Our Daughter the Dolphin

Zoe is just days away from being three months old now. We sort of skipped month two. During all of this time Zoe has learned about several new things, which seem to be more fun to her than us.

1) Zoe has discovered her hands. She spends entire days just staring at them the way most of us girls would look at a very large diamond. And true to all children, what looks good must taste good. So the hands go into the mouth and come out a drool drenched, clammy mess. I catch Matt holding her at arms length sometimes as he takes her to dry off her sticky hands. It doesn't bother me so much because my mother used to babysit a sticky boy once. No one can or ever will be more sticky or drooly than that child. He was sticky on parts that never even got into his mouth. How is that possible?

2) Zoe has discovered that she can talk. And boy, does she ever test it out. Most children will squeal with delight when they are tickled or while playing with a toy. Not Zoe though. She does it all day. Every five seconds. Even when she is doing nothing. Even when she wakes up--morning, noon, and night. She even does it instead of crying. She has this cry/squeal. I told Matt that I think we have a dolphin for a daughter because she sounds just like a squealing dolphin. It's like Sea World in our house. Last night she woke up at 1 a.m. and unlike most children decided to make her dolphin sound to let us know that she was hungry. I told Matt to just throw some fish at her and come back to bed. He thought I had lost my mind at 1 a.m. He says, "Why fish?" I said, "Dolphins like fish."