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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Smiling Lea

Lea first began to smile last Saturday, on her six week birthday, but it took Sharon a few days to catch one on digital medium (what does one call it if there is no film?). Lea still only intermittently smiles for me, but she has this look for her mommy:





And speaking of images that make us smile, there's nothing greater than sisterly love. Here Hallie is high-fiving Lea, something which she is very fond of doing:

 
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And here she's playing "This little Piggy with Lea." Lea is lucky that she is wearing footy pajamas because sometimes Hallie likes to squeeze little toes and fingers (which she did this morning while I had Lea on my lap and was feeding Hallie some breakfast):

 
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Hallie is still being a model older sister; she loves to return binkies to Lea (but only after trying them out herself. Don't worry; we intercept them on their way over to Lea and trade them in for fresher, more sanitized models. Thank you, Ellen, for bringing us a nice supply of these!). Hallie also enjoys sharing toys with Lea. The other evening she tried to get Lea to try out her kazoo and handed her one of her plastic animal toys. On the rare occasion we place Lea in the pack and play (growing less rare now) and Lea begins to cry, Hallie rushes over to see what's the matter and potentially help out (at other points, Hallie does try to climb into the pack and play and Hallie spent a few minutes this morning trying out for size the Eddie Bauer bouncy chair that Lea now reclines in next to the bed. Needless to say our girl, who has grown another couple of inches overnight, is way too big for it).

Speaking of pack and plays: we are trying to put Lea down to play in them a bit more frequently. She loves looking at herself in the mirror and watching toys now (the favorite ones are the fish suspended from the swing that Gina and Jake sent us). And we even put her into the pack and play to rest for a bit on her own the other night. Maybe someday she will spend some time in the underused crib, even. Here Lea is showing off her advanced binky-holding skills (she's been holding her own bink off and on for at least a week now):

 
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But it's not all smiles and contentment around here. Lea is very particular about how she is held most of the time. Her favorite position is belly to belly with binky propped in her mouth by adult shoulder while being rocked and swayed and bounced. You need to stand up for this one or else you get this face:

 
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This is often followed by a full on crying jag. It's true that neither of us were prepared for the sounds that a full-term baby with good lungs could make. The worst cries, however, are reserved for the car. If the car is stopped at a light or the bink goes missing, we're in for it. Hallie often laughs at the racket and we're kind of hoping that this means she's mistaking the jaggy cries for laughter (something that we don't do. We keep our fingers crossed that there won't be traffic and that the lights will be timed well and that no one will ticket us for me undoing my seatbelt briefly to turn around and rock Lea's carseat a bit).

All in all, though, Lea is a great baby and her crying does not tend to be excessive. She does better when Sharon has no dairy than when Sharon does eat dairy (we're still not a hundred percent sure that Lea is cow milk intolerant but it's either the lack of cow milk or the addition of a probiotic to Sharon's diet that seems to have done the trick in terms of Lea's tummy aches). And she eats nicely (something to which her rapid growth attests. We don't know what she weighs right now, but we're betting on somewhere in the nine pound range. We'll find out for sure at the two month visit which happens in ten days. Hallie was 8 lbs. 14.5 ounces at seven weeks corrected so it'll be interesting to see how Lea measures up to her preemie big sister).

6 comments:

Emily said...

That pout is precious! She looks so different from Hallie to me. Glad you guys are doing well and that Hallie is such a great big sis.

Kirsten Wood said...

Squalling when the car stops is familiar: G used to do that -- on our trips back and forth to the lactation consultant, for example, he would scream when T. slowed down or had to stop. Just _scream_. So we had exactly the same panicky, prayerful attitude about traffic.

As for dairy etc for Sharon, FWIW, G. was very fussy and had lots of trouble with his pooping when about Lea's age, and I thought maybe it was this or this or the other, and tried eliminating various things from my diet. Nothing worked permanently but time -- and it didn't take all that long either. But I was _convinced_ he was reacting to something in my diet, when it's 99.9% certain, after the fact, that he was not. (And he still probably makes more of a production of elimination than many kids.) Lea may well be different, of course, but I thought it might be useful to see this.

Judith and Jason said...

Hey guys! Sound like you are settling down nicely with the new foursome!
Lea and Hallie look really cute together. Baby Boy Fox should be arriving in 2 months so I always look forward to you posts about siblings!

Trisha said...

I love Lea's pouty face! She's getting so big! So proud of Hallie for being such a great sister!

Michele said...

First off...the pics of Hallie and new sister are precious!!!! The pout face...way too cute. And I know what you mean about the normal healthy newborn cry compared to preemies...waaaay different! LOL!!! What a beautiful family!

Zack's Mom said...

Hi, we have a puker, too. I was wondering if maybe I could contact you with some tips on how you handle behavioural vomiting and food refusal...i love following your blog.

janet.landrum@sbcglobal.net
http://zack092807.blogspot.com