Friday, January 23, 2009

ayla's amazing update

greetings dear family,


we had such a wonderful time seeing you all on the east coast. now we are settling back into our portland lives, and all is well. this is belated, but so are most things with a babe in arms...

last thursday i went to a new mamas group at alma. i met some other ladies and babes,and I was also able to weigh her, and she came in, naked, at 12 lb 14 oz! She's surely over 13 pounds now, a week later. ayla was invited to model for a photo shoot for a new ad for alma! Yes, she is that beautiful, and it isn't just us that thinks so! In fact, she has taken to riding in the moby wrap carrier facing outwards, and at the grocery recently, three people stopped me to say, "sorry, but I just have to say she is so cute/pretty/beautiful and engaged/interested/alert!" Yes, that's really true.

We've begun to enjoy 'conversations' with her severl minutes long. She coos and makes various sweet and amusing sounds in response to our questions and statements. She is also more accurately mimicing me sticking out my tongue at her, getting some really long and pointy tongue faces! She's getting more adept with her hands, holding onto things now a little longer, sometimes bringing them to her face/mouth. She's still not finding her thumb, but seems content with various hand parts between her gums.

Since we returned from our trip, she has been sleeping in shorter spells than before, rarely longer than three hours at a time through the night. That's a bit of a bummer and begining to take a toll on me, but she is happy as can be. She's certainly becoming a daddy's girl too; Ayla just beams and does her silent giggles whenever he walks in the room.

Ayla has also shown her clearly brilliant and advanced nature this week with an increased engagement with books! The past few days she seems to really attend to the pages and images in Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see? and has done likewise with some pages of The Very Hungry Catepillar as well, touching them or seeming to really concentrate on them in a sustained way.


She and Jason are camped out on the couch and the dinner I'm preparing of tandori mustard chicken, sweet potatoes, and lemon butter kale is just about coming together. This much for now, and love to all,
Leigh