Nine Months to Life: newborn smile

Showing posts with label newborn smile. Show all posts

The Tongue-out, Toothless, Best Thing Ever.

>> Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I try almost daily to catch a picture or video of Adelyn with her trademark, toothless, tongue-out grin. And it's almost impossible. She smiles the most when she's looking right at you, and the sight of your smile sends her into a squealing-tizzy that makes me forget about the fact I've already changed pajamas three times because she threw up on them.

Usually, when you break out the camera, she turns into this:

She just stares, fixates on the lens. She doesn't smile, or move. She's just mesmerized. Which is adorable, but slightly inconvenient for documenting your baby's milestones.

Maybe she's smiling so much this morning because she finally got back to her normal sleep schedule. Saturday night she stayed with my parents, and luckily for them I think they got to witness her in the peak of a growth spurt. She cried, and cried (they took her for two walks, the cure-all for her fussiness), and she woke up at four a.m. Sunday night, back at home, she did the same thing. Then Monday night, she was up at one a.m., then again at five, then again every ten minutes for the rest of the day.

I was beyond relieved when I woke up to her babbling over the monitor this morning and saw that it was six a.m., her usual wake-up time. For a minute there I was convinced her sleeping through the night was just a fluke, or that maybe I'd imagined it in an exhausted-stupor.

I love that smile. I'm not sure winning the lottery could give a mom the same thrill as feeling like your baby's happy.

Reminder.

>> Monday, April 26, 2010

I need to just keep this video on repeat, to watch when she's screaming and I can't console her. As a reminder that most of the time she's happy and I'm happy.

All Smiles.

>> Saturday, April 10, 2010

I never thought I'd end up with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned baby. But fair skin aside, nothing makes her happier than being in the sun. That she has in common with her momma.

Newborn Giggle

>> Friday, April 2, 2010

Addy had her first smiles in her sleep. Not the gas smiles, but that big, toothless grin. It was only a few days after I saw that first sleepy smile that I saw the first real one, the first one that was an actual reaction to something.

So I knew that when I heard the first laugh in her sleep a few days ago that the real one couldn't be far behind.

I put her down for a nap in her swing and walked into the kitchen. Moments later I heard this unfamiliar sound--sort of like a cry but without the same intensity--and I ran back into the room in a panic. Funny how even a laugh, when it's something you're not used to, can get your heart racing as a new mom. But there she was, peacefully asleep, her eyes tightly shut, giggling away like a maniac. Ever since then I've been fruitlessly trying to get that same giggle with her eyes open.

Her bevy of toys don't do it--usually she just looks at them in a mixture of amazement and confusion.

Last night Jason and I were sitting with her on the sofa, looking like idiots with our ridiculous faces and sounds just trying to get a reaction out of her.

I think I've been giving this laugh thing too much thought, as I always do. How do newborns know to register something as funny if they have no prior reference for humor? How would you know when something is funny if everything is as new and unfamiliar to you as the next thing?

Jason suggested that the funny faces you sort of can't help but make around a newborn might do it. "It's universal humor," he said. And when that didn't work, he suggested fart sounds. Again, "universal humor."

We still haven't gotten that first, bona fide giggle. But we're getting close.