Second Month

Pictures

Ahh, month number two. We were now quite a bit wiser and a lot more at ease. Alanis started smiling at the beginning of the month and does it more and more now. It is such a wonderful feeling to see that cute, gumless, tongue-y smile directed at you. It really does bring light to my life.
Early smile:

More recent smile:

She is definitely way more alert now and stays awake for longer periods of time. Whereas before she wasn't really focusing her vision anywhere now she definitely looks and follows people and objects. She even tracks her daddy as he moves around. We no longer have to be right in her face to get her attention. She even likes to look at books. Here she is gaining a deeper perspective on life from her Blues Clues book:


Feedings are going much smother now albeit more often. She's eating every two hours now throughout the day. If she kept gaining an ounce a day she should be exactly 10lbs at her appointment on Wednesday. However I predict that she will be more than 10 since we've been estimating her weight periodically by weighing ourselves with her on our digital scale. The question is whether she will be over or under 10.5. She also seems to have gotten a lot longer. She outgrew newborn clothes and even some 0-3 month stuff due to length. She's also no longer wearing newborn diapers and is on size 1's.

She finally started cooing near the end of the month. She started doing it with Daddy first (of course!) but now she and I will have nice conversations too. It was funny at first when she still didn't have her voice. She would watch my lips intently and try to move hers but no sound would come out or only grunting. Then one day with her Dad she finally found her vowels and it was so cute that it made me tear up.

Her limbs are a lot stronger now. She loves to move her kick her legs and move them around slowly when she's in a good mood. If she's about to get fussy she will do a quick march in place instead. She also discovered that her hands are yummy and they are frequently in her mouth now.

Much to my chagrin, she likes watching TV!! I don't know when it started exactly but if she's downstairs in the living room on her exercise mat she will sometimes ignore her toys and instead stare at the boob tube. Oh no!!

She also *loves* her mobile. I swear she can stare at that thing all day. Sometimes she smiles at it and tries to reach out to it. We call this picture "Supergirl":


The one thing we need to work on is more tummy time so she can develop better head control. I neglected to put her on her stomach that first month and by the time I realized I should have been doing it she didn't care for the position. The first several attempts had to be aborted pretty quickly but recently she's been making nice progress. Apparently it's quite a workout because she grunts more than guys lifting weights at the gym:


The other thing that is a work-in-progress is sleeping. I am happy to report that maybe 3 weeks ago she started taking longer stretches of sleep at nighttime. These vary from 3.5 to 5.5 hours. We can now count on at least one 4 hour stretch a night. Woohoo!!

By the way, I'd like to take this time to whine about just how many books/theories there are about child sleep. Holy moly! And of course me being the anal person that I am, I bought and have read quite a few books and my mind is now swimming with all the information. I've read from Ferber ("cry it out") to Sears ("co-sleep") to several in between. My mind gravitates towards one method but my heart goes for another. When did sleeping become so complicated?? In my day we were put in bed and that was the end of it. Or maybe it just seemed easier from that vantage point. Some days it's as if all I do is worry about her naps and sleep in general. But then I figure that years down the road it really won't matter what the hell we do now as she will have moved on to bigger and better milestones and challenges. So the lazy part of me is tempted to not to much and just go with the flow. Well, I think I will do that anyway for at least another month to see where she "settles" at. The anal side of me is intrigued by the sleep trainers, though I think it's all a little too much honestly. One of the things that is difficult about being a parent is being sure whether you are doing the right thing. I am still feeling incompetent I guess or at the very least I tend to second guess myself a lot. If anyone is still reading this blog and has ideas, opinions, advice about the whole sleeping thing, please comment. I'd like to know what others out there did.

Finally, personality traits I am starting to notice:
* Feisty/Perseverance: The nurses noticed this at the hospital as we were working on BFing. Even when things weren't going well from my standpoint she continued giving it her all at almost every feeding. She also tries very hard with her tummy time even though she doesn't like it very much. You go girl!
* Jolly: When something amuses her she doesn't hold back and lets you know that she's pleased. I do hope she keeps that as she grows up. Sometimes life can take that away from you and you don't enjoy things to the fullest. It's nice to find happiness even in small things.
* Love of food. :-D I guess this one too can count for all babies but I swear this girl really must have her food now. Just like Mommy.