Baby smiles are the sweetest thing ever. Anna is officially smiling now. She has been for a few days but I didn't want to write it down as official until it was something I could get her to do by talking to her. This morning she was smiling up a sweet little storm for me. It was so wonderful. My heart overflowed with happiness and tears came to my eyes. I remember after Lydia smiled at me for the first time that I wrote that I wanted to feel the same way (excitement, love, happiness, etc) with all our kids when they smiled for the first time. Well, I did. It wasn't any less special just because it was the second child. It was a very special moment. I can't believe Anna is already smiling. She's just growing up too fast already! Even though the baby stage isn't my favorite I still feel like I'd like her to take her time getting older. :)
The baby stage isn't nearly as trying when the baby sleeps well though and I have to say that (so far) Anna is doing a great job sleeping at night. Last night she did one almost six hour stretch- then two then three. She ate around 7:30 and went to bed at 8:00 then didn't get up again till 1:30 then again at 4 and then not till 7. Lydia didn't get up until 7 either so I was able to get up and do some things around the house and just have some 'me time' for a whole hour before anyone needed me. I enjoyed that! :)
Today is a rainy day- actually, we're supposed to get some snow this evening. blah. But the weekend forecast looks really nice. So since we can't go outside today we built a tent in the living room and had some fun with that. I've done tents before but Lydia never cared about them until this one. She had fun in the tent playing games, doing puzzles and reading books with me. She is napping right now but we still have a tent in the middle of the living room. I figure she'll want to show it to Daddy when he gets home from work. We were doing a puzzle of noah's ark that has two of every animal (of course). I was referring to the animals as having friends- like: "there is one cow. where is the cow's friend?". I asked Lydia who her friends are. She said "uummmm" (which she says a lot and is really cute). I didn't offer her any suggestions and after a little while she said "Dada!!" I said "yes, Dada is a good friend" To which she replied "Dada hold me" and made her arms like a hug around herself. What a sweet little girl I have. And what a wonderful Daddy she has too! I think it is really special that she knows that her Daddy loves her and that he is her friend. :)
Another wonderful thing Lydia is doing today is telling me when she needs to pee. She had a dry diaper all morning then this afternoon I think she told me she peed right when she was doing it- but it is still great progress I think. Maybe we'll be trained by two! But I'm still not holding her to it...when she's ready she'll be trained, until then I'll just keep doing what we've been doing for the last six months or so. :) :)
I believe Anna is ready for some "mama milk" (as Lydia calls it). If I can see over the tent from the sofa I think I'll see what is on TV. ;)