Our Mini Winnie: 14 Months Old // 1 Month Old

Changing Laney's diaper has finally become much easier. She doesn't kick, fight, or throw a tantrum on the changing table anymore. Instead, she calmly pages through one of her cardboard books and sings or talks to herself while she's being changed. I'm not sure what caused her to calm down and relax - maybe she just grew out of a phase? I'm a little relieved. It was becoming very challenging because she's a very strong little girl, and when she arches her back and kicks her legs around, it's can be difficult just attaching the clean diaper.

When she's playing or exploring, Delaney sometimes becomes very frustrated if we disrupt what she's doing. If we pull her away while she was trying crawl on top of her jumperoo, or if we pick her up to change her stinky diaper while she was in the middle of playing with her Fisher Price house, she gets very upset and has figured out one very interesting way to show it: head butting. She doesn't have another way to express her feelings yet, so if we pick her up and she gets upset, we've learned not to let her head get too close to our head/face. We've come up with a consistent response to her behavior, and we're hoping it works quickly. Right now, we're sternly saying "no head butting!" and making sure she understands that behavior is unacceptable…then we try to comfort her to let her know we understand that she's upset. She hasn't bitten me recently, but she has bitten Brad a few times in the past few weeks. We're working on that, too. She's a very strong-willed little lady!

So far, Laney has been a very sweet big sister and hasn't shown any signs of jealousy over Owen. She's interested in him, but she's more interested in her own toys and adventures. When I'm nursing him, she tries to crawl onto my lap (sometimes she tries to sit on Owen but doesn't realize she could hurt him). She snuggles with me and smiles at him, and then she tries to poke at his face. She usually tries poking his eyes or sticking her fingers in his mouth (I never let her get that close). She is enamored with him, and I wonder if she thinks he's a tiny living and moving doll. After a minute or two, her curiosity wanes and she climbs down to play with her toys again.

Trying to climb up on me as I was nursing Owen

Owen just showed us his first smile! Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle Danny, and James were visiting, and I was holding Owen in front of Aunt Elizabeth. She was smiling and making exaggerated facial expressions for him, and the corners of his mouth slowly turned upward. It was incredible! We've seen him smile in his sleep before, but this was his first, real, intentional smile. We were at the cabin the following weekend, and Brad was holding Owen as I was changing Laney's morning diaper. Owen started smiling at Brad with a huge grin and wouldn't stop! It was such an amazing moment.