Still growing

A favorite face - it may not be the most beautiful picture of Dear Alex, but it captures her personality of late perfectly - Beautiful Wife and I call it the 'crinkle nose' face. It's usually accompanied by a giggle or a squeal of delight, and it's Dear Alex's most profound expression of happiness. I live for that. BW and I got into a conversation this weekend about the nature of things lilscreamie, (not the blog, but the dear girl herself) and it's clear that she's developing quite a personality, and that she really is very smart - that's an easy and obvious self-congratulatory place to get to when talking about your own child, but the conversation was more about how easy it is to forget that she's still really a baby.

Dear Alex watches the world, and listens - and is now at the parrot stage with words - anything you say may and will likely be used right back at you later, sometimes recombined in funny ways. It's her way of trying things out, and it's delightful to get little glimpses of how her mind works. She's at turns questioning, serious, and declarative - and you really get a sense of her take on the world. The only thing that makes you realize that there's still a baby in there is those moments when something goes wrong, and Dear Alex doesn't yet have the words to tell us what's bothering her - or the patience or experience with the world to understand that whatever it is, it's not permanent. Our job, I guess, is to help her through the worst of those screaming moments with patience and reassurance, but we're still having a really hard time understanding what could possibly be so hard about going to bed or having a diaper change?