Mesmerized and Pacified

Today Nina is two months old!

"Happy Birthday to me!"

She is starting to become a bit more interactive. She stares intently at our faces then gives us a big smile and a bit of a laugh. She looks genuinely happy! It seems like she is trying to imitate our facial expressions like opening her mouth or sticking out her tongue. She mostly likes to look at faces and didn't really take much interest in the toys we tried to show her - until I found this black and white mobile for her. The high contrast patterns really attract her attention. You can tell in her eyes that she is really engaged. If we move it around slowly she tracks it with her eyes.

Mesmerized

About a month ago, we introduced a pacifier for Nina. At first I was a little reluctant, I guess I didn't want her using it all the time, or something... I am not even sure why. In the beginning, she would just push it out with her tongue, and it took two or three weeks for her to take it reliably. But now, whoa, what a difference! Talk about happiest baby on the block. It really provides her with a great deal of comfort. We have virtually eliminated the 20 or so minutes of crying before each nap, and car trips are, well, possible. She seems happier and that definitely makes my life easier. Now instead of coming home to a crying baby and a stressed out mom, Mirko can enjoy the evenings with his little noodle.

Also as promised, here is a movie we took last weekend of little Lucia after she figured out how to turn on the music on Nina's bouncy seat.

Mirko has been playing around with some new processing software for creating high dynamic range images. Here is a picture of our local park. Anya is the red ghost on the left. Whaddaya think?