" "Ah-goo," "Ah-goo," to You & You & You-oo..."

Carly has had many new developments this week.  She is SO much older than she was when we were in Iowa!  I don't say that to make you sad that you aren't seeing her...I say that out of pure astonishment at how much she changes each week.  The bummer for those who visit often is that she likely wont react the same way to something that worked the last time you saw her.  BUT... I will try to keep you in the loop so whenever you do see her you can be an expert at her language. :)  Carly is starting to see really far.  The three of us were on a walk this weekend and she was hanging out in her stroller (a new thing...she is actually enjoying it now).  She got a bit fussy so a started walking next to her rather than behind her (she was facing forward...imagine that...my daughter has an opinion about what direction she'd like to face on a walk...which, of course, is out).  Two weeks ago I would have had to lean down to talk to her, but she made eye contact with me standing straight up.  Cool!  And, she stopped fussing.  I think she just wanted to know that she wasn't alone.  Because she can see better and better, we've been exposing her to more and more things to look at and watch.  I had been noticing that when she would get bored in the evenings that Brian would walk her over and look in the mirror.  So I decided to try it and oh my did we have fun!  She really enjoys looking at the baby in the mirror!  She would purse out her lips, stick out her tongue, smile at herself, then look up and smile at me.  We must have had at least ten good minutes of fun while looking in the mirror!  Another night Brian looked sleepy, so I told him to go to bed.  Then I realized I hadn't done anything to prepare for bedtime so I took her into our bathroom to brush my teeth.  I set her on her Boppy on the floor and then got down on my knees and brushed my teeth in front of her face.  She may have thought that was the funniest thing she had ever seen!  Why would mama ever have a stick going in and out of her mouth so fast?!  She also reacts the same way to the spoon in my mouth when I eat my morning bowl of cereal.

Oh this is getting long but there is still so much to tell!  The biggest, I think, is how much she is talking!  She loves to converse with us and her little voice couldn't be more precious to listen to!  Since she was about 3 weeks old, we have been saying "Ah-goo" to her.  She smiles every time we say it and this week she said it back! I'm not joking, I said "Ah-goo" and she repeated the exact same thing!  I've read that it's very beneficial for language development to have a mixture of both "baby talk" (coos and babbles) and "adult talk."  I talk to her all day long, usually explaining what I'm doing as we walk around the house, or telling her what the plans for the day are or re-capping them at night.  But I also throw in some babbles to encourage her, since those are the only sounds she can make.  Very fun and very exciting!

Carly's awake time is really starting to stretch.  She can go 2 hours now without being fussy.  She is so fun to hang out with when she is just a happy little thing.  Sometimes she is still ready for a nap after an hour and a half, but by 3 months old (only 3 weeks away...yikes!) she should be taking 3, 2-hour naps throughout the day rather than having to sleep every hour and a half.

Her interest in toys has certainly grown this week.  She just loves to look at her spider.  She even started batting at it and would grab hold of the rings (accidentally, of course).  I've read that I should continue to dangle items over her and applaud her when she bats at it to improve her confidence.  These photos show just how much she loves Spider:

 I wanted to know what was so darn interesting about spider, so I decided to take a look from her vantage point.  Don't you think it's pretty cool?

 Another thing I've really noticed this week is her desire to sit up (as you see in the above pics).  Most babies like to play on their backs, with an adult cooing over them.  Not Carly.  She wants to sit up and be played with that way.  So I pulled out the Bumbo this week to see if she would enjoy watching me make dinner.  She sure did!  Now...that doesn't mean she let me cook the entire meal, her attention span is still only about 10 minutes, but it did allow me to get a few things done in the kitchen.  We also have been sitting her up on the couch in between us and she seems to enjoy being just like us.  She will sit there for quite a while just looking around before she asks one of us to pick her up.  I think that's why she now enjoys the stroller, because she gets to sit up and look around...plus she just adores being outside!  I am so grateful that she is starting to become more independent.  I loved having her depend on me every second, but 2 months was sufficient for that.  I've been able to jog with her in the stroller, and one day this week I was able to get 3 miles in before she was ready to be taken out of the stroller (she was sleeping for part of it).  It's been a blessing to exercise and I've finally started to lose some weight.  I still have 10-15 pounds to take off before I will actually begin to feel "good" about myself, but I'll get there.  Each time I look in the mirror I just cringe.  But, I shouldn't have gained freaking 65 pounds while I was pregnant!  I know that my body will carry how it wants to carry (aka...extra weight from the massive amount of water retention), but I also had my fair share of sweets.  It was like, once I got to 32 weeks and was just a whale, I stopped caring.  Next time I will need to eat healthy foods, high in protein, low in fat and complex carbs plus fruits and veggies....rather than whatever I want.  Nevertheless, it's exciting to watch her become more independent and have preferences.

Last thing for today is that we have started dancing.  She is just a pro at holding her head up, so holding her tush and back we can swoop around the living room to music.  She likes the spinning most of all...too bad I get dizzy! ;)