"THWACK!"

Recognize that sound?? "THWACK!"  That would be the sound of little baby hands colliding with a perfect little face, often followed by a perfect little wail of discontent.  Poor Sunshine is learning to use her arms and hands, and this often leads to collisions with her face.  Sigh. Breaks my heart when she starts to cry.  Last week, she started crying and for the first time she produced tears. Real tears!!! On top of that, she started cry talking. I can definitely tell the difference because she is frustrated (insert WHAA here), she wants her diapers changed (another WHAA), or wants to eat (umm, you get the point). Then there is the cry where she hurts, startled herself, of is really pissed off I didn't catch her 0.02second comment where she said she was hungry! This is when she has tears and it just tugs at my heart strings.

However, she now has a stuffed toy in which she becomes animated by, and dad and mom can take a breather from all of our practice facial expressions for a few moments before she realizes her moose is not smiling back.  Yesterday, in the company of Aunt Lori, her little boy, and Aunt Jenny and her little girl, we traversed the wilds of the great NW TREK.  We had such a lovely time, as it was an amazingly beautiful day out, and when in the company of great friends one must seize the moment.  For a donation of $5 or more, you get to pick out a little stuffed moose.  So, being that I love to help the cause and they were very cute moose, I got 3.  One for each of the little ones. Jenny and Lori's kids are 5 weeks and 3-4 months older than Sunshine, so their concept of a stuffed animal was much more animated and, well... oral. The moose promptly went into their mouths.  Sunshine didn't really pay attention as much, but what else is a 9 week old to do?  When we got home, though, it was a total different story.  Sunshine already has a fair share of stuffed toys that she does not know about yet, nor does she care.  This little moose has become a hit. She will watch it go from side to side, and she will try and grab for it.  This is so much fun!!  Yay!!! Plus, she becomes super animated when I try to explain to her that "1 mouse, 2 mice" does not coincide with "1 moose, 2 mooses or mices." (pronounced "mee-ces"). She actually giggles at this, but I am sure it is from mom's animated face, which I am sure is ridiculous.  The things we do for our kids.

On top of that, I got her to bed at 8:30pm, and she woke up twice to eat throughout the night, but promptly went back to sleep until 7:00am.  In fact, I can't seem to keep her up today at all.  She eats, then goes to sleep. Wondering if this is another growth spurt?? But hey, I can finally do some laundry!
So to all of you today, may it be peaceful, beautiful and may you not be plagued by any "THWACKS" in the head.