Maddie has been continuing to amaze us with all the new tricks she's learning. She loves to sit up on our laps so she can look around. She's getting better at figuring out how to use her hands. She can get them into her mouth more often now. The past few days she's discovered her feet. Yesterday, she stared at them for about half an hour before finally grabbing her toes. We were very excited for her.
She's very smiley these days. It's awesome when she looks straight into your eyes and starts smiling and "laughing." (It's not a real laugh yet; it's more just like sucking in air.) She continues to try out new noises.
Her activity mat has suddenly become much more interesting to her. She can see all the toys now. She looks at them and wiggles her arms and legs around as if she's trying to hit them. She's grabbed on to one of the hanging rings a few times, but not on purpose. I still give her credit though.
She loves bath time and her changing table. She hates tummy time and getting dressed.
We're still battling The Sleep Monster every night. I give her a bath, read to her, feed her, and she sacks out. She stays asleep for about twenty minutes before she starts crying. The only way to get her to stop crying is to pick her up and bounce her. Not rock her, not sway with her....bounce her. And we can't bounce her while sitting. We can't bounce her on our knees. Nope, you have to be standing in just the right way. After about twenty minutes of bouncing, she falls asleep on my shoulder. Then I move her back to her bed. Sometimes she wakes up and starts screaming as soon as she touches the mattress. Sometimes she takes another short catnap. Either way, she wakes up again and the cycle repeats. It repeats for about six hours. Finally, she gets so tired that when you put her down for the last time, she starts softly crying in short spurts until she gives up and surrenders to sleep.
On the bright side, once she does finally go to sleep, she sleeps for a long time. I should probably wake her up earlier in the morning, but the two or three hours I get to myself before she wakes up are really nice. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to do it.
P.S. We did not win the holiday card challenge, but thank you for voting. It was a fun contest.
I don't know why, but for some reason Madeline looks like an elf to me in that picture. A cute, little, skeptical elf!
ReplyDeleteI thought she looked a bit elf like too. Maybe it's the hat.
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