eight week update

Just in the last week or so, Rowan has become a lot more communicative - a lot more body language, more variation in her vocalisations, and, most exciting of all, smiling! Her whole face just lights up when she's in a good mood and she definitely is smiling. It's amazing to see.

It's a bit tricky to photograph the smiling because Rowan moves around a lot when she's happy. Lots of fist shaking and wriggling makes non-flash photos harder. Here are some cute Rowan photos I took today.

Wriggly monkey!

A happy grin

Kind of goofy

My, what big eyes you have!

Baby vocalisations
Rowan is making a much wider range of sounds and it is clearer (to me at least) what she is trying to communicate. When she is happy, her sounds are very cheery and cute, cooing and squeaking.

When she has a lot of gas or is having a big poop, she makes loud grunting noises, makes funny faces and turns red in the face (kind of hilarious actually, and helpful when we're in town because then we know it is time to find somewhere decent to change her - like Chapters or Bridgehead).

When she wants to be fed, but isn't really all that hungry, she does this little plaintive cry (a short wah sound) that you can tell is just half-hearted.

Let's play Bop the octopus!
Rowan is definitely getting more coordinated about batting her dangling play mat toys and gripping the handle of her musical bugs mobile. The orange squeaky monkey still seems to be the reigning king of her menagerie; she loves it when it pops out from behind other toys and hangs out on top of her play mat structure.