My little punkin is starting to show so much personality. Even when it’s not desirable that she do so.

For example, I took her to get pictures taken, just because, and made sure to do so in the morning, right after she woke up and was fed, and was the most bubbly, coo-y, adorably sweet baby possible. She babbled in the car while playing with her beloved dragonfly toy – crinkle crinkle crinkle – she smiled at me when I took her out and carried her into JCPenny, she cooed as we waited our turn and didn’t even ask to be taken out of her car seat.

The photographer told us we were next, had set up the little seat for her to sit in and just asked me to set her down. Which I did. And Aria started getting fussy. I’m not sure if it was too warm in there, if she didn’t want to be set down, or what, but she didn’t really like what we were doing. The photographer tried to make her smile by making funny noises. I helped and together we got a couple of really quick but sweet smiles out of her, but then she resorted to fussy-town. We rearranged her and tried different angles, but she wasn’t really having it.

Then the photographer tried again to make her smile…by going “I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha!”

Aria screamed. Her face turned red around her eyes, the bottom lip popped out, and she just started crying like the lady had pinched her. She told me to pick the baby up, that she wasn’t going to get any better sitting there, and as I did I turned to walk around with her a little and the photographer told me that Aria turned her head over my shoulder, stuck her lip out at her, and pouted right at her. Angrily.

They offered to let me try to re-happify her while they took another client, so I walked back out into the lobby area and played with her. I sat her on the couch next to me and at first she started to cry but stopped pretty quickly when I started doing the normal talking and playing with her. She started smiling. Then some little laughs. Then cooing back at me.

When they said we could come back Aria was in a fine place and I was hopeful we’d get some new good pictures. I sat her down and WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

That was the end of picture day.

Really it was best because there were only a couple good pictures for me to purchase, so I didn’t spend gobs of money, guiltily buying everything even remotely good. 🙂

A couple nights later we went to BSF, as usual. She’s become pretty used to the drill, and has even received gifts because the ladies just think she’s so cute. She was an angel all night long, sleeping during the group time, then nursing quietly, and then during the lecture she played quietly (mostly quietly) and wasn’t too distracting, sitting in her car seat on the floor next to my chair.

Well.. she was a little distracting. She had just gotten a new cloth book with really crinkly pages and she was enjoying talking to it as she violently crinkled pages then crammed them in her face. We were sitting in the back, and ladies in the row in front of us would periodically turn to look at her. I asked if she was distracting and while they said no, truly she was… not in a bad way, but distracting nonetheless.

So I took it from her, set it in a chair next to us, and gave her back the dragonfly which is a little less noisy.

She took the dragonfly, crinkled it a little, stopped, looked up at the book, would almost imperceptibly sigh, then slowly draw the dragonfly wing into her mouth, all the while still watching that book to make sure it didn’t go anywhere. Then sit quietly for a second looking at the dragonfly, then look back up at the book to see if it was still there.

The lady next to me started laughing. I turned to her and whispered, “she really wants that book!” and she agreed. So I gave in and handed the book back to Aria, who proceeded to coo and crinkle madly again.

At the end, one of the ladies who had been nearby in front of us came over and commented on how adorable she is and asked if she could hold the baby. I handed her over and in less than 10 seconds she started screaming. Flat out screaming. I was quickly handed the baby back. It had been so quiet a moment before, so a screaming baby drew attention. As ladies were leaving they stopped by, “What happened? She was so good!”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said, “Oh it’s past her bedtime and she’s tired..”

While that lady was still standing there she was muttering, “it’s because I held her.. “

So then my friend Erica walks up and smiles at Aria and wouldn’t you know the baby stopped crying and smiled back. I really hope the cry-inducing lady wasn’t nearby when that happened. I felt so rude, on behalf of my baby.

She has also made it known how much she enjoys sitting up, grabbing my thumbs or fingers and pulling, even when I have no intention of helping her to a sitting position. Or the airplane game which always makes her smile, even when she’s the most unhappily miserable baby ever there was. In fact a couple nights ago we had a flashback night – for the first time in a really really long time she was really fussy and wouldn’t be put to bed. She refused to nurse, she refused to cuddle, she didn’t want to sit or be read to or anything. We tried everything we could think of from changing the diaper to the onesie, from gas medicine to fever medicine (over the course of an hour), tried burping and swaddling.. etc. We tried everything that had potentially ever worked before, but she wouldn’t stop crying.

I decided to flip her over, put her on my knees as I lie on the bed, and flew her around like my little airplane. And a huuuuge grin burst out. As soon as I stopped a pout started to form and she started to revert to crying, so I zoomed her around some more and got more smiles. It was ridiculous because it was clear she really wanted to cry but just couldn’t help herself when she was an airplane and mommy was smiling up at her. I showed Eric because it was so funny; I handed him a crying baby and said, “make her an airplane” which he did and was rewarded with a sad but huge smile. Poor baby.

Well we eventually got her to sleep by walking around the house singing. She fell asleep on my shoulder, so I went to lay her down in her bassinet and she immediately woke up and started crying again. So I picked her back up, walked around a little more, and went through all of Amazing Grace that I know. When I felt her head thunk on my shoulder I tried again and was rewarded with a soft whimper, a sigh, then silence. Tucked in, she slept for most of the night before waking up again. And blessedly nursed happy as normal when she did wake up.

She’s incredibly vocal and especially loves to carry on conversations with people who really know how to talk to a baby, loves to smile big toothless gummy grins (and will smile at pretty much everyone except the two ladies mentioned above), is a cuddle hog, has a very expressive face and hands that want to touch everything, and is almost always happy unless something is truly wrong. We’re so blessed to have such a sweet and easy baby. I love her soooooooooooooooooo much.


Posted by in Baby Blues