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Jul. 29th, 2005 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaAlex will be sixteen weeks old on Monday. Looking at her early pictures, I'm amazed to see how much she's changed. She's left her newborn days behind - she's my big grown-up baby now.
Her use of her hands is increasingly sophisticated. She's reaching out and taking toys from my hand now, not just accepting them when I give them to her. She handles toys well and brings them to her mouth more or less successfully. And she's able to use her hands to explore her body. This created a bit of alarm the other day, when the nanny reported that Alex had been grabbing her ears a lot. That can mean an ear infection, but in this case it just seems to have been caused by Alex's discovery that she has ears. Grabbable ears! She also loves to play with her feet. When we lie her down on her back, she swings her legs up, grabs one foot in each hand, and just stays there, bow-shaped, rocking a bit. She has also developed the unfortunate habit of reaching down in mid-diaper change, as if to see what I'm so interested in. Hopefully that one won't last, because I lack sufficient hands to change a dirty diaper while keeping all four of her limbs clean.
She's liked mirrors for some time, but now she seems to be starting to understand them. We spend a lot of time in front of the bedroom mirror, looking at the reflection of the ceiling fan (still a favorite object) and then turning around to look at the actual fan. She stares at her own reflection and then grins, burying her face in my shoulder. (She does that a lot now, when she's happy. I don't know if it's shyness or just more joy than she can contain.) Reaching out to touch her reflection also prompts strong interest and happiness.
Lots of big grins these days. She's so happy to see me when she wakes up from a nap. She's so happy to be handed a toy, to be put on her bouncy seat or her playmat, to have her diaper changed. Even her bath makes her happy now, after months of struggle. And she laughs, a surprisingly big, noisy, grown-up laugh. It's not always clear what sets her off. The other day we were listening to Free To Be You And Me, singing and dancing along, and in the middle of "It's All Right To Cry" Alex suddenly burst into peals of laughter. Huh. The next time I played and sang that song, same reaction. It's the part where Rosey Grier lists feelings:
Sad, grumpy
Down in the dumpy
Snuggly, huggly
Mean and ugly
Sloppy, slappy
Hoppy, happy
Just saying those words, with lots of expression, makes her laugh. I think it's the strong rhymes. I tried her on "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," and got a similar reaction. (What else has lots of rhymes? It may be time to buy her a copy of Hop On Pop.) We continue to go to infant story hour at the library, which is all nursery rhymes, simple songs, and rhythmic movement. Alex pays close attention for the whole 30-40 minute program, and seems to enjoy watching the older babies as well. It's also beginning to be more clear that she enjoys being read to at home. She has to be in a quiet mood, but she definitely looks at the pictures and tries to help turn the pages.
She "talks" a lot - conversational noises, now featuring several consonants (M, B, G) in addition to the vowels she's been using for a month or so. She'll lie there and talk to herself while she's playing, and she'll have little conversations with us where she responds to our questions or statements with her own noises. Last week she discovered that she can talk VERY LOUDLY, but fortunately she's dropped that again. For now.
In her first two months of life, I hardly ever put her down. When I wasn't holding her or co-sleeping with her, I carried her in the sling. She still uses the sling for naps and for falling asleep at night, but during awake times now she would much rather be on the floor. She likes to make big full-bodied movements, flinging her arms and legs around, kicking her feet, swinging her feet high up in the air, straightening and relaxing her body. She kicks so determinedly that it actually propels her across the floor on her back. She doesn't realize what she's doing, she just suddenly notices that she's a few feet away from her toys and screeches indignantly to be rescued. She's tolerating "tummy time" much better these days - she can hold her head and upper body up well, and she's even begun to roll over from front to back sometimes. She makes vigorous crawling movements on her belly, but hasn't ever managed to move more than an inch or two.
Sleep has been our only real problem lately. For a few weeks, Alex was inching ever closer to sleeping through the night. She'd fall asleep at 8 or 830 and sleep through until 4 or 5am, at which point she'd drink a bottle and go back to sleep again until 7. We thought we'd gone to heaven. But in the last week or so she's been waking more often to eat, and being restless in between. Twice this week, she's woken up at 5am after a restless night and refused to go back to sleep. I wanted to blame it on the incredibly hot weather we've been having, especially because our old bedroom air conditioner has gradually stopped working. But last night was more of the same, despite a new air conditioner and cooler weather. I've picked up a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution, which seems to have helpful advice. We're also planning to transition her to a crib after we get home from our mid-August vacation. I'm nervous about that, but at this point I think we might all get more sleep that way.
I continue to spend time with Emily (from my childbirth class) and her daughter Zoe. Zoe is three weeks younger than Alex, but they're following very different developmental paths. Zoe has legs like tree trunks, and can stand very well with Emily supporting her waist. Alex likes to be stood up, but she can't really manage it - her legs buckle. We were all playing on the floor today (we go to story hour together on Fridays, and then have lunch). Zoe was in a supported stand, and she bent over to get a closer look at a toy on the floor. It blew me away - Alex doesn't have anywhere near that kind of large motor control. On the other hand, Alex's use of her hands is far more advanced than Zoe's, more so than the three-week age difference would explain. They're just each working on different things.
(A few more pictures have been added to her July album, but it's still mostly pictures from our week in Elmira with my family.)
