing onto the various hanging toys. One thing she really likes to do is hold onto a set of baby keys; one night she held onto them the entire evening. She is also starting to respond to a vigorously shaken rattle. This is a pretty good way to calm her down when she gets upset, actually.

Her 100th day birthday is soon coming up. That will be a big milestone for her, and I'll be sure to report all about it after it happens!!