The Harris Family

As Elsa comes up on two months old, she’s starting to exhibit all sort of new behaviors and skills. It seems that she learns something new almost every day now.

Since she was a few weeks old, Elsa would do little bits of “baby talk,” but over the last two weeks she’s become downright chatty. She’ll sit in her chair and talk and talk with us, sometimes for a half hour at a time. We don’t know exactly what she’s saying, but she’s markedly expressive and animated, both in her vocal inflections and her facial expressions.

She’s also learning to reliably grasp her first object: a beautiful silver rattle that was a gift from Lynne’s cousin Carolyn and her family Harry, Michael (our ring bearer), and David. It’s just the perfect size for her little hands to clasp, and it makes an entrancing jingling sound which she loves.

All that said, what Elsa is most interested in is trying to figure out a way to stick the rattle in her mouth.

She’s not quite coordinated enough to target her mouth accurately yet (not to mention that her mouth is way too small to fit the rattle in anyway), but we are consistently amused with watching her try.

Here are a few minutes of video of Elsa playing around with her rattle:

As we were preparing to give Elsa a bath a few days ago, I set her on the bed in just her diaper.

She was happy: playing, kicking, punching and smiling. It’s amazing how much bigger and more regularly interactive she’s gotten in just six-and-a-half weeks!

We’re giving her real baths now (not just sponge baths), and while Elsa seemed disinclined to like the water initially, by the end of her first bath she was enjoying herself cautiously. That is, at least, until we briefly put her head in the water…

Here are a few action shots of Elsa lounging on the bed prior to her soak:

On the Bed

Elsa’s had a fun week so far this week!

We took a short outing to Phantom Lake, where we strolled her along the gravel trail. She seemed to enjoy everything except the ride home. Most babies (we hear) love riding in the car, but Elsa merely tolerates it. What she does not tolerate, however, is red lights. As soon as the car rolls to a stop, Elsa cries in protest until we start up again. Suffice it to say that we are learning which routes have fewer stops and how to slowly roll into red lights with the hope that they’ll be green before we get to the intersection!

Elsa laughed for the first time yesterday at a funny face Lynne was making. Her smiles are becoming more frequent, especially in the morning when she’s generally in her best mood of the day.

As a sort of warm-up for Valentine’s Day, we put on Elsa’s “pink hearts” outfit yesterday for the first time. She looked so cute that I had to take a few snapshots!

Pretty in Pink

I’ve posted a lot of close-up pictures of Elsa, and thus it’s easy to lose sight of how small she really is.

Here’s a picture of her lying on our smallish rug in our living room: