Every New Stage is my New Favorite Stage

In reference to her baby's growth, one of my friends once told me, "Every new stage is my new favorite stage."

I TOTALLY felt like this whenever Addison learned something new. But when Addison was a baby I remember wondering if the feeling would be the same for your second or third child. I didn't think so. With your first,not only is it new for the baby, but it's new for you too. You've never had a baby roll, or say mama, or learn to walk before. Surely the second time around it wouldn't be as exciting.

WRONG! With Hannah I feel like every new stage is my new favorite stage all over again! And now I'm excited because every stage I'm loving of Hannah's I think, "Hey! I get to do it again in 18 months!" Te he he.

Right now Hannah's in the "learning to use phrases" stage. Some of her favorite are:

Where's Daddy?
Where's Addison?
Whatcha Doing?
All right. (This one's one of my favorites. It frequents our home in a sing song tone after I've asked her to do something and is usually accompanied by a swaggering walk to go and do whatever it is that I've asked her to do).
You're Naked! (I like this one too, although it gets a little old when she's in the stall with you at a public restroom).



She's also going through a binkie stage. She refused to take a binkie when she was a baby, but around last September, she re-discovered them and loves them. I'm not worried about weaning her from them. She doesn't normally walk around with a binkie in her mouth, and she has no problem going to sleep without them. They just come in handy if she's being exceptionally fussy and either a) I'm nursing the babies, so I can't comfort her at the moment or b) she really wants a bottle (something I would like to wean her off of).



Yeah, the bottle. Sigh. I know you're supposed to get them off the bottle around the age of one, but man, when she is inconsolable and I have two other babies that are inconsolable, that bottle really comes in handy. Yes, she is perfectly capable of drinking from a straw, sippy, and regular cup. But she loves that darn bottle. Bart and I would really like to get her off of it by the time she's two (holy cow is that really less than a month away?) so we've been giving them to her less and less lately. But she's caught on, and when we do break down and give her one, good luck getting it away from her. She carries it around with her non stop. And if she is doing something that requires two hands, that doesn't stop her:




This is also her, "I like putting hoods on my head that make my ears stick out" stage.


My silly little comedian.