A Different Child

Sometime over the last week or so, we woke up with a new child.

It has been fairly easy to see the changes in Reagan from when we first brought her home. The smiling, the cooing, the more focused eye contact. But today we have an entirely different child than the first Reagan we met 3 months ago. Heck, we have an entirely different child than the Reagan we knew a couple weeks ago.

Reagan has become intentional.

Intentional is the best way to describe it. Before, she would randomly bat at toys, and whenever something touched her hand she would grab it. Now, she reaches out with the intention to grab. She grabs hanging toys, toys just laying next to her, blankets, clothes, hair (ouch), hands. Yesterday she tried to grab the water streaming from the shower head. She tries to reach out and touch the dogs. (They aren't too sure about this new trick and back away most times) She will roll to grab a toy on the ground that's within reach. She reaches for and grabs my face while nursing. And everything she grabs always goes straight. to. her. mouth.

Suddenly, she finds things funny. And she cracks up over them. She used to make a low, guttural sound that was pretty clearly a laugh but we woke up on our 2nd anniversary (8/16/10) and she was busting a gut. (Pretty sweet anniversary present from a 3 month old, eh?) See?



Then, she decided she would have no more of tummy time when she didn't want it, and on August 18th, she up and rolled over. Every. single. time. that we put her on her belly, she'd flop right back onto her back. She is entirely capable of going back to belly, too. But she loathes her belly so much, that I'm fairly certain she just doesn't want to.

If anything within eye sight moves, she follows it. The dogs bounding (naughtily) around the couches. Daddy walking into the room. Bringing food from your plate to your mouth. Cars on the road. Even your lips as they move to talk. Anything moving, and she is locked on.

And then, to top everything and just blow us entirely out of the water, the morning of the 23rd, in my constant attempt to get her to smile and giggle, I was 'blowing bubbles' or 'raspberries' or whatever you want to call it when you vibrate your lips together. And then she did it back to me. My mom and I thought it was a fluke until she did it over and over and over. At first she was concentrating so hard, would sometimes forget to let the air through her lips, or her tounge would escape. But she got a pretty good handle on it and we spent the rest of the day spitting at each other. And now, she'll catch your eye and blow bubbles. It is her new trick and she (and her parents) are very proud of it. (And oh how the drool flows while she does it!)



It is so fun and exciting to watch her learn to interact with her environment. This whole growing up thing really works!