Happy Halloween!

Were you dropped on your head as a kid?

I was hoping that Anna would be able to answer this question with a yes that was not only emphatic but also accurate. But it seems that taking a fall is a rite of passage for both the first child and the mother that we weren't able to pass up. And yet, I thought I could make it. I haven't been anal about keeping her on the ground or anything, but I was lucky enough to see her roll on the floor rather than off the bed or the couch. So then I knew not to put her on the couch, although I still put her on the bed with the best of intentions to watch her closely.

But when Anna fell it wasn't because she was rolling. I had her on the changing table. (My mom never used one of these and now I'm thinking that maybe that's a good idea.) I had just finished changing her diaper and I was looking in her drawers underneath the changing pad for her clothes. A few weeks before Anna had started pushing against me while I changed her so that her head would dangle off the pad and rest on the table itself. For some reason she likes seeing the world upside down. So I'm sure you can see where this is going. While I was looking in her drawer, thinking about the weather for the day and which outfit I wanted to dress her in, she must have arched her back in order to dangle her head. But I think she got a better push than she realized. I looked up just in time to see her body in midair as her legs lost their footing on the pad and went over the far end of the table. I tried to grab her leg but without much luck.

The good news is that she screamed as soon as she hit the floor so I'm pretty sure that she didn't injure her neck. But she didn't scream too long. In fact she calmed down rather quickly. I really didn't think that I had been too traumatized by it all. I felt bad of course, but I've had enough mothers tell me about their own experiences with falls to know that these things happen. But I must have been a bit more traumatized than I realized because for the next few days whenever I thought about changing her on the table I felt that same feeling of panic that washed over me when I looked up and saw that my baby was no longer where she was supposed to be. I'm over that now, but I do tend to hold onto her leg if I'm not looking directly at her while she's on the changing table.

Recent Adventures

This is the face Anna makes when she's trying to push out a dirty diaper. We call it the pushy face. While everyone was in town for her sealing and blessing, she entertained a crowd with this face. Sometimes when she pushes particularly hard the color red will creep up from her neck to the roots of her hair. She has also been known to accompany this face with hunched shoulders and an arched back.

I think Anna does her best rolling in the crib. In the evening, after I put her to bed in the middle of the crib, I always find her smashed up against one end of the crib. Sometimes her hair will stick straight up from rubbing it against the bumper. I've learned though that there's no point in putting her back in the middle of the crib, because she'll work her way back up to the end of the crib again. So now I just try to make sure her mouth and nose have space to draw air in.

Big Happenings

A few weeks ago, we had Anna's adoption legally finalized. I admit that I was a bit anxious that someone might show up at the last minute and challenge her adoption, but things went exactly as planned.

Last weekend Anna was sealed to us. They brought her up to the sealing room ten minutes after we all gathered there so that the sealer could say a few words to us. He had a lot to say and after about ten minutes we heard a little whine out in the hall. The whines got longer and louder until the sealer finally said "I think I hear a baby." Anna brightened as soon as she saw us and she was beautiful in her dress.

If you'd like to see more pictures, just go to justbecausephotos.blogspot.com.