Babbling and Scooting

I wouldn't quite call it crawling yet, but Hannah has learned to scoot sideways and occasionally forward, so her world has just gotten a lot wider and more interesting. She can now roll over from back to tummy and vice versa, and can get herself into a sitting position. None of these seem particularly deliberate at this point, but she's got all the time in the world, and nothing better to do with it, so she looks quite proud when she finds that she has changed her position and view of the world all by herself. Just smiles up at me as if to say "Look what I did!"

And she's starting to tell us all about it. Started babbling up a storm a couple nights ago, out of the blue. The night before, I had suggested to her that vowels alone were getting old and that a few consonants and syllables would spice up our conversations. I guess she was just waiting for me to give her the go-ahead. You can see a short video (5MB) of Hannah babbling by clicking here.



I was trying to get a picture of Hannah's profile while she was staring up at one of her favorite toys (the ceiling fan), but every time she heard the whir of the camera auto-focusing, she'd look over at me with a "OK, take the picture already!" look. After about 10 shots identical to the one above, I gave up. I'll try focusing manually next time . . . no distracting whir. Nothing wrong with that girl's hearing.


She spends most of her time sitting or scooting on the floor now, no longer content to sit in the bouncy chair with its limited entertainment options. She likes the high chair now (used to hate it) because she can sit up straight by herself and we can lay out a bunch of toys on the tray. But the floor is still the fascinating frontier, so I had to stop by Lowes tonight for my first batch of baby-proofing supplies . . . foam bumpers for the hearth and coffee table corners.

I'm pretty sure children still survived childhood back before we had foam bumpers for every sharp corner in the house. But I don't want to be the first parent to go to jail for letting my kid split her head on the coffee table corner. I know there's a lawyer somewhere out there already working on the case file, just in case, ready to fill in the blanks and rocket to stardom on CNN.



Here's a picture with Aunt Rena, when she and Rosemary drove in to pick up Mom after I got back from East Asia. We all had a great time, and were sorry to see them drive off.



Hannah's playpen is near a window, and I noticed her pulling herself up to peek over the edge to see out into the back yard. So I helped her stand up (she can't pull herself to standing quite yet) and she hung on the the side and stared out the window for a while.



Here's a frog chair and crab footstool that Uncle Bruce (my older brother) made for Hannah. He's a data center manager by day and freelance carpenter/handyman on nights/weekends. And then, in his spare time, he builds stuff like this. And yes, this is the kind of overachievement I had to live up to while growing up.


Hannah's quick with a smile or laugh these days. But she gets real serious whenever she encounters something new, and you can almost see her little brain trying to wrap itself around stuff.


Here, she noticed the trees for the first time while we were outside taking pictures. Big green things moving around like Daddy does when he's trying to get Hannah to smile. Must be great to have so many new sights, sounds, and experiences every day. Makes me want to clobber myself over the head with a brick to cause amnesia, so I can experience everything anew, too. I can almost hear the line forming, of people wanting to help me with that.

In other news, Carter is recovering well after his multi-organ transplant. He's moving off IV feeds and on to formula, and is off the ventilator and onto a nasal cannula (like Hannah had for the first three months home from the hospital). These are all very encouraging developments and we're looking forward to seeing him put the hospital environment behind him and come home to Texas. Check out his blog for more details and updates.