Ooh, I have hands.

Still short of one month old, Zoey keeps on amazing us each day. She's alert for longer stretches of the day (and at more appropriate times!), and is discovering the wonder of cause and effect. Now let's be real, cause and effect for Zoey is not quite "The Roman empire fell because..." It's more along the lines of: "Ooh, I swing this arm thing and that ring thing I hit makes an interesting noise. Again! Again!"

It's the best theater we've ever seen.

Speaking of cause and effect, one not so charming manifestation is the "Change my diaper, watch me poop on the changing table cover" phenomena. I'll spare you the details of the routine, but we just used some Babie R Us gift cards to up our changing-table-cover total to 6. We have a washer and drier. The covers are washable and dry-able. Trust me, we need 6.

Sleep is still an unreliable commodity. Some nights are good, some nights are grueling. But boy are we fans of daylight savings time. Zoey's alert time has now shifted from 7-midnight to 6-11. We're backing that up a bit each day, too, so hopefully the little Sweet Pea will be going to bed at better hour in the next few weeks. We're even getting a stretch between feedings of three to four hours once a night a couple of times a week. Zoey's a bit early along to be affording us that luxury, so we're very thankful.

Another luxury we're starting to receive are Zoey's first, early, smiles. They pop up randomly, but they're definitely responsive to us. She's also sticking her tongue out at us quite a bit. I find myself sticking mine out quite a bit, too. I'll need to watch that in public.

On a different note, El, Zoey and I want to wish a huge and heartfelt congratulations to my sister Amy and her fiance Keith. They got engaged yesterday, and the three of us are super excited.