If there are any questions please raise your hand...

You have developed this interesting habit of raising your hands.  Sometimes it looks like you want to give me a hug, sometimes it looks like you have a question and you are waiting to be called on.  It is just one of those things that needs documented and shared.  So here it is.

Yes, the cute girl down in front?

Grunting to Seven Weeks

I know you are cute and all, but there really is nothing cute about the way you wake up lately.  Except that it is so unusual it is comical and thereby funny.  You grunt and stretch and fight waking up so much I can't help but laugh a little.  It is endearing a little.  The best part about that is I can whole heartedly understand where you are coming from.  I HATE waking up (notice the all caps "HATE").  To me the world just does not exist before 9AM.  OK maybe that is 8AM now but it used to be 9 and I still would rather it be 9.  It takes me a good 20-30 minutes of actively being awake to really be awake.  Sure I might be conscious, but forget about alert and reasonable.  I think I have told your mother that anything I say that early in the morning means nothing.  I also told her the same thing about what I say when it is late and she said that wasn't fair so I will go ahead and stick to the morning being the time of my mouth not communicating with my brain.  Even if the same is true for late nights when I get tired.  I don't know what it is, but I just really do not like mornings.  And it warms me up to know that when you get older you probably won't like them either.  Except Christmas of course.

So you are now seven weeks old!  That is almost two months!  You will be a year old before I know it.  It will most certainly be before you know it because you don't really remember much at this point.  But the time is sure flying by.  You just keep changing little by little.  Your mom was carrying you this morning on her shoulder and I saw you looking back over her shoulder and you were just so alert and looking so far off... you were so cute.  I am a doting daddy, I can't help it.

Smiles and Six Weeks

Your mom was telling me how precious your smiles were the other day.  I have seen a few of them and I thought they were nice.  She had been especially looking forward to the day you would smile at her.  She made it seem like it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Then one day, it happened!  You smiled at her and you meant it.  It wasn't just one of those "yeah-I-am-here-and-I-do-what-I-want-even-if-you-aren't-here" kind of smiles.  You do those often enough when you are waking up.  But this smile, this one where your mom spoke to you and you smiled at her, that made her day, possibly even her week.

So what was the big deal?  It's just a smile.  I figured I had seen plenty of those and it couldn't possibly mean all that much.  Boy was I wrong.

How could you not just LOVE that face?  It was Sunday the day before you turned six weeks old and we were getting ready for church.  You seemed to be pretty happy.  So I thought I would try out this whole make-the-baby-smile routine.  It wasn't too hard since you were so happy that morning.  I just talked in the baby-talk voice (every parent knows what it is) and made some gasping noises like I was breathing high and long, and there it was.  A smile.  Your mom was smart enough to get it on camera.  I gotta tell you, there really is nothing quite like having you smile at us.  It makes all the frustration and doubt and fear and negativity just go away.  It is so precious and awesome.  It is what makes it worth it at this point.  Hugs and saying "I love you" should be what comes next.

Also of note, your mom has started tickling you.  You don't laugh.  And you don't react when I try to tickle you.  But what you do do is grunt and squirm.  The squirming is very reminiscent of being tickled.  If you just imagine the grunting as laughing then it is so obvious that you are laughing.

And now you are six weeks old!  So here is the photo of that.

Five Weeks

So I missed the four week picture.  Let's lead off with the five week picture to be sure we don't miss that.

For some reason today I really missed you at work.  I had you for two hours at church yesterday and more at your grandparent's house and back home.  I had you plenty on Saturday.  You would think that all of that time would hold me over for an 8 hour work day and another hour for travel and the gym.  But while I was working half way through the day I just missed you and wanted to see you and hold you.  I wanted to kiss your chubby cheeks and see your bright eyes looking around.  I want to be there when you start smiling on purpose.  This working stuff is going to be hard.  Your mom has it so easy getting to be with you all the time.

A few other notes - I think your arms are getting longer.  When I hold you, you try to grab my shirt like you do your mom's.  Most of the time this doesn't work for you.  My collar's are higher than your mom's so the only time you usually get a hold of my shirt unless there is a nice wrinkle right by your hand.  But lately, especially today, you have been able to grab my collar.  I don't think I am holding you any higher so that just means your arms are getting longer and you are getting better at controlling them.

Speaking of control - Your mom got some good pictures of you picking your head up off of my chest while I was laying on the bouncy ball.

Look at how high you are!  You are just growing up before our eyes.

Tricks and Quirks

The latest thing you like to do when you are laying on my chest is climb.  Not kind or climb or sort of climb, but full on legitimate climbing.  You will pick one leg up, plant it and push down then repeat with the other leg.  It works really well, especially when I help you our a little bit.  But even when you are on your own you are a climbing machine!  It makes me think that you will be crawling real soon, which would be really early!  That is a neat trick.

