Sleep Smiling

One of my favorite parenthood moments these days is when I walk into Hannah's room while she's sleeping and catch her smiling with her eyes closed. It's one thing to see her laughing madly at a dancing teddy bear, or at my chimp-like antics, but to know that, even in her down time, with nothing but her nascent baby thoughts churning around in that tiny head, she's content and happy enough to smile for no apparent reason . . . that just makes my day. At those moments, the bond between me standing there and that drooling, sphincter-challenged midget in the crib, seems real enough to reach out and touch. Like a big yellow rubber band of sunshine joining us at the heart. And I have to resist the urge to pick her up, and instead tear myself away and let her sleep.

The last time I caught her smiling in her sleep with her hands behind her head, I grabbed the camera to take a picture. But she heard the camera turn on and opened her eyes just a bit before I took the picture.


In other news: Carla just finished her first Calligraphy commission since the twins arrived, and while it takes a little longer with a baby in the house, it went pretty smoothly. And, last night she did her first chorus performance since rejoining her singing group. TI is planning to send me overseas for a couple weeks in May (my mom plans to come hang out with Carla and Hannah while I'm gone). So things are getting back to normal, more or less.

Hannah had a three-month follow-up visit with the developmental pediatrician on Friday. These are standard for preemies, because they are at risk for a whole range of developmental challenges, and they prefer to spot and correct problems early. But so far, Hannah shows no lasting effects of her rough start in life, and is meeting all the milestones as expected. We got some pointers for getting her crawling and sitting on schedule (more time on the floor and less in the activity center and jumper).

I have a few more videos to share. It seems the previous links didn't work for everybody, so I'm including these as YouTube videos. If the links below don't work for you, and you're receiving these posts as emails, try clicking on the link to the actual blog (below), or go to http://karlminor.blogspot.com, and try the links within the blog's web page. Let me know if you have trouble with the videos, cause I'd like to find a solution that works well for everybody.

Laughing at the Bear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vylC0gJGbfE
Playing with the Laptop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-QF6OsDppo