Norah's achievements

It's tough being the second kid. Sure, it's nice to see them hit the milestones, but at the same time, it's kind of like, "Yeah, we've seen it all before." So I thought I would devote a post to how Norah is doing, without mentioning Demon Child #1 once (well, after this time).

A few weeks ago Norah started smiling. This is really a big deal, in case you're wondering. For the first six weeks of her life she just lay there like a lump o' flesh, staring out at the world as if to say "This is it? I've seen better." Then she started smiling. She first started it to respond to us smiling at her. Kind of like, "Hey, this is kind of fun, I'll try it." The old cliché about people being much more attractive when they're smiling is true - I always wonder why supermodels look so deadly serious on the runway. When Norah smiles, her face lights up and her toothless gums come out and then she laughs, which is a wonderful sound. Yes, it's a gurgle, really, but she enjoys it so much, and she responds to us smiling and laughing with her, so she just keeps going. It's gotten more fun because I think she's starting to anticipate us interacting with her. When she doesn't want to drink anymore, we move her so that she's sitting on our knee and looking at us. She immediately starts smiling, as if she says, "Hey! This is smiling position! How cool!" Of course, she's still a baby, so her attention span is woefully short, but for a few minutes, she's a happy tiny thing.

The other big development is that she has started noticing things around her, specifically toys. If you don't know what a gymini is, check out the picture of her in the previous post. She is lying on her gymini, which has two arches joining the opposite corners from which toys dangle. If you put her on it, the theory is that she will play with those toys. Norah has finally started to check them out as her vision improves, and this past week she has started to bat at the toys. We're not sure how deliberate it is, but it seems like it's getting more deliberate, which is cool. She has combined her laughter with lying in the gymini, too. We put her down and she looks up, whacks one of the toys, and giggles. She has started to grab hold of the toys too, which we're sure is not deliberate, but it's still neat. It's very cool that she is starting to play and figure out that the world is out there and that she needs to interact with it.

So that's her latest thing. She is gaining some weight and growing a little bit, and we're probably going to move her into her crib soon because she's actually sleeping through the night. Ah, the move to the crib - big news!