Cate turned three months old on Friday. To recap all of our girl’s latest skills:

* She’s trying really hard to roll over. It took me a while to figure out what on earth she was doing, because at first it looked like she was trying to pull some kind of Linda Blair/Exorcist stunt with her head. She’s now at the point where she can turn her head and most of her torso onto her side, she just can’t seem to get her hips and legs to follow. I have a feeling she’s going to master that skill sooner rather than later.

* Probably because she wants to turn over so badly, she’s a little more interested in “tummy time” these days. As long as I lie down where she can see my face, she’ll tolerate it for several minutes before she starts to get mad. And she seems to like sitting in the Bumbo chair, but she isn’t quite strong enough for it yet. She just kind of slumps over to the side after a minute or two.

* The smiles and laughs are a lot more frequent and consistent than they were a month ago, and they continue to be my absolute favorite thing in the world. I suppose it isn’t quite a genuine laugh yet, but she does a really big open-mouth smile, squinches her nose up and makes this sort of “kakk!” noise. Honestly, the laughs make it a heck of a lot easier to be woken up at 5 a.m. every day.

* Cate also seems generally more aware of her surroundings, and I’ve noticed that on days when she doesn’t leave the house, she gets very cranky. Yesterday she was a screaming terror, so I took her for a walk around the yard. We have two acres, so there’s plenty of room to explore. The second we stepped outside, she stopped crying. [Thanks to my aunt Susie for mentioning that, because I probably would’ve never thought to try it otherwise.]

* I’ve mentioned the Baby Einstein thing, right? Because good lord in heaven, that ROCKS. Twenty happy-baby minutes so I can wash dishes, eat a snack, read a blog, whatever. I am eternally grateful to the creator of that series.

* She doesn’t reach for toys and other things yet, but if I put a rattle or something near her hand, she’ll grab onto it. I’ll be interested to see how much those motor skills develop over the next month or two.

* The pacifier is still hit-or-miss, but if I can get her to latch onto it, it really does seem to calm her down when she’s fussy.

* In the past week or so, she’s suddenly gotten a lot more “talky”. She makes all kinds of sounds, and it’s usually pretty easy to tell when she’s just happy and babbling to herself from when she’s really mad. Example: “ah-bah-eye-nyeh?” versus “AH-BAH-EYE-NYEH!!!” It’s all in the tone. Although, honestly, I find both of them completely hilarious, which makes it sort of rough, since I probably shouldn’t be laughing at her when she’s upset.

There are tons of other things too, but I am wiped out from our trip to the Tulip Festival today. So here are a couple of my favorite recent pictures.

First, proof of her Mississippi heritage:

Poor little redneck baby. She’s going to hate me for that photo someday.

And my favorite shot of the two of us in the tulips today:

The rest of the tulip festival pictures are here. Happy Monday, everyone.