Likes and dislikes

Hannah is five months old and is becoming more and more independent (!). In some ways it's heartbreaking because it's going by so damn fast.

However, she's smashing through milestones so quickly and we can't help but be amazed.

I threw out the What to Expect the First Year long ago so, I don't really remember when certain milestones are supposed to happen. We pretty much rely on the doctor to tell us if she's on target or, we'll go back and look at when Ryan hit milestones to see if Hannah is on the same trajectory.

Her teachers are a good barometer, too. Recently when I picked her up, they told me how she's the youngest baby but, can do everything the bigger babies can do and even some things they haven't done yet.

Basically, that's her compared to four other babies in her age range but, it's still nice to know that she can hang.

As I said, her independence is really showing. Her teachers have a hard time feeding her because she wants to feed herself (bottle and spoon). Bottle, okay sure. Spoon... well, slow your roll kid. That's just a giant mess that mommy's not ready for. She grabs the spoon out of my hand and what I get back is a sticky spoon with pears and slobber all over it. Not at all delightful.

She took to puree's fantastically. Her very first taste was sweet potatoes and she made a face that said "what's this crap?". The second spoon full was "alright, I admit, it's pretty good" and by the third she was grabbing the spoon like a fiend who couldn't get enough of those wonderful sweet potatoes.

With that being said, it's obvious she prefers pears to sweet potatoes. We're sticking with those two for the time being.

Moving on to what she likes and what she really doesn't like...

Likes:
Sucking on her toes
Sucking on everything that comes remotely close to her mouth
Her new teething lion - she bites into that like it's a battle... only one can come out alive
Laughing
Grabbing mommy's hair (and refusing to let go - seriously, she has a death grip on my hair)
Feeding herself, thank you very much
Music

Dislikes:
Socks
Carseats
Having her face wiped (who can blame her?)
Having her nose suctioned (again, who can blamer her?)
Being alone for more than ten seconds (hey, where did everyone go?!)

I love seeing her personality blossom and her experiences shape her understanding of things around her.

She's got fantastic and loving caregivers at school and it warms my heart (and my mind) so much to see how good they are with her, and all the babies. The women are so sweet and patient and even noticed (before we did) when she was ready to move up a nipple size on her bottles.

I could post an entire book on how wonderful Christmas was for both of my kids. Suffice it to say Santa and family (and friends) were generous to them both and, above all, they were (and are) surrounded by a tremendous amount of love.

We don't have a huge family, but, it's a tight and loving family - on both sides of the Atlantic.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, too.

I'm already composing the next post but, I'm waiting on events to unfold before I hit publish.
The truth is, I hope that post comes later than sooner but, it's not in my hands.

For now I'll just say I'm wishing you all a happy and safe New Years!