First Thanksgiving and Four Months

Hope you all have had a beautiful couple of weeks!

We spent Thanksgiving in Taos with my dad, stepmom, grandmother, 2 sisters, and brother-in-law. 'Twas a merry crew.

Luciana's adventures included meeting her great-grandmother (who doesn't want pics of herself online), seeing her first snow

wearing her first mittens (thanks, Karianne!)

and helping Mama catch up on sleep

The altitude affected my little hummingbird, and let's just say the sleeping that happened was not really happening at night. Luckily we were there to completely relax, so sleep or no sleep it was wonderful. And the most profound Thanksgiving ever: I've never been given a gift as marvelous as my girl.

Speaking of sleep, that is one of so many changes happening as Luciana turns FOUR MONTHS. She's following the pattern of her forbearers, and suddenly resisting napping, waking up more at night, and generally so thrilled with the world that she tries to see in all directions at once--she's never fit her Owl nickname more. I suppose she's taking the giant Cognitive Leap they take at this age. There's a wonderful quote by another mom: "every two weeks they give me a different baby". We're going through that. It's not easy, because suddenly I have nothing figured out, but I get to remind myself that she's not the first baby to go through this and I'm not the first mama to feel baffled, amazed, and proud all at once.

She rolled over a couple of weeks ago, but hasn't done it for about ten days. Her efforts, however, are astonishing and getting more and more animated. I think she spent a total of about 3 hours today trying to do it. Her attempts even included grasping a pillow and pulling on it for leverage. She's already an engineer. I have a feeling that when she does it next she'll have mastered it--those first times she couldn't quite figure out what happened.

Her narration has grown from what I interpreted as sentences and short paragraphs to full on novellas. Once she starts, the girl does not stop talking. And the tone she uses as she's telling me she doesn't want to nap is distinctly different from the one used to describe the colors in her favorite painting hanging in the living room which is totally different from the one she uses when I'm doing dishes and she wants me to play with her in the swing. I wish I used as much of my range as she does when she speaks--switching easily from guttural mutterings to operatic squeals. We spend a lot of time just looking at each other, and when she gets still and those big eyes stare back at me I'm speechless at the openness, the peace and the love I see in those pools of blue. She's becoming.....a person. Her person. It's astonishing. It's crazy. It's gorgeous. I say thank you every day.