This week's update.

Maia (AKA "Monkey," "Mai-Mai" and "Stinky") is upstairs napping right now, and Brian has just arrived home from his day at work . . .

The photos above are from our trips to Zingerman's and Sweetwater's cafe this weekend. It was Zingerman's 25th anniversary celebration and, needless to say, it was quite a circus. They had bunches of free samples and giveaways on the street in front of the deli, but most of it was too crowded for Maia's easily-overstimulated senses, so we mostly watched the goings-on from a distance. But it was still quite fun. :) And in the continuing daily learning moments for new parents, I learned that we should have registered for a sun hat to keep the sun out of Maia's little eyes! So, thanks to the secondhand store near our house, we now have two!

Our nighttime routine has established itself quite well over these last few weeks; most of our nights follow the pattern that I described in the "best night of sleep ever!" post last week. We're still working on establishing a regular daytime nap pattern, but that's been much less of a priority.

A cool development in Maia's social behavior has been her "conversational" style of vocalizing. She'll make some sort of noise (very deliberate and quite adorable!), and then Brian or I will respond with a similar noise. Then she'll "say" something back, and we'll answer. I've been able to keep this up for 30 seconds or so, and it's so amazing to participate in these exchanges with her. The various baby books I'm looking at say that this is a good way to help Maia establish an understanding of what speech is for; in essence, she's learning that when she says something, someone else will say something in return. Also, during these conversations I try to use both "real" words and "baby" words in my own speech. From what I understand, giving Maia the opportunity to hear us repeating her words lets her know that we're listening to what she's saying.

So anyway, it's been another week of learning and growing with Maia Donna. :)