I'm a little behind, but my sweet baby girl turned three months on 1/19. I feel like she made a lot of jumps in development between two and three months. She's like a real baby now instead of a newborn. She is such a joy to be around and I wish I could just have fun with her instead of stressing about my dissertation so much right now. But, we still have our adventures and she cracks me up every day.
One thing she loves is her bath. We are still bathing her every other night and she goes completely nuts in the tub. She kicks her legs and splashes water everywhere. She makes such a mess now that we've put her little tub into the big tub upstairs. I can't wait until we can take her swimming-I think she's really going to love it.
Let's talk about sleep. By the time she turned three months, her nighttime sleep stretches were getting longer and longer. She gets sleepy early, so she usually goes to bed close to 7:00. Sometimes I nurse her before bed and sometimes Jason gives her a bottle of pumped milk. The bottle was a pretty big struggle at first, but she's getting there. It's nice for them to spend a little time together since she goes to bed so early. She is still getting swaddled, but I know we need to break that habit at some point. After she goes down, she usually wakes up a few times before she's good and down. She just needs a little rocking or patting for those wake-ups.
Her first stretch of sleep is the longest and her record is around nine hours, but it's usually closer to six. We are lucky that most nights, she only gets up once or twice, but there is the rare night she's feeling off and wakes up more than that. Then she is usually up for the day between 6-7:15. Weekends are wonderful because I go back to bed after feeding her and Jason gets up with her. Heaven. It's nice for him too because she is completely silly and vocal in the morning-she's just in a great mood. Like here, in one of my favorite pairs of jammies that we retired this week.
Now, naps are a different story. She will only nap in someone's arms, in the Moby, in the stroller, in bed with me, or in the car (after she stops screaming at red lights). The Moby is probably her favorite.
But in my arms is nice for her too.
Month four will involve working harder to get her to sleep in her crib. It's hard because she will sleep over two hours in the Moby, but only like 20min in her crib before she wakes up screaming. Not good. And hard for me because I get no break from her all day long. Fortunately, she is great at playing independently while I do chores and talk to her. In fact, she is my laundry-folding helper and we talk all about the subtle differences between all of my elastic-waistband pants. Yoga pant =/= sweatpants =/= workout pants.
One big developmental milestone she acquired this month was the ability to deliberately grab toys and to bring them to her mouth. She is all about her toys now.
She's not rolling over yet, but I freely admit we do not do as much tummy time as we should. She HATES tummy time. I do everything I can to make it more interesting-get down on the floor with her, show her toys, put her in front of a mirror, recruit Neptune, etc.
The only time she gets very fussy is when she's overtired. Normally, she's a smiley, happy girl. She even giggles a little bit too. Like huh-huh-huh. It's adorable.
Elsa celebrated her first Christmas during this month. Jason took the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off and we had a fantastic holiday together. We didn't spoil her too much. On Christmas Eve, we took her to my mom's house where she had a mini photo shoot with her cousin.
My mom posing with all of her grandchildren. I'll bet my mom never thought she'd have two granddaughters born in 2011! So bittersweet that my dad never got meet the three youngest ones.
Posing with mom.
On Christmas morning, we celebrated with just our little family.
She got a book, two pink cloth diapers (since all the ones I had bought while pregnant were gender-neutral), the Fisher-Price glow seahorse, and monster jammies for next year. I think she's pissed that she got diapers for Christmas.
Her big gift was an exersaucer-type thing for when she gets a little older. She looks thrilled, right?
Later on Christmas Day, we had a lovely celebration at Jason's mom's house. She got a bunch more books (yay!) an adorable outfit, an ornament, and a warm fleece suit. I swear, her grandmas and her auntie spoiled her more than we did! She even got a gift all the way from Maine from my brother and sister-in-law! By the time we got home that night, she was a sleepy girl. We cuddled before she had to go to bed. I just didn't want her first Christmas to be over!
The next weekend, Elsa met my dad's family for the first time. It was a really fun party because I have a ton of cousins and a lot of them have little kids. We had a blast. One of my uncles reminds me a lot of my dad, so he held her and I tried to imagine my dad holding her. Believe me, having two granddaughters would have been the end-all for him! They would have been spoiled rotten by their Pop Pop!
She got to wear the pretty outfit her grandma gave her.
So, that pretty much sums up Christmas.
One other big change this month is that Elsa has really found her voice. She coos a lot, squeals and even yells loudly when playing. She goes crazy for the mobile above her changing pad and is constantly yelling and talking to it. She will "sing" with me (even though I'm terrible) and it's really cute. Sometimes she squeals and yells so loudly, you can hear her across the house. It can be a little high-pitched!
Another thing she does now that is so sweet is holding on when you pick her up. She will really grab onto you with her hands. It's heavenly. And when I'm nursing her, she will stroke my shirt or my chest. I love it.
Here is a picture of our little family before Jason and I went to a wedding celebration. It was fun to get all dressed up for once and forgo my usual lounging attire, but I had to get a new dress to accommodate my big boobs.
Oh, what a great month it was. As we had a quiet New Year's Eve at home, we reflected on our unbelievable 2011. Finding out I was pregnant in February and then having a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby was more than we ever could have wished for. 2011 will definitely go down as one of the best of my life. It's sad to see that Elsa is no longer a little newborn baby (because I LOVE BABIES), but it is fun to see her grow and watch her hit her milestones and see her little personality developing. Here are the last of her two-month photos.
