Middle Child Syndrome

I realized this morning that I have been SO LAX and a SLACKER extraordinario in recording all the things my little Brianna girl is accomplishing in her life right now.  So a couple of milestones for her:
1) She's eating solid foods.  They say you should start eating solids when you're around six months old.  But Brianna was ready and tracking and reaching with intensity by five.  I waited a little but caved around five and a half months.  She LOVES to eat with everyone else.  If one of us is eating, she's salivating/smacking her lips, eyes fixed on her prey (usually food she can't eat).  Seriously! ;-D  And she cries if she gets left out.  I mean, she often gets left out because her siblings still have her on getting attention from mom.  And she does okay with that for a while, watching me walk back and forth between twins and food and twins and water and twins and dishwasher and twins and paper towels to clean up their spills and twins and . . . . but then she hits her limit and it's like, "Um, MOM!!! Hel-looooooooo!  I am totally starving here and you keep going and getting food for everyone but ME!"

She LOVES sweet potatoes.  She won't touch sweet peas (which is crazy because those were the twins' favorite food!).  At first taste, she all but spit green beans, sweet peas, and ground up meat (who wouldn't, though?) back at me.  She'll try a bite or two - to her credit - but when she decides she isn't liking it, she pierces her lips together really tight and stares at me like, "Really, Mom?  How many signs do I have to give you for you to get it that I am NOT eating that food?!  Bring out the good stuff.  I know you have it."  She's come around on the green beans and the meat (maybe she was starving when I tried them for the second time?  I dunno!).  So it's been fun!  But she LOVES sweet potatoes more than anything else, even applesauce or bananas or pears or anything.  She's her momma's girl!


2) Rocking!!!!  This is really exciting for me.  I don't remember when the twins started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth, but Brianna has just started doing that in the last few days.  Like two.  And it is so fun to watch her!  Every time the twins and/or Mommy get on the floor, she observes like a hawk!  And then you see her scooted back in a corner or under the table or piano bench or something, somewhere she has had to stop and can't scoot back anymore every time she tries to go forward, and pretty quickly she is up on all fours and rocking -- just one or two rocks, but rocks nonetheless.

I know you may be thinking that this is all normal and you can read in the textbooks that she is on track for her age.  And honestly, I'm okay with that.  Cuz I'm just tracking HER textbook.  And it is SO MUCH FUN!

3) She loves to be UP!  All the time!  Observing everything she can and trying to imitate it.  She even found Abby's sippy cup of water on the floor the other day and had maneuvered it to her mouth and was trying to drink out of it.  She just wants to be a grown up.  And when you sing to her - you have never seen a child get SO excited - she starts smiling, laughing, kicking her legs, flapping her arms - she just LOVES it!

4) She can almost sit up on her own.  All she has left to do is figure out how to scoot her legs to get them up.  She's got the cork-screw turn down pat, though; and she is flexible beyond words in getting turned around and halfway up!  So I think she'll be sitting up SOON!

5) She is intense like Isaac was.  When my sister's friend, Georgia, met Brianna, she later told Lisa that she had never seen a baby so focused and intense before - like she was looking right into your soul.  Isaac was like that - and Brianna is intense in her observations and diligent in her imitations.

6) Her disposition.  She is the sweetest, sweetest, most chillaxed baby you have ever met!  Or at least I have ever met.  She is patient beyond words -- like I said, even when she is hungry she will watch me take care of everyone else and just sit there patiently until she has had it - which is sometimes 20-30 minutes after I put her in her chair and start getting her food ready.  She puts up with a LOT from these toddler twin siblings of hers.  A LOT.  And she takes it all really well, mostly wanting to be a part of it more than anything.  Abby and Isaac love her - sometimes a little too much and sometimes with a little tough love, but she takes it and is usually really patient with them.

So hopefully I've redeemed her a little bit from suffering the middle child syndrome of being overlooked and overshadowed.  I DO have pictures -- but they're mostly on my nieces camera right now.  So those will - yet again - have to wait until later.  But she is still holding onto her little strawberry blond hair, and I am really excited about that!  Her eye lashes are a beautiful auburn, and I wouldn't mind one bit if she took after her aunts and had rich, thick, beautiful reddish hair!