Imagine my surprise...

For the past few weeks or so, when Miss Diana makes her first little noises in the morning, Mommy has just let her be in her crib to amuse herself and sometimes, she falls back asleep. This allows Mommy to get a few minutes of much needed extra rest. Well, this morning, Miss Diana started talking to herself around 7:15. Mommy decided this was much too early to wake up, so she let her stay in her crib. She talked for a little while, but after about 30 minutes, all was quiet. So Mommy figured Diana fell back asleep and did likewise. Then, around 8:25, Miss Diana started yelling. This is Mommy's cue to go in and rescue the little darling from her crib. However, Mommy was not quite prepared for what she found.

When Mommy put Diana back to sleep at 2 this morning, she looked like this...(asleep, of course).

When Mommy went in at 8:15, Miss Diana had somehow wriggled her way into this position. I have no idea how she got like this...it makes me wish we had one of those video baby monitors so I could have witnessed this evolution.

Mommy and Me

Who's happiest, the little girl in pink, the big girl in purple, or the camera man who gets to live with them both each day?

Answer: #3

Trip to Atlanta

Since Scott had a long weekend for MLK day, we made a trip up to Atlanta to see Uncle John and Auntie Liz. It just so happened that the Packers were playing in the NFC championship game that weekend, so John and Liz had some friends over to watch the game. During the pregame festivities, Diana, being the curious young girl that she is, reached out to touch that funny looking object Daddy was carrying around. Come to find out, it was cold...hmm. Very interesting. It didn't take long for Diana to have both hands around this cold new object, and of course, since she's almost 5 months, after her hands go on something, it very quickly finds its way into her mouth. Being the wonderful father that he is, Scott immediately hands the beer to Becky and runs for the camera so that he could capture this moment that perhaps only Packer fans could love...a young Packer fan enjoying her first encounter with a good Wisconsin beer.





Of course, not wanting DCFS to come and interrupt the game, picture time quickly ended (or so we thought) when we took the nice cold bottle away from Ms. Diana. She starts attending meetings next week after we captured her reaction in the next two photos.

"Hey now, give that back!"

Diana had another first experience this weekend. Diana met her first new friend her own age, Jack. Jack was born just a few months before Diana, and they got to spend most of the afternoon in the same room together. For a little while before the Packer game started, they actually got a little time to interact. Dad is very pleased to see that his little girl is showing early signs of being confident and assertive. She seemed very comfortable being introduced to a fellow little person...

...almost too comfortable. Ten minutes after meeting this guy, and she's already giving out hugs. Look out!! There go at least 2 more gray hairs for Dad, and she's not even 5 months old yet.

After all the pregame festivities, we finally got down to business. Unfortunately, Miss Diana was not able to stay up for the whole game. Had she been able to, we're sure the outcome would have been different.

Yucky Spoon

At Diana's 4 month check-up, the doctor told Mommy that we could start introducing solid foods any time we felt comfortable. So Mommy decided to start slowly, first by introducing a spoon as something that goes in your mouth. See for yourself what Miss Diana thinks about that prospect...

Crying is for little babies

This is not a repeat photo...I promise.

As you can see by these first three pictures, Thursday, January 3, was the day Mommy has been dreading since the last week of October. Today was the day Diana had to go back to the doctor for a second round of shots. After the 30 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing in the doctors office during the first round of innoculations by Becky and the 20 minutes of heart wrenching crying by Diana, Mommy expected another difficult day waiting in anticipation for that horrible moment, knowing that her poor, helpless daughter would be poked repeatedly by needles in her chubby little legs. When the moment of truth finally arrived, Diana cried for about 2 minutes...then stopped.

Proving that crying is for little babies, Diana showed off her much more advanced forms of showing displeasure after those first 2 minutes by furrowing her eyebrows and glaring at the world with the cutest little pouting face. By the time Daddy got home from work, Diana had forgiven the world for causing her this great discomfort, and she even smiled a bit for these cute pics of her new band-aids.

This photo was not taken today. It was actually taken late in the day yesterday after Diana had shown us a new found skill. After a couple weeks of showing signs of wanting to interact more with her environment, reaching out and touching things nearby, and even the occasional lean forward, Diana surprised both Mommy and Daddy by her new abilities to show what she wants.

After a wonderful morning spent together, Daddy and Diana were walking around the living room with Diana sitting in Daddy's arms so that her back was to her Daddy's chest. Both dad and daughter were perfectly content. Suddenly, out of the bedroom walked Mom. Without any hesitation, both Diana's arms immediately stretched out towards Mommy as she leaned forward, clearly saying, "Mommy! Come take me away from the Daddy-man. I'm done with him." (It was only well later that she graced us with this rather unhappy face.)

Pictures of our happy little candy cane are much more pleasant to look at.

Then, of course, there's this one where Diana tries on one of her bath robes for the first time. I can almost hear her thinking, "Well, now that I'm so big, I guess I'd better start wearing big people things like bath robes. I sure am going to miss my snuggly hooded towels though."

And finally, tonight, I've got to share with you something that we all know but sometimes fail to remember. That, of course, is...LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER.

On December 22, I thought the best Christmas present I would receive this year would be having my mom and sister with me to celebrate Diana's first Christmas. On December 24, my sister almost topped that by giving me the best scrap book I think she's ever made. However, by the 26th, my mom had given me the best gift of all. Knowing that I have had many frustrating experiences trying to get my little girl to fall asleep, quickly giving Diana to her mother after crying a while, and having had easy grandmotherly success throughout her weekend here, my mother, rocking her soundly sleeping grandaughter during her morning nap, looked up at her son and said in simple, motherly wisdom and direction, "You just need to be a little more patient."

And, of course, she was right. At least 4 times this past weekend, Dad showed that he really can show more patience than his daughter can show discontent. The reward of snuggle time with a sleeping Diana is worth more than any of the stress of involved in getting her there.

Thanks, Mom.