Still our surprise baby

Libby has been full of surprises since the day we found out she was joining our family. Libby was a surprise. As in "Surprise! I'm pregnant!" I've always been irregular, but I had a weird feeling about things back in January 2009. I thought it had been a long time, even in the face of the stress of starting a new semester and a new exercise regimen. I thought I should take a pregnancy test "to be sure I'm not pregnant". But I was. The blue line showed up immediately, as soon as it was wet. No wonder--I was already at least 8 weeks along!

She then surprised us by being two weeks early, but that's not what I want to talk about today.

Lately, her surprises have been to learn a new skill allofasudden. I had been fretting for 2-3 weeks about when she would start enjoying standing up (with help) and when consonant sounds would emerge. This week, she started both like she's been doing them for weeks. Old hat.

I am not kidding. Last week, when I took her to the portrait studio on Wednesday, the photographer wanted to get a pic of her standing with me just out of the shot holding her hands. She refused to keep her legs straight like a toddler in tantrum mode. This week, all she wants to do is stand. I was trying to show her how to hold onto the crib rail while standing, but she's not quite ready for that.

So far, the only consonant I have heard is "d", as in "ah-da" and "da-da-da", but I am excited for more! The cooing has been adorable, but come on, she's been doing it since Thanksgiving. I was ready for more language development. And the new babbling is really fun.

She's also started razzing like it's her job. She first started doing that back in January (figured out how to do it while nursing, yay), but it hasn't been a frequent occurrence until now.

Sigh. I love her.