Beginnings of identity

Chloe's personality is getting more defined. After the haze of the first three months, Chloe started to sleep soundly through the entire night, and now that we're caught up on sleep for the most part, I have a mind again, at least enough of one to see personality shifts. It's so interesting, in the process of learning parenthood entirely on the fly with no background or experience in the subject matter, to have a blank mind to start with when making observations. I haven't cracked a parenting book in a few weeks now, I have no clue as to where Chloe fits in terms of developmental milestones, but her voice is gaining shape, both literally and figuratively. It brings up constant questions in me about what is truly ingrained and what is learned--she coughs with seriousness, she frowns when trying to clasp her fingers together, she smiles at Emmett and is really very gentle with him, yet unafraid, she is ever so dainty with Cuddles. She generally sneezes in pairs like her father, like me she smiles with part of her tongue sticking out, she sucks her index and middle fingers together and we often find her asleep with her hand on her chin, as though pondering the grand unified theory. She is experimenting with rhythmic groans, high pitched squeals alternating with screeching (which is remarkably difficult to try, try it yourself, Mike calls it "channeling cats".) So her range of sounds is expanding, and those new sounds only gain meaning after a little while, for now a meaning that is entirely hers.
Chloe is not the only one with forming identity, I think we all are. A few days ago when I was googling the subject, I had found a terrific article on just this subject, and now I can't find it anymore. It was from a midwestern university, on identity shifts after childbirth. At any rate, I remember the abstract clearly wrote about how parents are very much caught by surprise when this occurs, to the point of not recognizing themselves or each other, which seems to be where we're at. I can hear Sandy telling me "well, at least you're aware." But it makes me think of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this one being, one cannot assess personality very well when one's own personality may very well be moving too. Or something like that. Rested, but not that well rested.