Vivian at six months

Our little baby is already half a year old!  It seems like it is going so fast (except at 5 o'clock in the morning, then it goes very slowly...)

She is trying hard to interact with her surroundings-- reaching for things, trying to get *everything* into her mouth.  Sitting with her on our laps at mealtime is an exercise in keeping her far enough away from the dishes, but she just keeps trying until we let our guard down for an instant and she grabs and dumps a bowl or something.  Similarly, I can't carry her around and drink something at the same time because she grabs at the glass or cup.

She has also become very aware of who is in the room; beaming with delight when Daddy arrives and screaming when we leave her for a minute or two.  Luckily her sisters are very enthusiastic about giving her attention, but that isn't always what Vivian wants.  She does smile and laugh when they play peek-a-boo with her while her diaper is getting changed.

Peek-a-boo is a favorite game, as is the seated row-row-row-your-boat.  She loves songs and likes to be jiggled and flown through the air. She is sitting quite well but still will crash eventually, so we usually have a pillow behind her if there isn't a volunteer.

She likes to be carried around now (not unusual for babies, but not how she started out at all!) and will ride in the front/back pack gladly. Which is good because my arms get tired holding her!  When we leave the house, she still seems shocked by the new surroundings; this works to our advantage in that she just quietly takes it all in.

She still likes sucking on cloth and chewing on her thumb but doesn't seem to have adopted the habit of sucking her thumb.  Rhythmic motions have become popular-- she'll lift her legs and slam her feet into the floor, or hold her hands together and beat on her stomach. When she's nursing, she likes to pull the burp cloth or my shirt back and forth. If she's tired, she pulls it over her eyes. And she always has pushed with her feet while nursing; she seems to like to have something to push against.


Bath time has become more fun; she's starting to splash and, when I have her sitting in the tub, she grabs at the water, and her feet under the water, in fascination.

But her very favorite thing is visiting Niaviv (the baby in the mirror).  Our bathroom cabinet has three doors so there can be more than one babies.  She smiles and laughs at them all.

Personally, my favorite part is seeing her rolls of fat. And that's what I like about the summer clothes- finally getting to see those plump little legs and arms every day. 

 

 

As you can see, her hair has stayed brown. I find this interesting because, when we decided on her name, I realized I was imagining a dark-haired 'Vivian' (based undoubtedly on Vivian Leigh). I decided I needed to start imagining a tow-headed Vivian, since our other children have been fair. But she proved me wrong and appears to be a brunette after all.

Not to promote comparisons but I've found it fascinating to look back at blog posts from when the big girls were the same age: Mae and Adi at 6 months.

Food glorious food

Vivian's first solid food occurred rather spontaneously: "she looks like she wants a strawberry; let's give her one".  When it broke into a chokable (or gag-able) piece, we dug out the 'food net'. It took a little experimentation to learn what the point was, but she soon stared sucking away at it.

Three days (and as many strawberries) later, we spoon-fed her some rice cereal.

Does this look like someone who wants more?

But she ate the whole bowl... although she seemed to prefer her bib.

So I can no longer claim that all but one cell of her body came through mine!

Five months old, with a tooth!

Guess who got a tooth before she turned 5 months old? Okay, you probably got it.  As Vivian was chewing on my finger last week, I suddenly realized there was something sharp in there. (Needless to say, no more chewing on mommy's fingers! I guess she'll have to figure it out for her own fingers, too). For the record, it was Apr 20, bottom front left. And the adjacent tooth seems to be close to the surface now.

She is rolling over a lot from front to back, although sometimes she still gets stuck. I read an old blog post to Dave about how Mae used her arm straight up in the air to roll over and Vivian must have been listening because, from that day on, she started doing the same thing. I think she can roll both ways but I'm not sure.  And she's trying to go back to front; she either grabs her feet and flops to the side or arches her head back and tries to use the straight arm, but so far she hasn't made it.

