Two month update

Marie turned two months old yesterday! Time is going by quickly.

Vomit story of the month:
Three weeks ago, I was nursing Marie in bed when she unlatched and promptly threw up all over herself and me. While I was frantically instructing Jacob to get some burp rags so we could clean up the mess, Marie blinked once and then began eating again. Priorities. On a happier note, that has been the last time she's thrown up! I may be jinxing ourselves by saying this, but I think that phase has passed. 

Poop story of the month:
Two Sundays ago, I was holding Marie on my lap during Relief Society. She then proceeded to poop out the side of her diaper, miraculously leaving her own outfit unscathed, but leaving an unsightly puddle in the folds of my skirt. My visiting teacher was sitting next to me and ran to get some more wipes from her husband, while I used the wipes I had to mop up the mess. Once I was confident enough that I wouldn't drip upon standing, I took her to the bathroom to change her diaper. I came back to Relief Society, sat down, and no fewer than two minutes later, Marie pooped again. Loudly. At that point, all I could say was "Seriously?!" and start laughing. My face was pretty red, though! Let's just say I didn't get much out of that lesson.

Milestones:
-After sleeping terribly the first week I went back to work, Marie redeemed herself by sleeping much better the following week. And last week she slept for a five hour stretch between feedings two nights in a row! Too bad I still had to get up a good 45 minutes before she woke up, so I couldn't fully appreciate it. 
- She can hold and shake a rattle for a whopping ten seconds or so at a time, though she doesn't seem to realize that the rattle even exists. 
-On the other hand, she has discovered the mobile on her swing. We can stick her in the swing, and without even turning it on, she'll stare up at the mobile and smile and coo. 
-We've cut baths down from twice a week to once a week, since she doesn't seem to spit up in her hair nearly as frequently as she used to. Glory be!
-Speaking of baths, one day as we were getting ready to give her a bath, she rolled from her back to her side and stayed there for a few moments. When gravity overcame her and she rolled to her back again, she started crying -- must have been startling!
-After stretching out her newborn onesies, we finally moved her up to 0-3 month clothes. She screams much less during clothing changes now. I'm sure the correlation is coincidental.
-She's started arching her back periodically.
-She has also developed a case of cradle cap, which her hair usually hides unless I go hunting for scales that then flake off in her hair. I should probably just leave it alone.

Current likes: Snuggling, looking at her mobile in her swing, listening to Disney music and church hymns.

Current dislikes: Getting saline drops put in her nose, tummy time (though she tolerates it on occasion), being left in her swing or rocker for what she deems too long while she's awake.

Nicknames:
Pooping Queen
Sweet Girl


Other odds and ends:
-I'm not sure how much she eats when I feed her, but she's recently started downing 5 oz bottles in a single feeding.
-It only takes around half an hour to feed her at night, instead of an hour, so that's pretty glorious. 
-She still doesn't have much interest in books, but not for lack of trying on my part.  
-Marie still just falls asleep whenever she pleases. Which on the one hand is nice, because at least during the day we don't have to rock her to sleep or anything like that. On the other hand, it would be nice to have some consistency (and try to figure out a bedtime). Once I get out of school this Friday, we'll work on troubleshooting her sleeping schedule.
-The jury is still out on whether she'll end up blonde or brunette. Her hair is definitely getting lighter, but the overall effect is still brown at this point.
-I kind of can't believe how big she's gotten. We have her two-month appointment on Tuesday, so we'll see how long and heavy she is then. I wouldn't be surprised if she's nearly doubled her birthweight. (For those of you keeping track at home, she was 6.5 pounds when she was born, and I'm guessing she's at least 11 or 12 pounds now.)

ETA:
Weight: 11 pounds, 10 ounces (50th percentile)
Length: 21.75 inches (20th percentile)
Head circumference: 38.7 centimeters (50th percentile)

Also, she was NOT a fan of the shots (which of course, made me cry too), but after nursing she calmed down and now she's sleeping them off. Fingers crossed she doesn't get super fussy tonight.

One month . . . one week late

So apparently the one month update didn't happen. Take a one month + one week update instead.