Her use of her hands is increasingly sophisticated. She's reaching out and taking toys from my hand now, not just accepting them when I give them to her. She handles toys well and brings them to her mouth more or less successfully. And she's able to use her hands to explore her body. This created a bit of alarm the other day, when the nanny reported that Alex had been grabbing her ears a lot. That can mean an ear infection, but in this case it just seems to have been caused by Alex's discovery that she has ears. Grabbable ears! She also loves to play with her feet. When we lie her down on her back, she swings her legs up, grabs one foot in each hand, and just stays there, bow-shaped, rocking a bit. She has also developed the unfortunate habit of reaching down in mid-diaper change, as if to see what I'm so interested in. Hopefully that one won't last, because I lack sufficient hands to change a dirty diaper while keeping all four of her limbs clean.
She's liked mirrors for some time, but now she seems to be starting to understand them. We spend a lot of time in front of the bedroom mirror, looking at the reflection of the ceiling fan (still a favorite object) and then turning around to look at the actual fan. She stares at her own reflection and then grins, burying her face in my shoulder. (She does that a lot now, when she's happy. I don't know if it's shyness or just more joy than she can contain.) Reaching out to touch her reflection also prompts strong interest and happiness.
Lots of big grins these days. She's so happy to see me when she wakes up from a nap. She's so happy to be handed a toy, to be put on her bouncy seat or her playmat, to have her diaper changed. Even her bath makes her happy now, after months of struggle. And she laughs, a surprisingly big, noisy, grown-up laugh. It's not always clear what sets her off. The other day we were listening to Free To Be You And Me, singing and dancing along, and in the middle of "It's All Right To Cry" Alex suddenly burst into peals of laughter. Huh. The next time I played and sang that song, same reaction. It's the part where Rosey Grier lists feelings:
Sad, grumpy
Down in the dumpy
Snuggly, huggly
Mean and ugly
Sloppy, slappy
Hoppy, happy
Just saying those words, with lots of expression, makes her laugh. I think it's the strong rhymes. I tried her on "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," and got a similar reaction. (What else has lots of rhymes? It may be time to buy her a copy of Hop On Pop.) We continue to go to infant story hour at the library, which is all nursery rhymes, simple songs, and rhythmic movement. Alex pays close attention for the whole 30-40 minute program, and seems to enjoy watching the older babies as well. It's also beginning to be more clear that she enjoys being read to at home. She has to be in a quiet mood, but she definitely looks at the pictures and tries to help turn the pages.
She "talks" a lot - conversational noises, now featuring several consonants (M, B, G) in addition to the vowels she's been using for a month or so. She'll lie there and talk to herself while she's playing, and she'll have little conversations with us where she responds to our questions or statements with her own noises. Last week she discovered that she can talk VERY LOUDLY, but fortunately she's dropped that again. For now.
In her first two months of life, I hardly ever put her down. When I wasn't holding her or co-sleeping with her, I carried her in the sling. She still uses the sling for naps and for falling asleep at night, but during awake times now she would much rather be on the floor. She likes to make big full-bodied movements, flinging her arms and legs around, kicking her feet, swinging her feet high up in the air, straightening and relaxing her body. She kicks so determinedly that it actually propels her across the floor on her back. She doesn't realize what she's doing, she just suddenly notices that she's a few feet away from her toys and screeches indignantly to be rescued. She's tolerating "tummy time" much better these days - she can hold her head and upper body up well, and she's even begun to roll over from front to back sometimes. She makes vigorous crawling movements on her belly, but hasn't ever managed to move more than an inch or two.
Sleep has been our only real problem lately. For a few weeks, Alex was inching ever closer to sleeping through the night. She'd fall asleep at 8 or 830 and sleep through until 4 or 5am, at which point she'd drink a bottle and go back to sleep again until 7. We thought we'd gone to heaven. But in the last week or so she's been waking more often to eat, and being restless in between. Twice this week, she's woken up at 5am after a restless night and refused to go back to sleep. I wanted to blame it on the incredibly hot weather we've been having, especially because our old bedroom air conditioner has gradually stopped working. But last night was more of the same, despite a new air conditioner and cooler weather. I've picked up a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution, which seems to have helpful advice. We're also planning to transition her to a crib after we get home from our mid-August vacation. I'm nervous about that, but at this point I think we might all get more sleep that way.
I continue to spend time with Emily (from my childbirth class) and her daughter Zoe. Zoe is three weeks younger than Alex, but they're following very different developmental paths. Zoe has legs like tree trunks, and can stand very well with Emily supporting her waist. Alex likes to be stood up, but she can't really manage it - her legs buckle. We were all playing on the floor today (we go to story hour together on Fridays, and then have lunch). Zoe was in a supported stand, and she bent over to get a closer look at a toy on the floor. It blew me away - Alex doesn't have anywhere near that kind of large motor control. On the other hand, Alex's use of her hands is far more advanced than Zoe's, more so than the three-week age difference would explain. They're just each working on different things.
(A few more pictures have been added to her July album, but it's still mostly pictures from our week in Elmira with my family.)
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Date: 2005-07-29 10:58 pm (UTC)If you can't keep all four of her limbs clean, you can surely clean them one at a time after diaper change ...