Mile markers

According to the book What to Expect the First Year, by the second month of life Lily should be able to:
*Smile in response to our smile
*Follow objects with her eyes
*Respond to a bell in some way such as startling, crying or quieting *Vocalize in a way other than crying (e.g. cooing)

And weirdly enough “may even be able to pay attention to a raisin or other very small object” (?).

We are on our way to full smiling, eliciting some partial smiles thus far, but that big happy grin still eludes us.

Meanwhile, she certainly can follow objects with her eyes and exercises this ability often with her trendy color-changing rubber duckies while splashing in the bath.

Better still, today we heard our first definite coos. For a few days we’ve been wondering if she were cooing or just making little cries before and after big cries. Today while we talked with Lily and helped her play with her baby gym, she was most definitely having fun, strongly kicking her legs and letting out little happy shouts in response to our voices and the squeak of the swinging birdy (see above photo).

As for the bell, we haven’t tried freaking Lily out by ringing a loud bell and don’t plan to. She responds to the birdy squeak and that works for us. And regarding the raisin, we aren’t in the habit of keeping any in the house, so we’ll have to get some and let you know later. I’m sure you’ll be waiting in suspense until then.

~

* See the webshots pages for new photos; links to the right.