Mmmm, toys

This week she is relatively cognitively holding toys and, so begins the endless procession, putting them in her mouth! I may not be excited about this in a few months, but I am now.

Just call me Thumbelina

So I have DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis, which is thumb and wrist tendinitis (read, pain) that young mothers often get from picking up their babies etc. I'm not kidding. And so the old adage that you take something for granted until you lose it is wreaking havoc in my daily life.

I had no idea you need your thumbs for virtually every routine activity:

You need your thumbs for turning on the faucet,
twisting a bottle top open (had to wait for Steve to come home),
and catching your baby so she doesn't fall over, plop, on the couch.

You need your thumbs for holding the steering wheel,
opening a Chick-fil-a tub of honey mustard sauce,
and picking up a full water bottle, ouch.

You need your thumbs for grabbing a spit rag to wipe your baby's spit,
grabbing the baby carrier and the diaper bag and another bag,
and basically grabbing anything.

You need your thumbs for cupping your hands to wash your face,
brushing your teeth...
yes, ouch, brushing your teeth!

You need your thumbs for clicking the garage door opener,
laying your baby down in the crib and picking her back up again,
and laying her back down again.

You even need your thumbs to massage your thumbs.

You really need your thumbs for texting,
and for changing the channel,
and, unfortunately, even for typing. So I'll say adieu.

And all that was just yesterday. Thank God for your opposable thumbs today, and use them wisely. You can be sure I'll do the same!

Singing

Every time I put Annelise down for a nap (which, since she's still on a 3-hour schedule, is alot of times in a day), she's all swaddled up in my arms, and we rock, and I sing to her whatever hymn or praise song or little ditty (that maybe my Mommy sang to me) pops into my head. And this week, she started "singing" along. And so did my heart.

Reaching out

Today she reached up to touch (hit actually...kids are so violent these days) the octopus! She's been hitting her "friends" in the bouncer that hang down, and sometimes grabs them and holds on. This is all very exciting when all she could do just a couple weeks ago was stare at them. She hadn't tried to touch anything in her "gym" though until today. Here's a picture to prove it!

An attempt to capture each new thing

So our little girl, Annelise, is growing up so fast (she turned 12 weeks yesterday!), and last week she "woke up" to the world, and started "talking," halfway touching things, and using her killer abs to try to sit up from a reclining position. She did that on the whole walk pictured above. While having an advanced child is of course gratifying, I have to tell her to slow down (and Grandma in Atl echoed with a resounding "cool it") so Mommy can catch up. Can we just be a baby for a little while?

Yes, everything is happening so fast, I don't want to miss a moment of it! Furthermore, I want to capture it all, every toothless smile, every gurgle, every new milestone. I'm going to attempt to do that on this blog, just jot down the new thing of the day...until baby takes over my blog and needs her own (like I'm writing so much about anything at all...).

Today Annelise is noticing her clothes as I'm about to put them on, which to Mommy means she must be able to see color now. Or at least pink. [wink] But this morning I put on a multicolored dress that she caught sight of and stared at, and then later I changed the spit-soaked dress into a bright pink onesie, which she also stared at with great interest. (I decided she's going to need to wear two outfits a day to be able to show off all the adorable hand-me-downs we've been given!)

And yesterday she kicked her feet in the bathtub and splashed for the first time. This is all very exciting!