Alice is growing like a weed, physically and cognitively. Her body has rounded out in the past month. Where she used to have skinny little chicken legs (at least compared to her sister at the same age), she now has dimpled little thighs. Long lean fingers have been replaced by tiny little sausages, and her tummy and face are rounder too. I'm so proud. (It's one of the stranger side effects of oxytocin: pride in making one's baby cherubically chubby.) Her hair is thinning, but she still sports far more than Lizzie did at this point.
Alice is showing us more of her personality and special baby skills every day. She now bats at toys, and I'm convinced it's intentional. She'll look at a toy on her play gym, bat it, watch it move until it stops swinging, then bat it again. She also grasps the rings on her play gym, but that's clearly accidental at this point. She often hangs on for minutes at a time, poor dear.
Alice has a wide array of vocalizations -- coos, and squeaks, squeals and clicks. She uses her voice to convey both pleasure (when batting toys, for example), and frustration. She also cries more than she used to (which was next to never). In the past week and a half, we've heard a real, honest to goodness scream-cry on three occasions: vaccinations, when Lizzie fell on her bouncy chair (which was scary, but didn't hurt her in any way), and again when I very gently helped her roll from front to back (which must have been scary given her reaction). Alice gets pretty ornery before about 50% of her bedtimes, and she'll cry then, but never for very long. And she doesn't come close to Lizzie's old pterodactyl cries. Still no laugh, but I swear we're getting close.
Smiles are now easy and often. Alice wakes with a giant grin from almost any nap, and (unfortunately) sometimes in the middle of the night. The smile is incredibly cute -- it's just so big and so very enthusiastic -- but it's dangerous. It means, without a doubt, that she'll want to interact properly -- ideally for about an hour and quarter -- before she'll even contemplate sleep again. Alice has also started smiling when I talk but she can't see me. A high pitched "hello, sweet baby" is sure to earn a charming, gummy reward.
Sleep is progressing nicely too. Alice and Lizzie are now on remarkably similar schedules. Both go to bed between 6:30-7pm, and wake up between 6-7am. (Earlier on some unfortunate mornings, and a tiny bit later very very rarely -- only if it's been a rough night for all four of us.) Alice wakes once, roughly 7-8 hours later (between 1 and 3am), and again 3-4 hours later. If the timing is just right, this means that she wakes only once during the night to eat! (I'd say I get this lucky 25-30% of the time recently.)
Alice tends to stay awake for about an hour and a half first thing in the morning before she takes morning nap #1. This first nap is pretty consistent, but short at 30-45 minutes. The rest of the morning is a bit spottier. Alice generally wants to be awake for about an hour and 15 minutes at a time (and nap for 30-45 minutes), but her drowsy window is very short. Jump the gun, and you'll have a wide awake baby who then gets mad and wont go to sleep. Wait too long to try, and you're really in for it. So the mornings have been a challenge... (Which would be fine if if I didn't have mountains of work to do. I can definitely see the allure of stay at home parenthood.) In the afternoon, Alice goes down for a nap at the same time as Lizzie -- around 12:30-1pm. About half the time she'll take a huge nap, just like Lizzie, through 3 or even 5pm. The other half of the time (as today, unfortunately), she'll wake up after just 30 minutes, and repeat the morning quick-cycle through bedtime. (Boo. Then nothing at all gets done all day.)
Lastly: an update on Alice's cold. (We've all had this rotten cold for 2 weeks.) She's recovering well (as are we all), but slowly. The biggest side effect from the congestion is that Alice has taken to sleeping in her rocker, which elevates her head. Fine for the time being, but I worry about the long term effect of the rocker's cradled shape -- Alice doesn't have freedom to kick her arms and legs when she's in it. So we're trying to get her back down in her crib, unswaddled. So far, we've had a bunch of very short naps... but we'll persevere. The mini crib she now has is a stepping stone to her big crib... and that's the key to getting out of our room and into Lizzie's! (We're still not sure when we'll make that jump -- we don't want Liz and Alice to wake each other up in the night -- but boy am I looking forward to being able to turn on my bedside light again!)
So that's the news. Until next time...
