3 Months

This past week Violet passed the 3-month mark.  She has been here with us a whole quarter of a year, over a dozen weeks.

She is such an amazing, beautiful baby.  She is so happy so much of the time and hardly ever fusses, so obviously having emerged from the unsettled chaos of newborn life into the plump contentment of babyhood.  Sometimes I just want to rub my face on her sweet soft cheeks or her squishy rotund belly.  Sometimes I do.

She still loves her changing table, perhaps most of any other place in the house.  When she was going through her (blessedly short) phase of evening crying jags, that was sometimes the one place we could put her that would placate her.  Unfortunately it's not somewhere you can leave a baby unattended, but it does mean that she never screams during diaper changes, which is nice.  Our best guess about this spot's charm is that it is right below these black frames and the high contrast appeals to her baby brain.

She smiles now-- real smiles, huge open-mouthed smiles full of joy and glee at the fact that we're interacting with her.  It's as if she's discovering that she's a human being, and yes, all these other creatures around here who carry her and feed her and talk to her are human beings too!  Sometimes she smiles when we coo and talk and sing to her, when we're working so hard to elicit that smile.  Sometimes, though, she smiles when I'm busy and my eyes just brush over hers on the way to something else, like she's the one who is going to work hard to get me to smile.

It works.