Oral Dexterity

I'm sure that as the years go by, my brother will find many things to teach Piper, and I'm willing to put money on the fact that I won't approve of anything everything.

Unfortunately, Justin has already taught Piper about her tongue.  And since they haven't had any unsupervised visits, I'm assuming the teaching was accomplished by osmosis.  

See-- Justin has a tongue.  I mean a serious tongue.  And Justin, being the ever-giving soul that he is, decided to pass that gene to my daughter.  Thank.  You.

There is one good thing that has come from it, though.  Piper has a very "expressive" mouth.  She seems to explore her environment with her tongue, and we can gauge her mood by how active her tongue is.  So where's the good news?

We can't stop laughing.

Ever.

And it started early.  Really early.  In fact, during the ultrasound where we found out about her Duodenal Atresia, she was sticking her tongue out.  Far.  After she was born, she had all the tubes in her mouth until her stomach healed.  After they were pulled, and when she was ticked, we started seeing her little tongue on a regular basis.

almost 2 weeks old (about 3 1/2 pounds)

We started laughing that maybe she was part lizard-- you know, how they taste the air to figure out their environment?

Then we started worrying that it was actually true.

 

3 1/2 months old (about 6 1/2 pounds)

We've slowly come to the conclusion that she is way too cute to be part snake.  So now we just laugh.

5 months old

Constantly.  And it doesn't help that she's become a pro at blowing raspberries.  How can you not laugh at that?

Just so long as we can keep Justin from teaching Piper how to do his "tricks" with her tongue, we'll be doing okay.