C, You Surprise Me.

I was (or am) surprised that Cecie...

• never got a bald spot
• slept through the night before she hit 2 months old
• woke up and ate a bottle at 2:30am the night after Christmas
• seems to hate water being dumped on her head as much as Simon did (does)
• never, ever went through the "sit and play with a toy" stage
• army crawled before she turned 6 months
• can sit long enough in a high chair for me to do her hair
• never really liked to be fed baby food
• holds her own bottle (Brother never did this)
• was such a big newborn
• cries when she sees me after being at the Y's Kid Care
• puked so much early on and stopped so gradually that I forgot how much she used to do it
• drools 4 gallons a day (I haven't measured, but this is probably accurate)
• has a patch on her forehead of lighter skin that won't go away

These are just a few of the little things that have more or less surprised me since she was born (not in an "Oh my! I'm surprised!" kind of way of course, but in a "huh, wouldn't you know it" kind of way). The latest surprise? That she is further away from walking now than she was when she took her first steps FIVE weeks ago! Now rather than try, she will go limp when you try to stand her up; she will bend her knees and raise her arms up until you have no choice but to let her go crawl away. I must say, I'm downright surprised. I had her pegged as one of those kids who took their first steps and just took off. 

In true Hermus fashion, however, it looks like she is going to be one of those kids who takes their first steps one day and many, many weeks later she'll start walking regularly...Simon took two and a half months! I'll never forget the day he retired crawling for good, though. We went to the zoo and all of a sudden he just started walking around (by this point he had been walking across the room but he had a passion for crawling and didn't want to give it up just yet). Then we went home and he just kind of ran from one end of the house to the other laughing like a maniac because he was so excited to be upright. It's one of few memories that are really etched in my brain. I'm so excited to see our peanut walking around like a big girl too, but it's her life and she will do things when she's good and ready :)