I was recalling how Mae went from being an easy-going baby to dissatisfied when she learned how to move; it was like she hadn't known what she was missing and, once she had the idea of getting around, was frustrated by not being able to. It seems like Vivian is going through something similar with sitting. She isn't stable enough to sit by herself for more than a few seconds but she is no longer happy to lie on her back and play with toys.  (At one time, that was the only thing that would make her happy!).  It might be that she wants to sit up, but she also seem much more aware of others' presence in the room. If I leave her in the playgym and try to cook dinner, she has a very annoying squeal that works very well to get me to change her situation. We bought an exersaucer at the twins' club sale last weekend, so hopefully that will help!

4 months old!

Vivian was 4 months old at the end of March. She was weighed and measured at the doctor's and passed with flying colors-- at over 16 lbs she is a big chunk of baby! We are thankful (as always) that she has grown so well with no health problems. Her immunizations caused fussiness for a few days but that just served to remind us how well she's doing otherwise.

She has settled in many ways-- her nighttime sleep has improved, short naps seem to be giving way to longer ones, she's sleeping in her crib instead of the cradle, she'll put up with the 'front pack' (even fell asleep in it one evening thanks to Dave's vigorous swaying) and she's drinking from the bottle well (most of the time). Bedtime is easy now and she's mostly happy during the day as long as someone is paying attention to her. She's smiling a lot and acts like she wants to laugh but no sound is coming out yet.

Her developmental accomplishment of the week is grabbing her feet. Just the right one at the moment, and they aren't in her mouth yet, but those abs are definitely getting stronger! She has been experimenting with different sounds; for a few days she gave up cooing in favor of blowing raspberries and spitting. Right now she is fake-coughing (or else she has allergies and I'm unsympathetic?!)

And I've realized I failed to mention one of her most consistent traits-- she is the easiest baby to burp! Sit her upright or place her on your shoulders and it comes right up.

Skiing

It started inside, with the girls trying out their skis and boots (thanks to Uncle Mike & Aunt Megan)

Yes, even ballet-princess can ski!

Then, after one of our mid-winter snows, we took the skis to the local sledding hill

There was a most obliging lift

A little break for sledding

Perhaps the best part was eating the snow:

Then on to the real mountain: Dave took each girl up for a day at Eldora and they had enough fun that we decided to enroll them in a lesson sequence for small children on Friday mornings, cleverly named 'Eldorables'. Since my dad was nice enough to babysit Vivian, this meant that I got to ski for 2 hours (which I desperately needed after gathering up their gear, driving up there, getting each girl dressed in snowpants, ski boots, fleece jacket, winter jacket, mittens, helmet, goggles... just to protect them from the wind and cold while we walked from the car to the lodge, where we had to take off the goggles, helmet, mittens, winter jacket and fleece jacket to go potty, then had to dress them again in the fleece jacket, winter jacket, mittens, helmet, goggles... Oh wait, we forgot the sunscreen! What do you mean you have to go potty again? No, there's no snacks! You can't have any water, just eat some snow when you get out there! Just go, come on, hurry up, yes, it's hard to walk down stairs in your ski boots, here, where's your instructor? No, I'm not staying with you, you're a big girl and you'll do just fine. Oh here he is, good, finally, please take them I so need to get a few runs in! Before coming back and doing it all again, in reverse.)

Isn't this fun? (These photos courtesy of my mom, who accompanied us one day. So actually everyone is in a better mood than usual.)

The scariest part for us? They're riding the chair lift! Our kids who spontaneously fall over while standing, is that a good idea? This picture is a bit hard to decipher but I wanted to show you that, as my mom pointed out, their legs are so short that the skis stick straight up and down.

We're all heading up to Eldora tomorrow (except Vivian, again courtesy of the grandparents), for which I'm unexpectedly excited. I'm sure we won't get off of the 'lower mountain' but hey-- we'll finally be skiing with our kids!

Vivian at 3 months

At Vivian's two month check-up, she weighed in at 13 lbs 4 oz and was 24 inches long. That puts her in the 95th %ile for both measurements and it means she's grown 3 inches since she was born. We can tell-- she is definitely not a 'little baby' anymore and she's busted through her newborn clothes. Adi and Mae were big babies but Vivian got a head start on even them!

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.

Happy Valentine's Day

Thanks to Tammi for the homemade quilt!

4 years ago...