Freeze-Frame: Pippin With Child

I really could do a new one of these every day. 

Freeze-Frame: Because The Kids Still Say Funny Things

 Even when I hardly blog anymore.

Three Months of Tessa Shalom

Our little Tessa-Lou is three months old. It feels like she's always been here with us. 

We've heard her first little giggles, but we're still waiting to get the really hearty ones. She kicks and wiggles like the dickens to communicate. She plays with her hands. She's started teething early, so they're typically stuffed in her mouth. She still sucks her thumb at night, and most of the time what wakes me to nurse her is not her cries. Nope. It's the volume of her vigorous thumb-sucking. She's started to grow ultra-fine fuzzy duckling hair that sticks straight up after her bath. She loves to be talked to and enjoys it when Tadhg and Pippin and Marnie give her attention (though Marnie can be a little vigorous in feeding her all of the culinary delights she concocts at her play kitchen). I had to switch her to 3-6 month clothes just after she turned 2 months old because she's such a loooongg girl; according to the pediatrician's super-hyper-ultra-precise measurements she's nearly off the charts.

Tessa is just plain old wonderful from her top to her toes. 

What a gift.

A serious picture or two (because sometimes she's thoughtful).

And a bunch of grainy, nearly identical smiling Tessas all in a row. (Because I liked all of these ones and am too tired to thin them out--it's far easier to plop them all in indiscriminately.)

What a little munchkin. (She reminds me a bit of Luci in this one, Abby--but maybe it's just the yellow?)

Two Months of Tessa Shalom

Tessa is truly the baby that parents dream of. 

She is plump and snuggly and happy all the time, only crying in those infrequent moments when her tummy hurts. She's starting to discover her hands and tries to use them with intentionality to interact with whatever is near her. She smiles with largesse at the whole world. She sleeps--oh, how she sleeps! It's amazing, like those babies you read about and think are complete fiction. She loves to coo and will have a back-and-forth conversation with us for a good five minutes straight. Rundy and I often find ourselves delighting in her smiles and soft jabbers together before grinning and looking at each other in wonderment that this sort of baby is even real. 

Her pleasantness knows no bounds. 

What a sweet, sweet gift of sunshine to us all.

She had a lot of congestion on her two monthiversary (our whole family has a cold). She snurked her way through the night before, simply sleeping through her miseries and sucking her thumb with as much sanguinity as ever. She woke stuffy and puffy-eyed, and even then I was hard-pressed to get pictures without her quiet little grin lighting up the frame. What a baby.

(Rundy says I'm jinxing myself with all this effusion, but he also had to admit that every last bit is true. Teething may change things someday, but for now Tessa is just a Magic Baby.)

She only stopped smiling to coo.

Is it any wonder that we all love her so? No. No it is not.

The First Month As A Family Of Six...

 ...was full of five million and three pictures of Tessa, with and without her siblings and in various stages of plumping up.

 

And THREE WEEKS (!!!!) of meals from three hundred generous-hearted people. What a huge help; thank you, thank you, thank you to every last one of you. Truly. This is just one example from a very talented and loving overachiever. Not documenting the cookie designs would've been inexcusable. (We love you, Ashlee!) 

Also, lovely welcome-baby flowers and a surprise (amazing!!) big sibling package from Aunt Sarah. 

It also held the last of the garden harvest. And enthusiastic green bean-cutting.

And a slightly off-her-rocker Mama taking all the kids acorn-hunting in the woods when Tessa had been here just a week (but none of us regretted it a bit).

And (maybe?) our last campfire until next year.

And Tessa's first bath.

And her smiliest bath.

And a visit from Spiderman (Tadhg's Halloween costume came in the mail--what ecstasy!!!).

< SpiderTadhg >

< SpiderPip >

And an adventure to Frog Pond.

And THE MOST DISTRACTED attempt at laundry-folding I've ever experienced (never has a baby so irresistibly grinned and jabbered).

And a smattering of everything in between.