TODAY:: MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT AYLA JUNE

My baby girl is growing up so fast!

And I truly do love it. Sure, sometimes I look back on the photos from the newborn stage and feel nostalgic for those days…but honestly, it is so endlessly rewarding, exciting, and FUN to watch that itty bitty baby grow and develop and discover new things.  We’re at the stage now where anything within reach of her little hands is fair game for grabbing, so it makes meal times interesting. She’s a quick little thing, and there have been a lot of close calls where a plate of food almost ends up on the floor when she gets ahold of the placemat underneath it.

She has moved to a four-hour routine, and it’s been so handy to have a longer stretch between feedings. It took a week or two to move from the three-hour to four-hour, but now that we are there, she is napping much better. It was a little rough for about a week while she was trying to transition, but I think we’re past the hump now!

My favorite things that she does these days is::

…her laughs and giggles! She is still a little conservative with her out-loud laughs, but we try our best to coax them out of her every day. They just melt me! She loves when you take a blanket and float it down on top of her and then pull it off and say “boo,” and most times, that will get her giggling at least a little.

…she will start to get all excited and take these short little breaths when we go to get her unstrapped from her car seat. Her eyes start to light up and her hands start moving around in eagerness to get out. She does really well in the car seat and travels well, but she’s always happy to get out once we’re out of the car too.

…when I go in to get her up from a nap, the minute she sees me, she gets a big smile on her face and starts wiggling in excitement. I love to just let her lay there for a few minutes and talk at her and those after-sleep happy smiles are the sweetest. She’ll even give a big grin in the middle of the night when she wakes up and I go in to get her back to sleep, although I don’t let it coax me into chatting with her at that hour!

…how she loves her daddy. She often gets a little shy when Ben comes home from work and kisses her and talks to her…kinda looking away shyly and then looking back at his face for a few minutes before she breaks into her smiles. Then he’ll take her and she will just lay still on his chest…it’s the dearest sight! We stopped in at Ben’s work the other day, and were talking with some of the ladies who work there for a while, and she just looked around at everyone with her serious eyes…but the minute we stepped into Ben’s office and she saw him, she broke into a big smile.

…she’s starting to love her bath time more and will kick her legs and make big splashes. The bath is also a handy tool when she’s upset and we can’t seem to calm her down. She’ll lay in the tub and forget all about whatever she was upset about, hehe.

What about you: what is a current favorite thing about your child/children?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!