The one where Charlotte is eight weeks old

Happy eight week birthday, baby girl!
























Gee, can you tell she's a girl? Holy pink.

She is such a funny kid. She's smiling regularly now and there are certain things we can do that will pretty much guarantee a smile. She loves when we wag her arms around, blow raspberries at her (I think she likes to get spit on?), and whack her noggin with a paper towel tube - gently, of course. What a weird kid. She has discovered both her hands and her feet and will spend a great deal of time just staring at them. She still can't figure out how to get her hands into her mouth or how to touch her feet, but she's working on it :)

Another game we like to play is "pull yourself into sitting!". She loves it and if she grabs onto our hands just right, she'll pull herself up. She loves to sit and chat with us, so we pulled out the Bumbo chair the other night to see if she's ready for it. She seemed to really like it and we've sat her in it a few more times since then. Thank you so much for giving it to us, Nola!!
























"Hey, what's over there?"

















Still a little on the tilted side, but she loves it!
Never would have thought my eight-week old baby would be strong enough to hang out in a Bumbo, but here we are! She's got the strength for it, that's for sure. She just loves being in the sitting position. We sit with her (our knees bent up and her sitting with her back against them) all the time and she's happy as a clam that way.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it) my background with child development puts me in a fun position being a mother. I love seeing what she's doing and figuring out whether or not she "should" be doing those things. There are a few things that I think she's ahead of the game with. She seems to have already learned cause-and-effect outside of her own body (secondary circular reactions) and will do whatever she can to activate her motion-activated toys. She's not completely purposeful in her actions yet, but she knows (for example) that if she kicks her legs and flails her arms hard enough, the lights and music on her bouncy chair will go off. And let me tell you, she works SO hard to do it too!



She's been cooing for what seems like forever. She's also making consonant sounds at this point - not consistently, but we definitely get "gah"s and "bah"s out of her on a daily basis. I wonder if she'll be an early talker... we'll see!



















"Oh Mommy, you're so interesting!"

She finally outgrew all of her newborn sleepers (finally) and I have to put them all away now. Some 0-3 clothes are still too big for her, depending on the brand. I find Joe Fresh sleepers fit her perfectly, but their onesies are a little wide. Old Navy 0-3 shirts are fantastic and fit her great. Plus, they're soft as all heck and cheap! She's just about outgrown her 0-3 parachute pants, so I bought her another pair in 3-6 because I adore those pants. And, sadly, her skinny jeans are way too small for her ... but only in the waist. They're still too long. Weird. Her hair is starting to grow back in! Hooray! She still has a silly hairline, but the bald spots have adorable fuzzy baby hair sprouting. It's looking like she's going to keep her dark hair. I'm quite pleased about that :)

She has her next doctor's appointment on the 15th - her two month appointment! I can't wait to see how much she's grown since her six week checkup ... but I'm not really looking forward to her getting her shots. Poor babe. :(

As far as life with the adults goes, we're doing well. Boyd is home for a whole week at a time this month, plus a few 3-4 day stretches. We're trying to get ready for Christmas as best we can. Christmas cards will be going in the mail today and we'll probably put up the tree sometime this weekend. I can't wait! Charlotte saw the lights on the tree at Grammie and Grampie Joe's house and her face was priceless. The lights turned on and her eyes got wide, she pursed her lips, and made an "ooooh!" face. I wish I had recorded it. It was the perfect reaction. Today we're going to head to the mall to do a bit of Christmas shopping and just enjoy a day out.
My birthday is coming up next weekend, so my mom and Joe will be coming to babysit so that Boyd and I can go out. Hooray! I'm very excited about it. The plan is to go out for dinner and then go see The Wizard of Oz at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. Can't wait!

That's all the news here! I'll leave you with some pictures of early morning playtime at the Chapman house. Enjoy!