2 Month Check Up

Little Miss Angela is 12lbs 11oz and 23.5 inches long! She has gained another 3 lbs and 1.5 inches in the course of a month! She has grown out of nearly all her 3 month clothes and transitioned into the 6 month size which is scary!

Alleluia .. well, sort of.

Saturday night Angela slept from 11pm-5:30am. I actually woke up at 4:30am on my own and couldn't believe she was still sleeping... she made up for it by being up every 2 hours last night.

Mommy's new Haircut

So after months of letting my hair grow out - not on purpose but out of sheer laziness (no pun intended), I made an appointment and got a ton of my hair chopped off. I had left John at home with Angela, but without a bottle because we hadn't given her a bottle in a while and the night before when we tried she wouldn't take it. So I fed her just before leaving and rushed home to feed her when I got back. She was fussy as expected and I put her in the position to nurse and she latched on, but then looked back up at me real quick, pulled off, and just STARED at me for a solid two minutes to say " WHO IS THIS PERSON?" I couldn't help but laugh the whole time (in between talking to her to make her realize it was still me) and it just goes to show that Angela knows her mom very well.

Hello Hand

Angela has discovered her right hand (the left is still out there somewhere) and is starting to spend time during the day checking it out fingers and all. The next photo I'm waiting to snap - the mini push up, she's working on it and we'll report back when it all comes together.

Eight Week Angela

We seem to be in the midst of yet another growth spurt. Constant feeding one day and then a day of almost all sleeping. Last night she only slept in chunks of 2 hours at a time, which was a bit exhausting for me. She is also growing out of a lot of her 3 month clothes and actually fitting perfectly into some of her 6 month outfits which is scary. Aside from lots of smiles we also have little gurgling conversations which are very exciting for both of us. She loves being able to vocalize and interact with us...and so do we!

I've started doing some exercises at home (with Angela's permission aka - sitting in her boppy chair watching me), however I have some sort of cut (maybe from a slightly ingrown toenail) that got infected and in combination with the thought that my feet may have gotten a bit wider, I find it very uncomfortable to wear sneakers and do exercises that put pressure on my toes. I made an appointment with a doctor but it's not until December, and am hoping it might heal on it's own through soaking & air drying. Until then I've plan on doing some barefoot kickboxing to a DVD. Right now my back, stomach & leg muscles feel so weak and on the verge of being twisted/pulled- I look forward to getting into some better shape - not just to look better but also feel better, as things are now I feel about 20 years older.

Gotcha!

Angela's smiles have been a bit of a phantom, however, last Thursday during a 6am diaper change she shot a big smile at me, and although I appreciated this, I was more concerned with getting her back to sleep. Later that morning we took a trip down to Bruegger's in Hingham so she could meet grandma's friends who get together for coffee every morning. Angela was super happy to see her grandma and couldn't take her eyes off of her and she entertained everyone with a bunch of smiles. Since then she has been smiling a whole bunch every day which is very rewarding.

She has also become quite vocal, no more infant "wah, wah, wah waahwaaah" now we've graduated into the full "waaaaa" baby cries complete with sad frowning face. If she's frustrated she'll put out a "hey" or an "aye" depending on how you interpret it - basically it means, "whatever you're doing is not entertaining me, change your methods or I'll break out into full ear-piercing cries." If she's happy she'll shoot an "ooh" at you and do a little bit of gurgling-talk, which is nice - but more often than not, we get the "hey!"

Most of the time she requires that someone holds her... which usually is me, which also makes doing anything impossible. Occasionally she'll sit in her boppy chair and watch her penguin mobile that we have hanging at the kitchen table... but for the rest of the time she generally wants to be carried around, even if she's sleeping. Evening can be a bit tough, unless I have time to just sit on the couch and nurse her and hold her - otherwise she's a bit cranky - wants to sleep, but has a hard time doing so on her own. In the last week (not sure if this is the new trend or not) she's been going to bed by 10:00 or 11:00 which means I go to bed early, but she's still waking up at 3-4 hour intervals.

six weeks going on seven

We've been working on training Angela to fall asleep on her own during the daytime (rather than us cradle her) sometimes shes wrestles so much she gets upset and starts crying...other times she manages. At night she still sleeps in bed with me. Although I would prefer for her to sleep in her bassinet, she squirms and groans a lot in her sleep, but when she's next to me, she does it a lot less and when she does I can feed her pretty quickly and quietly without waking her up all the way, and if she's just squirming to fall back to sleep I can cuddle her and calm her down and go back to sleep faster. Overall this method has enabled me to get much better sleep at night but I'm hoping in the next few months, once she grows a bit more and can hold more in her stomach, that I can transition her back to the bassinet.

She also occasionally sucks her tongue (usually after I've fed her) which is a bit weird and a bit funny.. Here is video of that and the difficult process of falling asleep. Lastly is a video of Angela chewing on daddy - this is actually pretty much just what she does sometimes when I'm nursing her which is hilarious, it's like I am feeding a little monster! I also like how she punches herself in the cheek in the first video.