Beatrice turned two months on the 4th of June.

We still call her Beada (or sometimes Beadie) and I think she likes the name. It is convenient for making rhymes about eating (Beadie, time to eatie, etc.) and I can tell she appreciates the joke as she smiles when I say it, and sometimes she asks me “Who, who?” just so I’ll say it again.

I began to type that she is something of a little spitfire, but remembered that this month she has mellowed out considerably from the tale end of her first four weeks, so that is not entirely true. Is there such a thing as a Mellow Spitfire? There is, and her name is Beatrice. For she doesn’t have much of an in-between state of emotion; she is either perfectly content and almost laughing, or ANGRY, 100%, no apologies.

I mentioned in her last update that her nights were low-key but her days were difficult. We’ve narrowed down the span of daytime fussiness to between 5-7 p.m. or thereabouts–a vast improvement over the 5-10 p.m spread–but this means she’s still needing to be held during the time Mama is trying to make dinner (and eat dinner), which is just difficult, Beatrice, why must you do that?

At least the daytime naps have all evened out, due to one particular change in approach: Miss B prefers to be on her tummy. Once we made that switch everything was better. Except 5-7 p.m., of course. This month I will work on moving her routine to start earlier in the day in the hopes that she will move that fussy time earlier, too, or perhaps drop it altogether. This worked for Eldore but didn’t for Clive, so we’ll see.

She is a veritable doll, smiling and cooing and preferring Daddy to Mommy, which I can’t really blame her for, as I prefer him to myself as well. She is very social, and doesn’t like to be alone when she’s awake for more than a minute or two. Not even the Ceiling Fan can replace real, human interaction for her. Although she did, during her last doctor’s appointment, try for several minutes to engage in conversation an oversized wall sticker of Mickey Mouse.

We had her tongue tie corrected this month. We weren’t able to have it done in the hospital on account of a technicality, and after a bit of reworking appointments we were able to get in. It certainly made nursing quicker, and she loves to stick out her tongue. It may also have contributed to our improved daytime sleep. Hard to say, though, since nighttime sleep has always been good, and I would think that both would have been affected by difficult nursing if one was.

Her eyes are a frequent subject of debate amongst the children, with the Brownish Eyes crowd hoping she’ll join them and the Blue Eyes crowd (which is mostly Ephraim, since Eldore doesn’t quite follow the conversation yet) hoping the same. We had to halt the discussion a couple of weeks ago to explain the concept of genetics, as the Brownish Eyes crowd was started to feel jaded so many talk about her eyes staying blue, and some even began wishing they had blue eyes themselves. So a conversation was had about how any of the children having blue eyes was not as likely as them having brown eyes–thus everyone is sort of rooting for the underdog–and all parties were placated, the Blue Eyes satisfied that they had one the genetic lottery, and the Brownish Eyes glad to know their eyes were “stronger”. Thus peace was restored.

For the record, Mama has no opinion on the subject of Beatrice’s eyes except that I still have absolutely no idea in what direction they will swing. She’ll be just perfectly Beatrice, no matter what.

other updates

ephraim + clive + anselm + elvie kay + eldore