She's ready to move out of her cradle (remember the ones that Dave's parents made for Adi and Mae?) but we're not ready to lose the magical rocking quite yet.
She's definitely waking up to the world more; she started napping less and so we've been trying to relearn her sleep signals and readjust her waketime. It is nice to have her awake more, though; Mae and Adi get more chances to hold her and she seems incredibly tuned in to their voices. I'm trying to stop myself from correcting how they interact with her unless it makes her visibly upset since I'm sure they offer her a wider range of interaction than I do.
Playing with toys in her 'play gym' is one of her favorite things; when she's fussy it is often because she doesn't want to be held anymore but wants a little playtime. She is batting toys deliberately, occasionally grabbing them and trying to get them to her mouth.
She also just started doing 'leg lifts' that I know will eventually lead to her being able to grab her feet. It's fun to see those muscles develop!
She has pretty good head control now although the back is still stronger than the front. She makes good eye contact and smiles a lot when she feels like it and is also talking a lot (see Conversation with Vivian). When I'm feeding her, especially first thing in the morning, I have to avoid making eye contact because that makes her unlatch to start a conversation.
One of the most helpful developments has been her finding her hands. She occasionally finds a thumb but mostly sucks on her hands, her wrist or her sleeve to soothe herself. The first night that I left her arms unswaddled, she slept almost 7 hours straight and I could hear her sucking in the middle of the night. This was increased for 3 more nights, up to 8.5 hours, before she regressed. But even her 'short' nights now are around 5 hours, which was recently a 'long' night so we're definitely moving in the right direction! She's also sucking on her lower lip sometimes which I haven't managed to take a picture of yet but it instantly reminded Dave and me of Adi as a baby. Neither of us had remembered her doing that until we saw Vivian.
As far as temperament goes, well, she has a temper! There have been a few times where something I did (attempting to give her a bath, picking her up to hold her) seemed to set off a crying fit that lasted until she finally fell asleep. She does seem to be quite sensitive-- she cried when I sneezed a few days ago and doesn't much like baths. (I keep reading that bathing a baby is supposed to relax them-- any hints for me? At her best, Vivian looks only mildly alarmed).
One of the most challenging things is that she doesn't like to be held when she's tired. So that has led to quite difficult evenings, when she is over-tired but has trouble falling asleep but there's not much we can do for her. She also has trouble eating when she's tired so often I feel like I'm trying to force her to get enough in to relax.
Up until last week we could sit with her in a dark room and hold her pacifier in until she fell asleep but she is now absolutely refusing the pacifier. Grandpa B can get her to calm down and fall asleep in her arms and Dave can rock her cradle and shush her but I don't have much luck. And when she wakes up early from a nap (which she seems to do for the majority of her naps now) it is virtually impossible to soothe her back to sleep. Compounding this is that she barely tolerates the sling when she's in a good mood and hasn't been impressed by the swing, either. Although this week she has spent some time in the front carrier without too much objection.
She's doing more tummy time and she is getting her head really high. In fact, last week she got it high and to the side enough to roll over three times. The first time she was so surprised that she started crying and we felt bad about laughing at her but couldn't help ourselves.
Then yesterday she was trying to look above her while laying on her back and I thought she was going to roll back to front but she didn't quite make it.
All in all, we're doing all right and I am definitely trying to appreciate the great moments that I know are so fleeting while not worrying too much about whatever isn't currently working. One nice thing about doing this the second time around is we have perspective on how quickly today's problems evaporate (to be replaced by tomorrow's!).
The parting shot, in her snowsuit.
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