A note on the video - This is our first time really trying out the camera we bought so lighten up if the video isn't up to your HD standards.  Hopefully it will get better the more we use it.

As for the quirks, you don't like your car seat.  But sometimes you do.  It is really random when you are good in the car seat but mostly you wail like a banshee when you go in our out of it. 

I think we already discussed the need for a bouncer.  As a side note we popped the on your grandparents loaned us so we had to (and I mean had to) buy another one to keep you happy.

One of my favorite things about you now is your face when you are happy and awake.  I call it "Blue Steel" after the movie Zoolander.  If you haven't seen it, watch it.  Not only will you get it, you will probably laugh some.  It's classic!

Your mom says that you are playing with your tongue more.  I have seen you stick your fingers in your mouth a couple times.  Usually it is on the way up to your face or to pull your headband down over your eyes (a regular occurrence with any headband).

And of course you are still staring off into space when we hold you.  But you have been better about hearing our voices and tracking the sound.  Sometimes I swear that you are really looking at me and thinking deep thoughts.  You look so profoundly at me and I look lovingly back.

What does all this mean?  It means that you are growing up just like you should and developing a personality and specific traits.  You are not just generic baby unit X.  You are Brooklynn Elizabeth Compton.  And you are my daughter and I love you.

4th of July = 4 Weeks

OK.  So the title is a little misleading because the 4th of July is actually a day before your 4 week anniversary.  But is so close I just had to use it for the title.

It is amazing to me that you will be a month old in two more days.  Time flies when you are delirious from lack of sleep.  Good thing for me I am not losing much sleep.  You are still being quite the precious little girl.  Behaving nicely and not acting too fussy.  I think I covered your mood in the last post.

What I wanted to discuss mostly this time was our little 5th of July adventure.  Your cousins Bryson, Addison and Chloe all came over for a barbecue on the 4th and the grown ups decided we would go on a little hike today.  It was just going to be a small hike because first your mom doesn't really like hiking and second she just had surgery 4 weeks ago and shouldn't be exerting herself too much.  Well boy were we wrong!

We were on our way to Cougar Mountain when your Aunt Nicole called asking where we were going.  Our directions didn't match hers so she decided to let us go the way we had planned.  Bad idea.  Everyone ended up at the same place, it was just that place had a pretty rough hike for a post-surgery mom and four parents carrying their kids on their backs/shoulders.

But we all made it through alive.  As you can see in the picture I am carrying you.  This was our first time using the baby carrier.  Your mom had the bright idea of reading the directions on the drive up there.  One of them said to make sure if you fall asleep to put your head to the side to have an unobstructed breathing way.  Well your head was to the side but your hands were up by your face or your nose was smushed up against one of the straps.  So most of the climb I was checking on you to see that you were able to breathe.  Obviously you did fine.  In fact most of the time you slept.  It was kinda nice to have you sleeping on my chest for that long.  It was some quality daddy-daughter cuddle time.  Usually you are all cuddly with your mom after eating then she passes me off to you and you don't want to cuddle any more.  But today you were super nice to me even cuddling up in the restaurant after we were done.

I don't have a close up 4 week picture of you, but I do have a family shot of us after the hike was over.

I think you can tell that you had just woken up.  But you are still our sweet, beautiful little girl.

Colic

I think sometimes babies have the urge to prove their parents wrong.  Your mother and I have been telling everyone what a wonderful angel you are and how easy it is to take care of you because you are so well behaved.  And then you start partying at 3AM.

I exaggerate a bit.  You obviously don't party.  But for the last few nights you have not wanted to go to sleep after your one night time feeding.  And you have been pretty fussy during the day time from what your mom has been saying.  When I get home at night it is hit or miss as to whether or not you need bounced into a comatose state or if you will be OK just hanging out with me.

All that said, I know this too shall pass.  And I love you.  It seems rather weird to want to say it, especially out loud to you, because I know you don't understand.  You might get the tone of it, which is why your mom tells me I can't be sarcastic or mean when I talk to you.  But I really want you to know that despite my frustrations and limited amount of patience I really love you and just want you to be happy.  And to stop crying so your mom can get some sleep.  I practically had to wrestle you away from her last night so you would calm down and she could rest.  (She thinks that she can handle it all at night and I shouldn't wake up because I have to go to work.  I had to tell her we are a team and we do it together.)

The best news though, is that even if you have colic (or the period of PURPLE crying as they lamely called it at the hospital), we know how to soothe you.  On the bouncy ball.  I am sure we would have died by now if not for that yoga ball!

I think you are going to want a trampoline some time in your youth and it will make me laugh when you ask for it.  I don't know what sport involves a lot of bouncing (BMX racing? Basketball?) but I am sure you will want to do that too and it will just make sense.