As Maddie approaches her first Christmas, she is filling her days with a cavalcade of other firsts\u00a0as well. We’ve been staying at my in-laws’ house in southern Indiana for the past week, where Maddie has been adored by nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles young\u00a0and old.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n With Maddie’s new ability to sleep on her stomach<\/a>, we have been able to get her to nap pretty much anywhere that there’s a flat surface, so that we can hang out at other relatives’ homes playing board games or floor hockey into the night while she rests in peace in the next\u00a0room. It’s perfect.<\/p>\n In addition to her new sleep routine, there have been some other fun firsts just in time for Christmas. She is now fully able to roll over from her back\u00a0to her stomach and vice versa, which she doesn’t choose to do often, but can do with surprising speed. After changing her one day, I checked a text message on my phone, looked back at her and saw that she was suddenly on her chest. She’s also holding her head up like a champ and beginning to respond to her name when you call it.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n She’s also becoming adorably ticklish, which is proving to me that baby laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds in the universe. If you tickle her around her neck and shoulders or tickle her feet, she will erupt in a series of deep-throated giggles that are unlike any other sound she makes. It’s seriously heart-melting and kind of addictive to hear. Sorry, Maddie. We also recently discovered that she enjoys rounds of peek-a-boo, which makes her unleash a similar giggle fit every time you uncover\u00a0your face.<\/p>\n All of these changes have made Maddie seem increasingly like a little girl and less like a baby, which has made this whole parenting thing more fun with each passing day. But child development isn’t all games\u00a0and laughter.<\/p>\n On our drive southward, we were stopped at a random McDonald’s when I gave Maddie my finger\u00a0to chew on and excessively drool all over, as she has been wont to do for the last couple weeks. She will really go to town on any finger I offer her, and if I’m holding her with one hand around her chest and don’t<\/em> offer her a finger, she will inevitably dive bomb my hand and try to find a finger to chomp on like a corn on the cob. Since my hands and fingers have some hair on them, she will also slide her mouth around on my thumb until she finds the hair-free spot that is most finger-lickin’ good.<\/p>\n This time when she chomped down, it actually kind of hurt, and I felt something hard between my finger and her gums—her first tooth! Her bottom\u00a0right front tooth was already emerging from its gummy packaging and poking up with surprising sharpness.\u00a0Considering her incredibly friendly temperament the past couple weeks’, we were both shocked that she already had a tooth to show for her seemingly minimal teething efforts. I also didn’t think that babies got their teeth this early…she’s only four months old! Our pediatrician once asked us when we had started teething as babies, since\u00a0apparently it is somewhat genetic, but I don’t think either one of us started this early. Mom…thoughts?<\/p>\n