Our munchkin is getting bigger by the minute. At the doctor's office a few days ago we put her on the scale and she weighed 12 lbs 10 oz, putting her higher on the percentile chart than she's been before. She's outgrown all of her 0-3 month clothes and has started in on the 3-6 month sleepers. I love the ones with feet in them – she wears them all day, since I don't really see much point to actual clothes like shirts and pants or dresses at this point. She has some really cute ones.
She has also mastered social smiling, and gets in a smiley mood quite often. She laughs a little and is starting to make a few sounds. Of course, this is really difficult to catch on a camera, but mommy and daddy are loving it. We'll try to post our attempts to capture it. She seems just on the verge of reaching for things and making babbling sounds. She really lights up when we make repetitious sounds for her like dadadada and mumumum. I just read an article where they showed that a specific part of babies' brains are activated by repeated syllables but not by other words – all evidence points to this being true with her. She also likes to lie on her back and look up at things – she can stare for some time at daddy's shirts hanging in the closet (it helps that her bed is right up against them), and loves the ceiling fans – she smiles and laughs at them almost as much as at mom and dad.
She is also an amazing sleeper – we have been putting her down sometime between 8 and 10 pm and she doesn't wake up until 4 to 6 am. At first we got up to on check her several times, but she seems to be fine. We are still shaking our heads and wondering if it will last. Unfortunately she still doesn't sleep long or predictably in the daytime. She fell asleep on my chest a bit ago but didn't stay asleep 3 minutes when I tried to lay her down. So now she is sleeping soundly on my chest again. Fortunately I can type at the same time, though not very fast. She does pretty well in the swing, but at the moment I can't bend over to put her in it or take her out, so we can only use that when daddy is home.
My back is still being very obnoxious. I'm getting rather tired of medical personnel saying, “boy, I've never seen anyone have this much trouble...” We haven't exhausted the things to try yet, but I've been spending most on my time on the couch in the one position that doesn't cause joints and muscles to get upset. I can walk around some, but not bend over much, or stand up while holding anything (getting up requires both hands). I am getting pretty good at taking care of a baby without getting up, or at least without carrying her anywhere. Daddy has been able to do a lot of work from home, so we've been surviving. At least our munchkin gets the benefit of having both parents do lots of taking care of her. And during the day she often gets to nap on mommy's chest or lap. She sure is a sweetie. I've been doing a few projects for school on the computer, in addition to watching kids shows and educational stuff on PBS, a bit of Dr. Phil and Oprah, and more news than I've seen in years (I'm not sure I was missing anything).
Well, I finally got a bunch of pictures uploaded to our website. To avoid having to upload them all again, I'll give you a few teasers and then link to our site. Here you go:
http://new.doctor9.net
