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Sunday, July 19, 2009

New Tricks

Lyla is 11 weeks old now and her new trick for the week is laughing! She's only done it a couple times (mostly with Mike--apparently he's more funny than I am!) but they were definitely real laughs! It was way too cute! I can't wait until she does it on a regular basis and I can video-tape it!

She has also really started discovering her hands. She reaches for toys and touches them (especialy the crinkly stuffed toys which she likes a lot), and also bats at the toys on the toy bar of her bouncer (see the video of her doing this on flickr!).

Lastly, drooling. This is not really a trick, more of an annoyance, but my kid has suddenly turned into a water fountain. Sometimes she's just drenched in her own spit (and sometimes I'm the one drenched in it!). I definitely found a use for all those little cotton bibs I thought I'd never need!

Next weekend Lyla and I head to Buffalo where I start a new rotation. My mom will watch Lyla the first week while Mike is away at a conference. It should be interesting! I know my parents will have a ball with her. It will also be nice to spend some time with my friends up there--Rachael and her baby Sophie, and Kathleen will be visiting Buffalo sometime in the next month with her brand new baby Jack who was born July 10th! We can't wait to meet the little guy!

I went to visit Lyla's daycare which she will start in five weeks and it was heartbreking. The center is very nice--tp of the line security with password to get in, video cameras in the room which you can watch on your computer. It's very clean and seems well organized. The problem is that I don't know these people. I'm going to be handing over my baby to complete strangers! it was quite upsetting to say the least. I haven't had any trouble adjusting going back to rotations, I think because Mike has been with her so I feel very comfortable leaving her. Next month I'm sure will be the same with my parents. But daycare---I foresee this being a bigger transition for me than for Lyla! I think we have a meeting with the staff before she starts just to ask questions and so they get to know her (and we get to know them)....hopefully this will aleviate some of my anxiety!

Here's what little Lyla has been up to this week:


Here's the drool that I mentioned--this is only a little though!



Lyla playing with her toys






All ready for bath



Look at all those rolls!


So cute!



Happy as a clam after her bath

Friday, July 10, 2009

Lots of Changes

Lyla is ten weeks old today! There have been some changes recently—namely that I went back to my rotations two weeks ago. It honestly wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I was anticipating lots of tears and not wanting to go to work, but so far things have been going well. I think it helps a lot that Mike is home with her right now and she’s not in daycare. I think if I were dropping her off at daycare it would have been much harder for me to cope with the transition. Lyla has definitely gotten into a nice routine which she follows most days. I wake her up at 5:30 to feed her and we play for a bit. Then she goes back to sleep in her crib around 6:30 if Mike is staying home, otherwise I’ll get her dressed and she goes to soccer practice with Mike. If she’s home she’ll sleep until 9-10 and Mike gets to enjoy sleeping in a bit, then she eats and plays for a bit with daddy. At noon Mike and Lyla visit me at the hospital so she can eat again. On the car ride home she usually falls asleep and sleeps until I get home at 3. She eats and we play in the afternoon, have dinner, bath, get ready for bed, and she goes to bed around 9:30. On days when she goes to practice with Mike she usually sleeps for the first 1-2 hours, then eats, then hangs out in her stroller. Mike is working on using the sling so he can carry her around when she gets a bit fussy.

Mike’s sister Amy and her fiancĂ© Simon went back home to England last Monday after visiting for two weeks. We had lots of fun with them and they were a ton of help with Lyla, especially the first week I was back at work. It was sad to see them go.

Other changes—Lyla has moved out of her bassinet and now sleeps in her crib at night. The first couple nights were a bit of a transition. She had been sleeping through the night (8-11 hours!) since she was 5 weeks old (I know, I know, this is not normal, most parents are probably glaring at me when I tell them this. We really didn’t do anything special—we just got lucky to have a baby that sleeps so well!) but the first four nights in her crib she started waking up again in the middle of the night. This wasn’t too much fun, especially since I had to be up at 5 to go to work, but it was short lived and she’s back to sleeping from 9:30-5:30. She’d probably sleep longer if I didn’t have to wake her up to feed her. We do put her down to sleep awake so that she learns to fall asleep on her own, and at night when we put her in her crib she usually closes her eyes within 30 seconds and is out cold!

Developmentally Lyla is speeding past her milestones! She’s smiling a ton now! She mimics us sticking out our tongue at her. She studies faces very intensely and has started touching toys deliberately (not grabbing them yet though). She’s also been “talking” a lot with lots of inflection and intonation in her voice, and is really close to laughing (she does a little piggy squeal right now that is too cute!

On Tuesday she had her two-month check up and rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time on the exam table! Mike and I were very excited! She weighed in at 10lbs 6oz (still 30%) and was 22 inches long (also 30%). Here’s our little chickadee at 2 months old: