The three-month revolution.

It's all about the hands with Alex now. She holds them up in front of her eyes and studies them, pats and pulls at her books when I'm reading to her, clutches my shirt while I'm carrying her, grabs and holds and moves the toys suspended from her bouncy seat and her playmat, grips things when they're handed to her, shakes a rattle, gnaws on her fists, and comes pretty damn close to transferring a toy from one hand to the other. It's all about the hands.

She's working very hard at putting things in her mouth right now, but there are problems. First of all, not everything tastes good. She'll grab my hand, wrapping her fists around two of my fingers, and steer another of my fingers into her mouth. Then she'll wrinkle up her nose at the taste and spit it out. Then she steers it right back in again, because the urge to put things in her mouth is stronger than the memory of the taste. Aaaand out again. And then in again.

The other problem is that actually getting a toy into your mouth requires more math and physics than the average three-month-old has. Toys only fit in your mouth if you hold them angled in certain directions - Alex keeps trying to cram them in lengthwise, and has to be satisfied with licking the edge. Sometimes she misses her mouth entirely, and jams the toy against her cheek or nose. And even if she finds her mouth and angles the toy correctly, the odds are that she'll wind up chewing on the hand that holds the toy instead of the toy itself. But she's working on it. Intensely.

The other thing it's all about these days is her enormous toothless grin. She's delighted to see everyone she meets. She's overjoyed to have her diaper changed, because it means that she and Mama can trade grins for a while. She grins at strangers and then buries her face in my sleeve. She actually laughed out loud for the first time this week, interacting with my mother's friend. And her face was barely big enough to contain her happiness this morning when she realized she'd woken up next to Papa after all that time apart.

Every day, Alex is more and more engaged in the world and the people around her. I'm having so much fun watching her development unfold.

(Pictures from the past week's visit with my family can be seen here, although you'll have to have a flickr account and be listed as my friend to see pictures of my nieces and nephew.)