Keira is just about the happiest baby you will ever encounter. It is very easy to make her smile and her smile has been said to be the best smile anyone has ever seen, make hearts swell, and even spread happiness to the world. She spends most of her time with a contented smirk on her face. As content as she is all the time, it is very difficult to make her laugh. She squeals when she is excited and giggles a little from time to time, but I can count her whole-hearted laughs on one hand.
I have come to learn that, like me, she has a very unique sense of humor. Not just anything will make her laugh, and when something strikes her as humorous she laughs long and hard, but enjoy it while it lasts because it won't be funny again later.
The first belly laugh she made was a few months ago when her favorite sound to make was something like a dog panting. One night I imitated her panting and she thought it was hilarious. She laughed long enough that I could call up my mom to listen to her.
The next time was when I first played boo with her by putting a blanket over her then pulling it off and saying "Boo!"
The next occurrence was one night when I was changing her diaper she was making stubborn grunts while kicking her legs straight and I imitated her grunts which she thought was hysterical.
Some time later I was trying to entertain her so I tossed one of her toys up in the air and she started to chuckle. I did it again and again and she was falling over laughing.
Then tonight I put her in her high chair when I was getting ready to feed her. When I pulled her binky out of her mouth to feed her, she had quite a suction on it so I said "Pop!" when it cane out and she laughed the hardest she has ever laughed. Then I would pretend to suck on her pacifier then pull it away and say "pop" and take turns with her and she was laughing SO LOUD. It woke up Art and he came out to see what was going on. It was the first time he ever heard her laugh like that. Poor guy misses out on so much having to sleep during the day!
The things that make her laugh are so RANDOM and there is no way you could do anything to intentionally make her laugh. It's just whatever strikes her as entertaining at that given time. You could try to get her to laugh even 5 minutes later and she might smile, but you will never get her to laugh. Sometimes I wish she would laugh more often because I love hearing it SO MUCH, but it sure makes me savor the moment all the more when the time comes. I soak up every last drop of that humor and I LOVE IT.
One thing I don't love... she has reached the age of awareness that bed time means that I am going to leave her alone. She has been awesome about bet time up until about a week or two ago then all of the sudden... she could be fast asleep and the moment I lay her in her crib- wide awake and crying. I have been using the 5-10-15 method which, in short, is where you lay them down then come back in after 5 minutes and lay them back down, give them their pacifier and blanket or what not, then walk away. You repeat in intervals increasing by 5 minutes each time until they go to sleep on their own. It teaches them that you aren't going to run in there every time they cry without making them feel abandoned. She hasn't been too happy about this, but she has been doing better each day. She usually never makes it to the 15 minute check without passing out and sometimes goes to sleep without crying at all. It's been difficult, but I refuse to get trapped into rocking her to sleep every night or letting her stay up til odd hours of the night.
She has, however, developed an additional redeeming quality- as if she needed any more to compensate for the bed time troubles- she has learned to give kisses. She kisses me quite often, Grandma and Daddy too, but this was too funny. She was at my mom's house and my mom let her play with a baby doll for the first time. Keira grabbed it and gave it a big kiss! She gave it several open-mouthed smooches, one of which is captured in this picture.
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