A Few of My Favorite Things

As I was driving home from Salt Lake on Thursday night, Annie was crying in the backseat. She HATES to be alone, but she usually falls asleep pretty quickly in the car. I kept waiting for that magical sleeping moment to come and it kept not coming. Finally, I reached back to let her hold my hand. Almost instantaneously she calmed down, and in a few minutes she was soundly asleep. However, right before she fell asleep, she did something that is SO endearing to me: She squeezed my hand about three times in a row. I loved it! It was such a sublimely happy moment. I think I loved it so much because I have a sister who reaches out to squeeze people's hands when she is feeling a large amount of love for them. I'm certain that this is a gene and that Annie knew she was letting me know that she loves me. That short little moment got me thinking about how I need to be better at recording some of the wonderful and cute things that Annie does at this stage (8 1/2 months). So here is a list of a "few of my favorite things".

1. Hand squeezes

2. Putting her pacifier in upside down - I love that 60% of the time when she puts it in her mouth it ends up upside down. I'm pretty certain she prefers it that way. It's so cute.

3. Waving - this is her latest trick. She has three purposes for her waves. She waves to drum up attention when she feels like people are ignoring her. She waves when she knows it's time to perform. And she waves when she is excited. I might consider adding a fourth - I think she sort of knows to wave hello and goodbye.

4. Rolling to get places. She cannot crawl yet, which thrills me, but she can roll. She rolls across rooms, but I don't think she knows she has that ability yet. She will see something two feet out of her reach and know that she can get there by rolling. Adding up all her two feet segments, she moves quite far.

5. Her love of food. She gets exceptionally excited about sweet foods. I fed her Hawaiian Delight the other night and she loved it. I'd been giving her yucky oatmeal and she was doing just fine with it, but then I started in on the banana pineapple mix and she went crazy. She panted and moved her whole body up and down, begging for more. I've really only seen her react like this for one other food - peach cobbler.

There are several more, but this list is a start. Brad and I love Annie so much! She lights up our lives!