Just Because

From 2014 January

2 months

I can't believe Elizabeth is 2 months old already!  Time really is going so much more quickly this time.  I really am sometimes still surprised to notice that I'm not pregnant anymore.

Some of the things Elizabeth is doing at 2 months old are:

• Smiling.  She has smiley phases, where she smiles a ton for 5 or 10 minutes, especially right after eating or when seeing a new person.  And after that spell is over, she is done smiling for awhile, even if you do the same things that made her smile a few minutes earlier.
• Making lots of different sounds with many different intonations.  She is doing some adorable and complex ones right now while on the playmat.  I wish I knew what she was saying, but she clearly is happy.
• Batting at toys.  Her aim is pretty good and she hits them with some force, but usually with either her forearm or a closed fist, so not thinking about grabbing.  She clearly gets satisfaction from being able to make them move, however.
• Kicking to make the bouncy seat move and get her toys to make noise.
• Recognizing her own arms and feet.  She discovered her feet yesterday and it was hilarious watching her expression as she figured out the correlation between her motions and the movement of her socks.
• Controlling her head.  She still occasionally headbutts my collar bone when she loses control for a minute and her head falls forward, but for the most part she looks all around with ease.
• Staying up until 11pm.  That is what she has designated as bedtime and she is very consistent with it.  We really need to get her to bed earlier but she has resisted our efforts so far.
• Crying.  She definitely cries a lot more than Nicholas did.  Not enough to be colic, but enough to be grating.  And sometimes I fear she is going to hurt herself with how wound up she gets.

She is still not a good sleeper at night.  She has now figured out nighttime and so goes back to sleep after eating at night, with no alert spells, but she virtually never sleeps for more than 3 hours in a row at night and quite frequently she is up every 2 hours or so and on bad nights spends one of those 2 hour spells fussing and needing a pacifier or to be rocked to stay asleep.  It is frustrating because she will do 3-4 hour stretches during the day, but there seems to be no correlation between how much she sleeps in a day and the kind of night she has, so I let her sleep when she wants to.  We'll see how daycare affects this.

And here is our sweatheart:

From 2014 January

From 2014 January

Thank Yous and Theology

I was writing some thank you notes tonight while Nicholas was taking a bath (I know, it is 2 months late, but better late than never, right?) and Nicholas asked, "Are you going to write a thank you note to God for making Elizabeth?"

New Years

We have developed a tradition of going to Smithsonian museums on New Years Day.  This originally began 3 years ago when we learned that parking was free in D.C. on New Years.  At that point we had been wanting to take Nicholas in but thought that adding Metro trips on both ends of the museum would be too much given how little he still was.  And it was a fabulous trip, partly because of close free parking, but mostly because of the low traffic in the museum. See the entry here: http://peanutchronicle.blogspot.com/2011/01/air-and-space.html

And then we happened to be in D.C. on New Years again last year and so went back (no blog entry, but pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/103033220833760597415/2013January?authuser=0&feat=directlink.  (Apparently we didn't go the year in between, given that I can't find any pictures in the blog archive.)  This year when we were talking about New Years (and happened to be in MD again) we discussed doing the same thing, but honestly I am getting bored of Air and Space and Natural History and even Nicholas remembers them well year-to-year, but Nicholas isn't quite old enough to be interested in the history museums or monuments in D.C.

So instead this year we drove out to the Dulles annex of Air and Space.  So cool!  There aren't many exhibit-like things, so in an apples-to-apples comparison the one on the mall is still a much better museum, but this was really cool to go to once.  And perfect for the manic-mood that Nicholas was in because you could just walk around being awed by all the big planes without having to stop and really read or stand still.  Also perfect for taking a little baby to because it was basically walking laps around a huge aircraft hanger.

The most exciting part for everyone was seeing the Discovery space shuttle.  Joe was like a little kid over it!  And Nicholas had just done a space unit in school, so was really excited to see something that had actually been to space.

From 2014 January

Elizabeth even seemed awed by the place, looking around with huge eyes trying to take it all in.

From 2014 January

From 2014 January

She then fell asleep and chilled in the Baby Bjorn the rest of the time.

From 2014 January

Successful trip!

Uncles

If my brothers weren't already lukewarm (which may be putting it mildly) on the idea of having kids, my kids would be responsible for their lack of cousins on this side of the family for the forseeable future. The best word to describe the kids in the days before Christmas is loud. Nicholas was wound up between being on vacation and out of his routine, excited about seeing his uncles and grandparents, and the anticipation of Christmas, and so was being even wilder and less obedient than his new post-Elizabeth normal. And Elizabeth was being 6 weeks old. And a 6 week old without her usual spaces and gear. And the combination meant that it was loud! Andrew was working a lot, but Peter was a good sport about playing with a wild Nicholas and both of them had a little time with Elizabeth when she wasn't screaming.

From 2013 December

From 2013 December

From 2013 December

Manipulation

At not quite 8 weeks old Elizabeth has figured out how to get us to do her bidding.  She does not want to sleep in the pack n' play at my parents' house.  She does NOT!  Last night she did one 3ish hour shift in there and then wouldn't stay for more than 20 minutes at a time.  She would fuss and cry and refuse the pacifier.  Finally I would pick her up and she would laugh and smile.  This was cute, but also felt a little bit like taunting.  It was as though she was saying, "Ha, I won!"So I got back into bed holding her, letting her sleep in my arms.  She snuggled in contentedly for a minute and started to drift off before realizing that she could do better.  She started whimpering and wiggling until she got herself into the position my dad holds her in (pictured below).

From 2013 December

Once she had her face wedged into the opening in the corner of my arm, she stopped whimpering immediately.  Victory!  But I wouldn't let her stay there.  I know her face is in an air hole, but I didn't feel safe falling asleep with her like that.  What if I moved in my sleep and closed up the air hole?  So I rolled her back over.  And she did it again.  I did eventually win.  Or, I guess won a partial victory.  She got to sleep in my arms snuggled up but I kept her face up so I felt confident she could breathe.

We then repeated the process after her next feeding, although this time she had Daddy for her test subject.

I am not particularly eager to go home and re-enter the real world, but we need to get home before she cements this belief that she is allowed to sleep in our arms all night.

Cutie Pie

From 2013 December