I’m not sure where the transition happened, but it did. She’s a person. She’s a rather happy person all things considered. 🙂 Her fussing has changed in both quantity and quality. At this point she fusses like the cat does: mostly to communicate a direct need and once in a while just to hear herself. She is starting to want more physical autonomy in the form of mildly assisted sitting up. When I give her self-sufficient support (i.e. not me holding her) she is happy to play and interact with me for 30-60 minutes. I think that is so cool. She is smiling and laughing and cooing during these sessions more than she isn’t. It is surprisingly fun for me to play with her for an extended time.

There is nothing resembling a schedule in our lives. No solid patterns of what is ok and what isn’t. Yesterday she refused to nap in the swing despite doing it consistently all of last week. She stayed in bed after we got up this morning, which she hasn’t been willing to do before. She didn’t start fussing until after she had a really poopy diaper (and hey–I would fuss then too) which means she had been up for a bit because she doesn’t poop in her sleep or too close to waking up. So she was awake and alert and by herself for at least a few minutes. Very cool!

Last night she found her thumb for the first time. She’s always liked sucking on her fist, but she finally pulled the thumb off separately. If she does that to self soothe I’m going to be ok with it. I find it especially funny after a dad this weekend tried to walk me through forcing a baby to take a pacifier. Uhm… yeah, I’m not forcing my daughter to take a pacifier. He assured me that it would be better because she would spend less time on the boob. Right. Yeah. Uhm… no. He didn’t believe me when I said I was ok with her being on the boob when I had her in the wrap. Oh well.

Fussing in the car is still our most consistent fussing and even that isn’t certain. I’ve now had a couple of trips during morning nap time where she slept through the whole process because she was deeply asleep to start with. I think I should start trying to leave the house with her around 11-1 when possible. 🙂 She was even awake and cheerful for the whole trip from San Francisco to Redwood City this weekend! Ok… she started fussing in the last five minutes, but she had a very dirty diaper so I don’t blame her. Mostly she still screams bloody murder in the car. I hear from Mo that this is very traumatic. For some unknown reason I can turn the radio up and ignore it really well. No one else seems to be able to and I feel bad for them.

I’m really enjoying parenting. It’s limited in scope at this point, but this is fun. Before I had her my belief was that I wasn’t going to enjoy the baby stage much at all. I’m glad I was wrong.