29 Weeks

This was a fun week with Josie, interspersed with some really bad nights of sleep. My guess is she either has another ear infection (since she also developed another cold within the last couple of days), she's teething (I think I may feel some teeth under her gums, and there has been an uptick in the amount of drool she's been producing lately, but that may just be wishful thinking that she may actually be close to cutting a tooth), or she is having some tummy upset from solids - or maybe all three. But the last couple of nights especially have been rough, with her marking every 30-minute sleep cycle by crying out in her sleep (that was the night I got a couple hours of sleep when she first went down at 7:30pm, but then didn't get back to sleep until after 3am), and then last night she did slightly better, but still was up three times to nurse and ended up having to sleep on me twice. And as much as I love waking up to see her sweet little face inches from mine, I really would also like to sleep at some point again, for longer than 2 hours at a time. Ah well. I know everything is a phase, and we were expecting disrupted sleep at this point anyway, as she gets more mobile and more teeth. And given that she's waking up crying (rather than her usual raspberries and quiet chattering), that also tells me she doesn't exactly want to be awake as much as she is, so hopefully whatever is going on with her will pass soon.

At least her naps have seen a slight improvement over the last couple of weeks - she seems to be more consistently going down for her morning nap around 10am, while her afternoon nap(s) are a bit more varied at this point. But at least she's napping! She still averages about 1.5-2 hours of sleep at daycare, and then has been closer to 3-4 hours total for each weekend day lately.

Anyway, onto the fun stuff! First, this is one of my favorite videos of Josie so far - this child loves to make noise. Constantly.


Her sitting up has gotten a lot more stable too - she's able to sit for a lot longer in general before her head gets too heavy for her, and she's been able to sit on her own without immediately toppling over. Apparently, having all ten of her fingers to choose from is not enough, as she's also now sucking on her toes when given the opportunity:


Josie and I had a fun afternoon this weekend - sadly, I normally don't get to spend that much time with her awake, since I usually have feeding/napping time with her, but then when we're not doing those activities, Ryan normally gets her so that I can eat, do housework, etc. But Ryan was out skateboarding this weekend, so I spent a leisurely couple of hours with her without bothering to worry about housework. So I sang her a couple of songs, and we also had our first conversation. Ryan and I have been mimicking her sounds quite a bit to encourage her, but this was the first time it seemed she understood that we were communicating in some sort of loud, shrieky way. So for about 5 minutes, we had a hilarious conversation of yelling, babbling, and cooing... although now we're paying for it, since she seems to be yelling even more. But really, if she wants to converse with us, who are we to discourage it? ;)

[The short barking yell at 8 seconds left is her preferred method of communicating right now]

We also read a few books together, which we have really not done a good job keeping up with. I know it's encouraged to read to babies a lot, establish bedtime routines with stories, etc., but since she usually goes to bed as quickly as possible during the week and we're out and about (or asleep) quite a bit on the weekends, it just hasn't really worked out. But she was far more into it than the last time I read to her, and had fun playing with each of the pages (and taste-testing them, of course). Ryan also read to her for a bit, and luckily she's still not too picky about the subject matter yet.


[Reviewing the new Google privacy policy together - she was enthralled]

Josie also seems to be recognizing her name now, as she has been looking up when we say her name. She has been especially ridiculous with smiling and laughing lately, and more than once in the last few days, I found myself saying how awesome she was. She's really been so much fun this week - even when she's being demanding. When I went to pick her up from daycare yesterday, she immediately broke out in a huge smile and started kicking and flailing her arms around - and since no one was watching, I did the running man for her, which she is finally developing an appreciation for ;) But then I dared to look away from her for a few seconds and she yelled at me. She was giving me the stink eye when I looked back at her until I started pulling faces for her again, and then all was right in her world and she went back to grinning and flailing. Ridiculous.

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Everything is still funnier on the stairs]

[Baby bedhead]


[Random noises]