Too few

Unfortunately the updates here have been few and far between. This doesn't mean that LS's life has gotten boring or anything. Although, she has taken quite an interest in napping now, particularly since starting on the solid food. 3.5 hours is longest so far!

There's been a request for pictures with Froggy - and we'll have one of those photo sessions soon. In the meantime, one thing we wanted to document was a new behavior LS started last week - though it's tailed off. She just decided that it was going to be fun to wrinkle up her nose and breathe loudly. Mom caught it on tape last week when it was a new thing.

You'll only waste 10 seconds of your life watching it...



LS is starting to roll over more now. At this point "more" means "a few times"... Though yesterday when Dad went to get her after her nap she was found stuck on her stomach. She didn't seem too happy about it, since it didn't seem she could get back onto her back from where she was. And she apparently had kicked her sock off trying!

She's definitely proud of the strength she's gaining - as you may detect in the picture below taken earlier today! Talk about a ham...

Half way around

A few days ago, LS marked the half-way point of her first trip around the sun. What a voyage so far.

We somewhat arbitrarily picked this as the time to start feeding LS "solid" food. Although "solid" in this case is a misnomer, that could more accurately be described as "non-milk". Then again, a good portion of it is actually milk. So, hm, it's more like "milk with a little other stuff mashed in".

Anyway - to start out with we ground some brown rice, got out the camera, and got down to business!

LS was pretty shy about the experience at first, which you can see in the first video here. At the end of the video you can just imagine LS saying "please, why are they doing this to me?" as she peers longingly into the camera.



By a couple days later, LS was much more expert. This next video shows her with the hang of it. We get a nice extreme close-up at the end.

Hangin out

Real Spring weather is finally upon us. Yesterday was up around 70, and today's high was around 90 apparently. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same.

Mom got to go to the studio to work on a hat while LS had a nap on Friday afternoon. She's been having pretty good naps here and there - not entirely consistently, but nice when they come. Some days she'll take a 2 hour nap, and one day even had two!

Anyway, when LS woke up yesterday afternoon she didn't cry - she just laid there and was apparently practicing here "words". Mostly "Ooo" and "Uuh", maybe an occassional "Agoo". That seems to be the vocabulary, with some different pitch variations thrown in to shake things up.

After 15 minutes or so, we called Mom to come home, and LS and dad went out and sat on the front steps to wait for her to come by.

It was a nice tranquil moment. LS sat on my lap there, taking in the Friday afternoon goings-on of the neighborhood. She watched the neighbor doing some chore or another for a while, no doubt amused that life should be anything other than getting carried around and looked after.

There were nice sounds to point out. A dog barking a few houses over ("O cão!"). Birds flying around ("Podes ouvir o pássaro?"). A bee buzzing around the bushes ("Abelha" - though not like the "abelha" LS has inside with the rattle in its tail!).

At one point LS looked up into the nearby trees, which are just starting to bud and are mostly branches against sky.

Oooo! ...Uuuh!

I agree.

Easter

Well, we had a first this year. The Easter Bunny actually stopped by to visit. We even got it to stay long enough to get some pictures. We really wanted LS to meet the Easter Bunny, but we never managed to get them in the same room at the same time. Strangest thing.

Today a spoon, tomorrow the world

We decided today that we'd give LS a chance to get used to using a spoon by giving her some breast milk at dinner. That might sound fairly awkward. However, the milk was first put into a little cup.

We figured we should capture LS's first experiences with the spoon, so here they are.



To our surprise, three minutes later we got the camera back out so we could capture LS doing very well with the spoon.



We might make some steak out on the grill tomorrow night. So we'll see if there's as much success with a fork and knife.

Five

Do you know where you were 151 days ago? We certainly do.

The picture here was taken two days ago. We're pretty sure that if you haven't fallen in love with LS yet, that this picture will likely push you over the edge.

In the last few days LS has moved on from her open-mouth talking to incorporating a "blowing bubbles" approach, or you might describe it as a raspberry style.

We'll let her do the rest of the talking for this post (filmed earlier today).

Gato!

Nicki has gotten much braver over the months - at least with regards to LS. Whenever she comes around now, we say "Gato!" to LS. Nicki has learned that this is Portuguese for "Come here kitty so we can have LS pet you!".

We got this picture last week. Tolerant eh?

This video was shot yesterday. It just shows that Nicki will take attention wherever she can get it.