I would freeze time somewhere right in between 4 and 6 months. Grace isn't newborn fussy anymore. She isn't mobile. She wasn't teething. Such a great age. Here are some snippets about Grace right now.
She is and has been for the last couple months, pretty stranger shy. Unlike Meg and Adin, she isn't super friendly with people that stop to ooo and awe at you. It's hard for a stranger to get a smile out of her. However, she adores me and Brian and is super attached. She will let Meg hold her if she is in a good mood. If she is grumpy it's got to be me or Brian and if she is suuuuper grumpy it's got to be me. I can't say that I hate this about her. I'm having such a hard time watching her grow up and feeling like time is slipping by that it helps for her to be a little clingy and cuddly. It never (at least not yet) annoys me at all. A couple examples of this trait. Sarah just had Cheyenne. I wanted to go the hospital to see her. She was actually in the NICU for a week. I went when the kids were at school and just arranged with Sarah that Felipe could come out and watch Grace while I came in and held Cheyenne for a few minutes. The hospital has a rule that kids that are siblings aren't allowed back. I packed her diaper bag with quite a few toys and figured she could just sit and play with toys for 15-20 minutes. I went back and washed up to hold Cheyenne. I held her for a while while Sarah talked with a nurse. When the nurse left, I figured it had been a while and that I should go relieve Felipe. As I walked out of Cheyenne's NICU area, I heard a screaming (SCREAMING) baby. Now, I could probably count on one hand the number of times that Grace has got so worked up she cried her piercing, wailing cry so I didn't immediately recognize it as Grace, but I started walking faster wondering if it was Grace. As soon as I came out the double doors. There were Felipe and Grace. Grace was sitting on his lap completely red, blotchy faced SCREAMING. I picked her up and she did that kind of shutter breath and stopped crying and gave me a tiny smile. I felt so bad for Felipe. It just didn't cross my mind that she would do that because I haven't ever left her with anyone. Another short story, my mom is here helping Sarah adjust to two kids for a couple weeks. I called her with questions about setting up Grace's crib. I just couldn't remember what order everything went together. She offered to run over and help me. Thank goodness. It was even more complicated than I thought. Grace just sat on the floor and played with some little things I had put within her reach. She started to get a little fussy after a while and I was busy on my end of the crib so my mom picked her up. Grace's head immediately flipped to look at me and she gave me such a panicked look. I wish I could have caught the look on camera. Within just a couple minutes of grandma holding her she was crying for me. I was just beginning to think that she might be old enough to leave with a sitter. Now I'm thinking she can be left with a sitter, but only if asleep. Sheesh. Can't say I hate it though. I think that makes me crazy. I guess I like to feel like she needs me.
On with snippets. Gracie thinks her dad is a source of constant entertainment. If he is in the room she looks at him with these adorable wide eyes like she is anticipating what he is going to do. He talks in voices that she loves and she loves to wrestle with him. She started doing this adorable scrunched up nose face and she blows air through her nose while she does it. Initially she just did it to anyone. Now it is reserved for Brian when he is wrestling with her. She loves wrestling (baby style of course) with her dad and he knows all her ticklish spots better than anyone. She always puts her tiny little hands on his whiskery face when he is wrestling with her and screams the perfect little scream as he gets her. They have a cute special bond that I adore.
Adin calls her baby or baby balooga. He is insanely crazy with how he interacts with her. It is always big motions. Kind of rough. Lots of his loud version of goo goo ga ga baby language that drives everyone else completely nuts. Grace is completely entertained by him. She loves every bit of it. Strange. She is too big for him to be able to carry around so he hasn't taken on a role of helping me a lot with her, but he sure is good to entertain her for me. He absolutely 100% adores "baby". He has never once complained about her or complained that I have to help her.
