Ari is two and a half months old now, and she's is definitely more "awake" than during her newborn weeks, both literally and in terms of awareness and perception.

She's been learning to play more this week, as well as to socialize. Ania took her to Gymboree for the first time, and she had a ball. It was her first time around so many other kids at once, and she did great.

I took Ania and Ari to Pleasant Hill park, where I used to like to play (and swim) when I was a kid. I went to a great day camp during the summers, and one day a week was the day we went to the "park pool"; the public pool at the park.

Pleasant Hill park was pretty much the holy grail of parks when I was young. My favorite place to play was a really cool semi-underground grotto area in the back of the giant main sandpit. You could go a little ways underneath the deck of the play structure above, and it was always the perfect spot for building sand castles. When I got older, it was my baseball team's home field.

Although it's changed, it's a nice, big park, and I hope Arianna enjoys it over the years. It's the first time I've taken Ania there too, which is unfortunate. I think a great benefit of having a child is that we'll have a great reason to go to more parks — something Ania and I have always really enjoyed — more often. The park tends to bring out the kid in both of us.

Milestones & Metrics

• Ari's really smiling a lot now, and "talking" to us a lot.
• She's much more conscious of our presence, often holding our gaze, which is mesmerizing.
• She's holding her head up very well now. And doing pretty well with sitting up.
  
• She continues to enjoy and be engaged in looking at pictures while Ania reads to her (she's been reading Polish story books).
• She scared us for a while by refusing to take the bottle for a few attempts, but we were persistent, and she eventually cooperated (after I went on and on about the virtues of cooperating with us, and how that's good for all of us, etc.). Ania introduced me to the value of distracting Ari and revisiting a topic or activity, which worked brilliantly.
• How Arianna looks this week: