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:

 

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):

 

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):

 

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:

 

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).