We had dinner with some of Stephan's old friends (and my new friends) on Saturday night. They gave us the best parenting advice: make a collection of quotes/memorable moments of your kids so you can go back and look at it and tell the stories of when so and so said such and such. Well, that's what this is for me. A place to memoralize all of the wonders of childhood and parenthood.
Over the past few days Stephan and I have been having magical conversations with Liana Joy. She'll coo and ooo, and we'll make the sounds back to her. She tries again to make the same noises. She tries to stick out her tongue when we do. When we make eye contact it brings a huge smile to my face. There's a sweet person behind those eyes, a soul that God created. I'm so excited to know her more and more. There's a conversation that's happening. There aren't words as we use them, but amazingly, we don't need them to communicate. I don't know what happens in her mind - maybe it's good feelings, a deep sense of knowing that she's loved, delighted in, and not alone. I hope so. Perhaps it's not her mind that's communicating, but her soul, her spirit, Liana Joy. By the look on her face, I know she knows that she's loved. That's too wonderful for words! I look forward to continuing our conversations, how they will change and grow as each of us changes and grows. I am excited to know her talking voice, her singing voice. Now, I love hearing her little coos and ooos, and know they won't last for long. So, I offer my feeble words in an effort to hold them in my heart and mind forever.
In addition to cooing and ooing, lately she's also found her fist and fingers. Now she has the motor control to keep them in her mouth. Last month, she would get her hand to her mouth, almost by surprise, and then - poof! it was gone. Not anymore! That little fist is under her control and try as she may, she can't quite get the whole thing in her mouth. She'll have to settle for a few fingers ;)
I need to tell - perhaps to my daughter's chagrin - a couple of little stories. Liana Joy has been a sneezer since the first hour she was born - and a triple sneezer at that. She makes this sweet little chirpy noise and then sneezes - usually 3 times. Well, we discovered - after a messy floor - that sometimes when she sneezes she also toots and poops. It makes for an amusing diaper change in the middle of the night when she - being as cute and feminine as a 3 month old can be - gives a mighty sneeze that results in mustard yellow poo being sprayed on the floor 4 feet away. This also happened when we spent a weekend at the beach for Stephan's 40th birthday. I was changing her on the counter and "wepree ahchoo", she sneezed, and sprayed me and the bathroom floor. Auntie Rachel offered to help clean it up. After she started, I told her she could take Liana and I would clean up the poo. She gladly accepted the offer. :)
For the past month or so we've been taking her to sit on the potty right before we put a new diaper on her. I honestly think she likes it. She gets a big smile and 80% of the time does a pee pee on the potty. Sometimes we even catch her doing the 2 (that's April's way of saying pooping). It's very cute.
She's had several nicknames so far: Squeaker is one of Stephan's first nicknames for her. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it's grown on me. We call her squeaker because she makes little squeaky noises. She's starting to grow out of them and into other sounds. We call her pud - short for puddin'. She likes to stretch both of her arms up straight up over her head - that's her wonder woman pose, or perhaps she's signaling a touchdown! I like to call her by her full name - LianaJoy - it just rolls off my tongue nicely.
In the past couple of weeks she has started to look around a lot more. So, when she's eating she gets distracted by all that's going on. At home in the rocking chair, she eats, stops, checks out the ceiling fan, eats some more, checks to make sure the fan is still there, eats some more, checks again, and so it goes. Sometimes she catches my eyes in between her love affair with the fan and stops and smiles really big and beautiful.
So, that's all for today's post. I am going to try to figure out how to put a video of her on here. We'll see how that goes.
Next up will likely be some excerpts and thoughts on The Shack. I just finished it a few minutes ago and am letting it wash over me.
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