Holy cow, Emma is 8 weeks old! Here are a few things she’s been up to lately:
- She is becoming chatty, and will coo at us whenever she is in a good mood, which is pretty cute. There is the beginnings of a laugh, too, which is great. She’ll do it more if we echo it back to her; she gets a big kick out of that! Most often this all happens during changing or massage times; she definitely enjoys being naked!
- She spends a large chunk of her day analyzing her hands, and attempting to aim them into her mouth, ideally thumb first. It is a difficult task, but a fascinating one…keeping her entertained for what I’m sure adds up to hours each day. She can get the thumb out, but can’t seem to get it into the right place after that. Or she can get the hand to the face, but the thumb won’t be out. She does a lot of what we call “thumb Popsicle” (licking the thumb side of hand when the thumb is tucked in) or “knuckle sandwich” (jamming whole hand in mouth). Neither are half as satisfying as the real thing. If she does luck out and get all the steps right, she is so excited she jerks the hand away again. It is heartbreaking, yet humorous, as well.
- She is showing more interest in toys now, mostly staring and batting at them with her hands and feet (not sure if its intentional or not, but whenever she looks at them her limbs start flailing towards them). She likes dangly toys, like this, and can be amused for quite awhile by them in her carseat and bouncer, especially.
- Her all time favorite continues to be her pictures, which she stares at, smiles at, and now, talks to. They were printed off the internet and are taped up around her changing table. Sometimes I just leave her there while I fold clothes or tidy the room (I know, shouldn’t do that much longer, since she’s starting to get wiggly) because she is so enchanted by them she will forget to be grumpy for a bit.
- Her mirror (thanks Kim!) is also very popular. We’ve moved it from the changing table to the crib now that she’s more mobile because she kept knocking it down. She likes to bat at the dangly thing, and sometimes hits the spinny ball with her hand, too. Mostly she flirts with the baby in the mirror, though.
- Though we have not been too good about scheduling “tummy time”, we do try to do it when we think of it, and she seems to really be working those muscles well (I think this is due to her constantly trying to climb up us when we try to burp her, etc, which she’s done since day one). She does a “seal” pose and holds it for quite awhile while looking at her toys or her baby face book. She loves to push off with her legs and inch (or tumble) fowards, especially if she’s propped in the boppy.
- Sleep….is illusive, at least during the day. Emma does not believe in naps, it seems. She does not think she should sleep while Mama & Daddy are awake (thank goodness, she is not up all night too!). For awhile a few weeks ago, I thought I saw a pattern of hour to two hour-ish naps happening in the AM and PM, but no, that was just a tease, I guess. She is not very good at falling asleep on her own, and when she does fall asleep on us or in the sling, she will often wake upon transfer to her bed. The car will put her to sleep, until we get to our location. She will bless us with a nap occasionally, sometimes longish, but they are so irregular, and definitely not to be depended upon. Dangit. I guess I predicted this, though; when I was pregnant she kicked constantly, all day long, and we always joked (half-joked, half-worried) that she’d never sleep when she came out…
- And then there’s the feeding issue, perhaps somewhat related to the awake-all-day thing? Who knows. Breastfeeding is getting better, in terms of the pain, though I am still a bit sore it is manageable and still slowly getting better. Still doing lots of things to try to increase my supply, and I think its working somewhat, though I still constantly worry about whether she’s getting enough. She seems to want to feed ALL. THE. TIME. which is frustrating and worrisome. I would be much less concerned if she was actually gaining the right amount of weight. We are giving a bit of formula each day, usually in the afternoon when she still seems ravenous after a ton of time on the breast, but then I’ll go and be able to pump another ounce or two, which seems odd to me. Yeesh.
- And one last thing. The drool! It seems in the past week or so, Emma has become an avid drooler. Soaking shirts all the way through! Drool dripping everywhere when we carry her facing out. Drool all over us if we carry her facing in. I know its not as bad as it gets later on, but I am surprised at how it just suddenly started happening out of the blue. Is this the pre-pre-teething stage? At least we know she isn’t dehydrated…
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