Sweetly Tangled

Dragon Girl is overdue for a post. She's staying with her wonderful auntie, so I even have time to do the post.  With Child #1, I had lots of time to send detailed emails to my family outlining when Child #1 napped, what she wore, how much she was eating, &c., &c.  Poor Dragon Girl, Child #2, just gets some formula whenever she cries, a clean diaper, a cute outfit if I'm exceptionally well-organized that day, and away we go again.

But, at 4 months, she is now doing stuff.

The 4-month mark is my biggie. Some plump for the 3-month mark, but I can't say that was a milestone around here. At 16 weeks on the planet, however, Dragon Girl is a delight.  We're through the floppy alien-eyes stage and she is "home" nearly all the time now. There is very little eye-rolling and much more focus. There's a little person looking out of those eyes, in fact.  I figure she has at least as much processing power as the average housecat and probably much more than our famously stupid dog. She knows that the microwave "beep" means imminent milk, and she greets me with a smile from her crib in the morning. She will even giggle at a funny sound or a tickle on the changing table.

Of most interest, she is making her hands work for her. I can tell that she enjoys it.  She will reach for her Ladybug toy and handle it for a long time with a satisfied little dolphin smile on her plump face.  We passed through the swatting stage pretty rapidly; she is now reaching and grasping with pretty good accuracy. I forgot that they don't develop 3D processing for a while. She will try to pick up the tree branch printed on my coffee sleeve. We got a lot of mileage this weekend out of the crinkly envelope window on a piece of junk mail.

And, best of all, she gets all tangled up in Mama.  Often after feeding her, I will get ready to put her down and find that her arm is stretching like a strand of mozzarella, because she's fallen asleep clutching a little handful of my shirt collar or bathrobe. She is happy. I am happy. I love being sweetly, sweetly tangled with this little Dayenu girl.