Two Months!

Our little girl is growing and changing so fast! While we're very excited about all the developmental milestones she's reaching, we're also so sad to see the newborn stage end! We had a fun and busy month with Dan's school year ending and a trip to Michigan for Steve and Sheila's wedding. Emma got to meet lots of friends and family members, and we discovered she's a great little traveler!

 

We experimented a little bit with her sleep schedule this month to try to get her nights and days switched. After Steve and Sheila's wedding weekend when she slept through all the daytime festivities, and then kept us up a lot during the nights, we were pretty desperate! We picked up the "Babywise" book and tried putting Emma down for scheduled naps during the days, following the recommended schedule.  Then we let her follow her own schedule at night to see what happened.  The good news was that she did make some progress in sleeping longer hours at night - about 3 hour stretches.  The bad news is that she HATED going down for scheduled naps during the days.  She was sleeping in a bassinet in our room and it got to the point where she'd start crying as soon as we took her into our bedroom because she knew we were going to put her down in her bed. We made it 5 days before deciding it wasn't worth continuing the schedule since she wasn't showing any progress with self-soothing herself to sleep.  After talking with our sister-in-law, Dawn, we tried a couple of things she had tried with her boys, and found that Emma loves sleeping in her car seat!  It's much easier to get her to continue sleeping after transferring her from our arms to the car seat than it ever was to lay her flat on her back in the bassinet. As an added bonus, we can also easily move her car seat anywhere in the house to keep an eye on her while she's napping.

 

Some facts about Emma at two months old:

• Our favorite development is that she's smiling intentionally! At around 6 weeks, we started getting happy grins and coos when we acted like fools for her.  Needless to say, we act like fools all the time now in the hopes of getting a smile. :)  As each week passes, we notice her responding more and more.
• She loves having her diaper changed! It's one of the best times to talk, play, and tickle her since she's so happy.  She still doesn't mind when she has a dirty diaper, but she really enjoys having her diaper and clothes taken off and doesn't fuss at all when we put on the new diaper and outfit. That's a big shift from the days when she thought we were killing her when we dressed her.
• Since she doesn't consider it torture anymore, it's worth it to dress her in cute girly outfits instead of footie pajamas all day.
• She's now sleeping at least one 3-hour stretch at night starting at around 11 p.m., followed by a series of shorter naps throughout the night. She sleeps the entire morning away (until 11 a.m. or so), only waking up to eat. Girl wakes up almost every time cranky and hungry! She definitely takes after me. Ha!
• In the afternoon, she's awake for an hour or two at a time. Her interests are slowly encompassing more than being held and eating. We've had some minor successes in entertaining her with the swing, her floor play mat, and bath time. She'll enjoy herself for 10-15 minutes at a time before wanting to be done. You'd be amazed at what a new mom can get accomplished in 10-15 minutes when her hands are finally free!
• She's beginning to gain more control over her hands and arms, so she doesn't flail all over the place unless she's really upset. She still can't keep her hand at her mouth very long, so as soon as she tries to suck on her fist, it goes flying away. The pacifier is hit-or-miss, since she doesn't quite understand her tongue yet and will spit it out unintentionally, then get mad about it.
• We introduced her to the wonderful world of bottle feeding, and she has doubled her birth weight! We tried several kinds of bottles before choosing Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottles with a preemie nipple to keep the milk from flowing too fast.

Here are some pictures of Emma's new experiences this month.

 

 Emma enjoyed her first theatrical performance when we went to watch several of Dan's high schoolers perform in "Peter Pan".

 She visited Dad at work for the first time on graduation day!

 Our family picture after the high school graduation ceremony

 We had several visitors this month, including Kat and Burton, who joined us for dinner one night.

Ann and her son, Eli, also came to visit

Sue, Stacy, and Ellie stopped by for a play date. Sue will be keeping Emma at her house on the days I'm working. Since Stacy and Ellie come over to her house often, Emma and Ellie will get to play together!

Jennifer, and her kids Jonathan and Coral brought us delicious enchiladas for dinner one night.

And we got to hang out with Cynthia and her daughter Olivia. They were the only visitors that Emma stayed awake for!

 

Emma's first non-meltdown experience in her swing. It's in the kitchen so she can sit in it while I do dishes or make lunch.

 She's really enjoyed her play mat recently. It plays music and lights and has a baby Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird stuffed animals for her to look at.

She gets totally relaxed in her bath, and loves when we run the warm washcloth over her.

She also had her first Disneyland experience this month! We were on our way to a party and decided to go a few hours early to introduce Emma to the happiest place on earth! We took her on the Peter Pan ride, since she was already familiar with the storyline from the play we attended. I'm sure it was all very familiar to her. Heh!

We just love this girl and the personality she's showing already!