Although she has yet to get a sweet bike or acquire nunchuck skills, Ada has developed many new skills in her first 12 weeks of life. And now that I think of it, I have also developed many new skills in her first 12 weeks of life. Her skills are much more impressive.

Quite a few of my new skills involve doing a task while nursing. I am getting much quicker at typing with one hand, and I have managed crocheting, reading, talking on the phone, and even eating while nursing. I have learned, however, that it is best if Ada either wears a hat or has a blanket over her during my eating-while-nursing performance, just so she doesn't end up with cracker crumbs littering her hair.

Breastfeeding on it's own is a skill that both Ada and I have mastered. It's not the "It's natural, so it must be easy" skill that I had a tendency toward believing before being a mother. Luckily Ada caught on pretty quickly. We sure have had a lot of practice in the past 12 weeks. Another thing that we've had plenty of practice on is diaper changing. Although we've undertaken many a diaper change in a variety of places, Ada can attest to the fact that the best place for it is on her changing table with her elephants. Ada's absolute favourite place is on her changing table where she can watch her elephant mobile dance above her head, and she can have HUGE SMILES and kick her legs frantically so that it makes it more difficult (and therefore longer) for the diaper change to happen. We named the three elephants on remembrance Day after listening to God Save the Queen, so now the elephants are Longto, Ray, and Noverus. If you don't get it, say the three names one after the other and think of the words to the song... Let me know if you still don't get it...

A few of my other new skill include: attaching the BabyBjörn to me while holding a fidgety/sleeping/crying/etc baby; jiggling the stroller at just the right frequency for baby pleasure; using a breast pump; dressing a baby that is excited about her dancing elephants; getting through the day on minimal sleep; taking pictures of the cutest baby ever; and that's just to name a few.

Ada's skills are much more impressive. For example, she can now hold her head with minimal jiggling. She can survive tummy time for at least 30 seconds without getting mad. And let's not forget regularly losing socks, pooping 5 minutes after a diaper change, marathon hiccups, kicking her feet to make her arch light up and sing (I'll post videos of that soon), and the cutest goos, aahs, and coos imaginable. She's been talking up a storm these days. And she is also very skilled at stopping strangers on the street almost every day just to tell me that she is an adorable baby. I think that's the greatest skill of all - making people smile.