"GHEEE"

Dear Sweet Sadie,

You are 11 weeks old now and you are conversing with us in your own language. Earlier this morning as I was changing your diaper you informed me, "ah-gheee goo." Your little voice is so sweet. Since you haven't discovered how to turn up the volume yet, your chatty episodes are uttered in a soft, hesitant tone like you are telling us a secret.



Soon you will be 3 months old which, according to the books, is the magic beginning of babyhood proper when you are no longer a newborn. Already you are an easier baby, partly because you are more content in general and learning to communicate in other ways besides crying, and partly because we are getting better at anticipating your your moods and can often give you what you need before you start to squawk. We rarely have to take you into the bathroom and turn on the hairdryer anymore to get you to stop fussing.

Right around Christmas, you seemed to turn a corner temperament wise. You were suddenly less fussy and wanted to spend longer periods of time engaging with us. You got a playmat for Christmas and you love laying on your back and looking at the dangling animals. In the week or so since Christmas, you are now able to bat at the animals with your arms in movements that are still pretty erratic, but getting more and more calculated. Occasionally you'll even manage to grip something in your hand and hold it for a while.

We spend a lot of time in the bed, partly because the bedroom is the easiest room to keep consistently warm, and partly because we just like it there. Larry likes it in the bed too and can usually be found on the bottom left corner curled up like a fox. We have a radio, a TV and my computer in the bedroom which is pretty much everything we need. Michael even brings in meals sometimes. This morning we had coffee and bagels in the bed while listening to Weekend Edition on NPR and laughing at you propped up on a pillow smiling at us.

You also spend a good part of the day in the Baby Bjorn. We go for walks and putter around the house and frequently I just sit on the green exercise ball and bounce until you are asleep. You are asleep in the carrier right now as I type this.

You don't really like being in the car seat or riding in the car, so I have to brace myself before I take you out into the world beyond what we can walk to. You've gotten better though since I made a CD of a vacuum cleaner that I blast into the backseat when you start to cry. This trick works about 70% of the time.

We have settled into some homey routines. We all usually have a leisurely morning with Michael making breakfast for us before he goes out to his office to start his work day. In the early evenings we have been watching The Andy Griffith Show until it's time for Jeopardy. It's hard not to shout out the answers (or rather the questions) and wake you up if you are having an evening nap.

You are a very pretty little baby, with the world's longest eyelashes and a sweet rosebud mouth. We aren't sure who you look like yet. People think you look like Michael, but we think that is just because your hair is dark like his. Actually, you can see silvery light colored hair growing underneath the brown and I think it won't be long until you are blonde. Right now your hair is about the color of a penny. Not a shiny new red penny, but an older brown one that has a subtle copper sheen.

We love you Sadie June. We can't wait to see what is next.