The witching hours

Our babymoon has ended -- it turns out that Alice does cry after all. We've officially entered the weeks of the witching hour(s) in the early evening and into the night when Alice gets the "grumps." I suspect intestinal gas is the trigger (though I suspect she also started a growth spurt yesterday) -- at times, she's clearly in pain (contorted face, legs pulling up, tight abdomen) -- though after an hour or so of not sleeping when she's clearly tired, Alice also shows signs of being overtired (and why not?!), which makes matters that much worse. At other times, the grumps are just general end of day fussiness, though with Alice that's easily solved. She settles very quickly when held and soothed UNLESS there's periodic tummy cramping (in which case she's soothed for just a few minutes at a time). Still, compared to Lizzie at this age, Alice is easy to handle.

Apart from gassiness, we're doing very well. Alice now gives us 3-4 hours sleep at a time overnight (unless she's up with gas), and has similar stretches during the day. She falls asleep almost instantly in her carseat, whether in the stroller or the car. (Again, unless she has gas pains, in which case all bets are off.) She loves motion. Quite unlike Lizzie, Alice is tepid toward the the swaddle, and generally rejects the pacifier. The latter is particularly unfortunate, as we found the paci a wonderful soother when Lizzie had gas pains at this age. Alice's vomiting has slowed to about once a day, and is often a bit less in volume than before. The jury's still out on this one, though -- if indeed she's going through a growth spurt, it may explain the reduction in vomiting. (She's eating (necessarily) smaller meals more frequently, and probably getting more hindmilk as a result.)

We've had a few firsts: first family trip to the park (Alice slept the whole time, and Lizzie had a ball with both parents there to marvel at her athletic feats); first sniffle (already resolved itself for Alice -- Lizzie is on week two of a runny nose); first day without an umbilical cord stump. To celebrate the last of these, we'll give Alice her first tub bath tonight!