Brought to you by the letter "K"

Leeloo started making a "K" sound when she saw Leonard this morning. I'm probably reading too much into it but I think she may recognize it from "kitty." I've heard her make p's, m's, and l's before but it's the first time I'm heard k sounds - very exciting!! It's not quite as impressive as the wookie sound she can make but it's still pretty cool. (written by Rachael)

Leeloo Enjoys Bouncy Farm Chair and Silly Sounds.

Entry from 8/31/10

Last night was the first time I noticed Leeloo's hands are really growing. They transitioned out of tiny wrinkly things pretty fast - maybe by week 2. They were still tiny newborn hands though for the longest time. Maybe they got a little larger during the last few months but not really noticeably until now. The little girls hands are still far away - but you can see the how the shape of her hands is changing in that direction and her forearms and wrists look very different to me now than they did a few weeks ago. She's grown out of a few pairs of socks and shoes too including her little pink converse which I didn't even like at first but I ended up loving by the time she'd grown out of them. I will miss her tiny hands and feet. It's so weird that as soon as I get used to her being one size, she gets a tiny bit bigger. I'm too used to cats. They just get to 10 lbs and stay there forever. It's going to be weird when she's too big to carry - like the Great Dane. (written by Rachael)

Babies don't do much at this age (4.5 months)

or do they? We saw cousins Bruce, Lyenne, Luke and Bella last weekend at the Oakland Art and Soul festival. Luke asked me if Leeloo was crawling yet and I found myself listing off all of the things she can do already. It seems like a big list to me but didn't contain most of the big "firsts" people ask about. It's just such a difference from her initial state of lying in one place screaming - you know -what she was capable of doing for the first month or so... After all, she can hold her head up, grab anything and put it into her mouth, lean over and apply her mouth directly to any surface, speak fluent baby-lonian, laugh and smile in response to things that are amusing to her (skin raspberries are popular). She can grab her feet, use her feet to manipulate things, drink (semi-productively) from a regular cup of water, eat rice cereal and flip over both front to back and (just since last week) back to front, blow spit bubbles, blow raspberries into my shoulder in the shower, fall asleep mostly on her own, imitate Jack's very strange wookie-like meow, and sort of pet the animals without pulling out too much hair. She doesn't cry constantly in the car anymore and is down to less than one hour of crying a day for the most part. Also - she has got spitting up, and drooling incessantly completely down - no further work needed in those areas. From my standpoint, she is basically done and can move out on her own any minute now :-) Ok, maybe not yet, I would miss her - but really how hard can college be when you've already gone from being an unthinking ball of cells to a mostly functional human being in a little over a year.... most Republicans never achieve this. Plus she is cuter than like ANYTHING - except maybe baby tigers... she is just as cute as baby tigers :-) She started sucking her thumb and I just about exploded due to the sheer volume of cuteness. Even when she gets really angry and sticks both fists in her mouth - cutest pissed off baby ever! and don't get me started on the frowny face she makes mostly in response to loud sneezes - oh my God - I could just die from the unicorn marshmallow rainbow kisses of cute. So I think she does plenty - I've certainly filled up a large volume of scrap book pages so far - I need to remember to save room for her doctoral paper citations.
(written on 8/25/10 by Rachael - just got around to posting today)

Leeloo is Enjoying Rice Cereal