Milestones:
-Marie tolerated tummy time on the floor for a grand total of seven minutes. Once. For the most part, tummy time is spent laying down on my chest. Which is not really going to help her learn to roll over or crawl, so I suppose I ought to put her on the floor more often. Alas.
-At three weeks, we introduced Marie to the pacifier. At first, her expression was akin to "what the heck are you doing to me?" Now, she happily takes the pacifier most times she's fussy. She isn't very good about keeping it in her mouth, though, much to her frustration.
-Since I'll be going back to work on Monday (cringe), we decided we ought to introduce her to a bottle, as well. She takes it readily enough, though she does dribble milk all over herself.
-We took her on her first road trip the day she turned one month old. We visited Jacob's family in Arizona. She was more or less a dream in the car: sleeping most of the time, taking a bottle when she was hungry, and refraining from throwing up. However, this leads to the next milestone . . .
-Having her first blowout in the car and subsequently getting cleaned up in a gas station. Jacob and I rate how messy her diapers are by how many wipes it takes to clean up.  Jacob, who had the misfortune of being the one to clean up the blowout, rated it as an "eight or nine wipe job" -- the highest number yet!
-She threw up for the first (and second) time at a location other than our apartment when we were staying at my mother-in-law's house. Of course, the first time was the first night we stayed there, and it was all over the sheets of the bed while I was trying to burp her. Awesome. There may or may not have been tears involved.
-She slept for a four hour stretch one night during our visit in Arizona, which is the most sleep I've gotten in one time since her birth. It was glorious.
-Marie has started to make happy noises on occasion. She's also smiles more frequently, which I love. I still can't determine whether they're actual social smiles or not, but her eyes crinkle up, so maybe they're genuine.
-We moved her up to size 1 diapers after several days in a row of leaking out of her newborns, including when she was being held by my sister-in-law Carly. She really knows how to win people over.

Current likes: Being held, sucking on her pacifier, listening to singing and nursery rhymes, baths, eating.

Current dislikes: Getting her nose suctioned out, tummy time.

Nicknames:
Snuffleupagus/Snorter, because her nose seems to be congested all the time. (We finally bought saline drops yesterday, which seems to have helped some.)
Stinkies, because Jacob wants to give her a complex.
Sir Toots-a-Lot, because baby girl gets gassy. I'm sure one day she'll really appreciate the fact that I've documented this little detail about her.

Songs I didn't anticipate she would hear, but that either Jacob or I have sung to her:
-Call Me Maybe
-Bohemian Rhapsody
-Bicycle Race
-Wrecking Ball
-Pretty much any country love song that comes to mind

Other odds and ends:
-She's getting better about holding her head up for short periods of time.
-I can usually get her to burp in just a couple minutes now, as opposed to ten or fifteen. I don't know if this reflects more on her abilities or mine.
-Almost immediately after burping, she tends to get the hiccups, which leads to more spitting up.
-Also, she spits up almost every time we change her diaper -- it doesn't matter how long it's been since I've fed her. We try to drape a burp rag under her chin while we change her diapers, but since she turns her head to the side and moves around, she often ends up with spit up in her hair. Lovely.
-In her first couple weeks of life, we thought she hated being swaddled because she would flail her arms and legs and scream, so we started leaving one arm out of the swaddle. Turns out she was just getting overtired. Once we started getting her ready for bed before she hit her exhaustion point, we were able to swaddle both arms again, with pretty good results.
-Most people who see her comment on her hair. I don't know if I'll even recognize her if she becomes bald. Well, I suppose I would, since I doubt all her hair would fall out at the exact same moment out of my view. (And if it does, I suppose we'd have bigger problems to worry about than her sudden baldness.) On another note, all of this hair is wasted on a momma who has no idea how to style hair. I've tried putting headbands in her hair a couple times and it always ends up looking foolish because her hair sticks up in all directions around the headband.

It was a happy day when she was finally big enough to fit into this onesie. Well, and a little sad, because it means she isn't my tiny baby anymore.

She's much more alert during the day.

Asleep on Mommy's chest.

Meeting Aunt Rachel and Uncle Robert in Arizona.

Daddy singing a lullaby. If by "lullaby" you mean "'To Be with You' by Mr. Big."

Comparing 5-month-old Jackson to 1-month-old Marie.

After a much needed bath because she somehow peed in her hair the night before.