Meg equally adores Grace. She calls her cuddles or baby sisterer. She has this shrill high pitched baby talk that she does that can drive me equally nutty. She is always asking to take Grace. She loves to lay down and lay grace on her chest and says "and crawl, and crawl." Not sure about that one...neither is Grace. Grace does love Meg though and if I'm busy Grace often seems relieved to be taken by Meg and entertained a little bit. Meg is a super big helper and I don't know what I would do without her many times. She has been a definite bonus to having a baby in the house again. I didn't have a big helper with the other two.
Grace is a horrible sleeper. Horrible, I tell you. She doesn't like to nap longer than 45 minutes in the day. If I just pull her out after 45 minutes she is really grumpy and rubbing her eyes and just needs to be put back down. Dr. Arnold (pediatrician) said to make her cry it out a little to lengthen her naps and help her adjust to napping longer intervals. It's only supposed to take short time of crying it out for it to work. Well, we are going on a month now and she is still wailing for 20-30 minutes before she finally falls asleep for another 45 minutes. Because of this she is currently taking 3 naps a day. She is awesome at putting herself to sleep. In an effort to see if it would help, I stopped rocking her to sleep. I adored rocking that girl to sleep. It was such a special one on one time. I actually wrote a little post down at one point about my love of rocking that girl, in hopes of helping me remember. I'll have to post it. Now she puts herself to sleep for naps and bedtime. She is nursing 2-3 times a night. I wouldn't even care about that but I know I have to wean her for stinky radiation. The older two just eventually weaned themselves off night feedings. I don't get that luxury this time.
Grace got her first tooth (bottom middle left) at 6 1/2 months and her second (bottom middle right) a week later. She was so miserable. Even drugged up she was still in pain. Poor thing. I was alternating motrin and Tylenol to try to help her. I was a tiny bit sad because I love toothless grins. Now you can see those two little bottom teeth inching their way into her smile and she is just as cute.
Food hasn't gone well with her. I think it goes back to her sensitive stomach from her newborn days. Most new foods I try make her gassy and give her diarrhea. Rich cereal with breastmilk was our first try. She loved it and gobbled it up, but then was super gassy and in pain for two days. I tried again...same thing. I tried again a few weeks later...same thing. She does like mashed up bananas. Isn't so keen on yogurt. I think she doesn't like that it's cold. She has tried graham crackers and those are okay and same thing for the baby puffs. She sure does adore nursing though. Again, a little stressful for me as I have to ween her in a few short months. Got get pumping so she can try bottles.
I have so so much fun dressing Gracie up. My mom bought her some adorable new clothes. I love the headbands. I love baby shoes.
She has been up on all fours for about a month now. She will rock back and forth like she knows there is something to that position, but just can't figure out how to get those hands moving. Sometimes she gets the knees going and then ends up face planting it into the carpet or wall or whatever else is close by. She started sitting unassisted about 4 1/2 months and now is a seasoned pro. She can even rotate her little body around as she is sitting. She usually only topples over when she is doing it on purpose and she wants to try her crawl position.
Things are definitely easier than when she was a newborn...by far. She is significantly better in her carseat even though she doesn't love it. She is able to be set down for 5-10 minutes at a time to play with toys or something. She is still by neediest baby by a long shot.
Finally, she adores baths. She loves when she is laying back if the water covers her ears. This always triggers her wide eyed look and a smile. Who doesn't love sounds under water? If she is on her back she also constantly tries to turn her head to the side and get a drink of water (she loves to drink water). Since she has gotten so good at sitting, I have started letting her sit up in the bath if I am right next to her. The other day this spurred her lower her head down in between her legs to try to get a drink of water that way. A couple times she ended up putting her whole face (eyes and all) in the water while trying to drink. She cracks me up with water. She will gulp water from a cup.
I think I have covered a lot of bits about her right now. I really wish I had done this every month since she was born. It took me so long to get on the ball. Now I am stuck trying to backdate and remember as many details as I can.
Here are a few pictures that I took at Brian's parents house with Brian's dad's camera. These were taken about a week before she was six months.
No comments:
Post a Comment