Who is Arya?

Earlier today I was thinking about Arya and her little personality and how she differs from Audree. Which made me realize that I haven't delved too much into Arya and what she's like, granted she's still young and has a lot of personality to still develop but here is a little bit of who Arya is:

To start off with Arya is very different from her sister. Maybe it's a good thing and maybe it's not, I don't know yet :) I remember thinking that Audree was a pretty vocal child but since Arya has found her voice I have decided that she was but not nearly as much as Arya, and they definitely "coo" differently. Don't let Arya's delicate features fool you. She grunts and growls all day long. Right now she is talking to her daddy in a somewhat lively manner. And those long delicate looking fingers aren't so delicate. We call them her devil fingers. If her fingers meet your skin you can be assured that she will scratch, pinch or grab. OUCH!

Arya is actually pretty chill(with some exceptions). This is what it's like for a large chunk of the day. Audree is grinning and being goofy and Arya is just chilling, somewhat expression-less, talking to herself or watching her sister or thinking about heaven knows what. Don't get me wrong though, Arya smiles a lot and it's quite a hilarious thing. Why? Well because when she smiles it's rarely just a smile. Those times when it's just a smile are great but a lot of the times she smiles and then sounds like she's crying and then smiles and cries and smiles and cries. We aren't sure if it's her laugh or if she's crying and smiling at the same time. It's really hard not to laugh at though. A lot of the time I'll look at her and she's smiling at me for who knows why. I love that :)

As for the "exceptions to her being chill," Arya is quite sensitive. When Audree cries, Arya cries. Most loud noises startle her. She absolutely HATES her baths and screams like we are trying to murder her the whole time. And when it comes to eating she is quite serious. She has a snack-y appetite which means she is hungry all the time. When she starts eating she spends the next 30 seconds "angry sucking" where she frantically sucks and grunts and will finally settle down. Can't really help but laugh at that one too :)

Arya is a very good sleeper. It seems that from the beginning she has instinctively known the difference between night and day(I'm gonna knock on wood because I dont' wanna jinx it). At first I was a little concerned cuz she was a newborn sleeping like 4-6 hours at night and everything I was told or read said that they weren't supposed to go that long. Well she is growing just fine and some nights we even get lucky enough that she doesn't wake up at all. 2 nights ago she slept for 8 hours straight(which I hear is just amazing for a breastfed baby) and last night she slept for four hours and then five after that. I must say I am grateful for that. The second time around waking up in the night is ever so much harder!!

Arya also love her binki. After she eats she wants to keep sucking most of the time. When she's alert and happy we try to keep the binki out but if she's cranky or tired she generally insists on having her binki(not a good sign for the future I know :( ...). Audree never liked her binki, she would get angry that she was sucking and no food would come out :) So this is a new experience for me.

Oh and it's been like 20 minutes since I started writing this post and Arya is still talking to her daddy. He's singing and she's responding. It's quite adorable.

For naps we still haven't transitioned to putting her in her crib mostly because when we do she only stays asleep for like 5 minutes( she does sleep in her crib or co-sleeper, depending on how lazy we are that night, at night though so that's good). So she spends most of her naps in her swing. When Audree used the swing we always played the nature sounds. Arya responds so much better to the classical music on the swing. Arya still takes short and frequent naps. I wish we could say we are down to 3 naps a day but it's more like 4-5 naps. For some reason this time around a napping schedule hasn't really formed like it did with Audree. I need to be better at trying to enforce a schedule but I've found with two kids it's a lot harder to concentrate on stuff like that. I am sitting here trying to think of any patterns in her sleeping and can't for the life of me think of one :S The only real constants are she takes a somewhat big nap in the morning and she naps around 8 at night and wakes up for a little and falls asleep for the night between 10 and 11.

I am excited to watch Arya grow and develop and to see what her little personality becomes. She is such a cutie and definitely keeps us laughing or giggling all day long. How is it that babies can do almost nothing and we think it's adorable?? Or that every grunt and facial expression is so hilarious? I don't know, but I love it and I love my girls. They keep life interesting and fun.