Hannah's First Smiles and Whacks of Week 8

Dear Hannah, 

You have suddenly gotten so much more alert recently. You are able to hold your head up pretty well for awhile and when you are awake, you stay awake and alert for about 30 mins to 1 hour before you start to get cranky or fall asleep. 

You seem to love bath time. You like to splash your feet around in the water. In the picture below, you don't look very happy, but trust me, you love bath time. When you are fussy, you immediately calm down as soon as you are placed in the warm bath water. 

 This week I've been placing you on the activity mat while we watch Nathan play. You started batting at one of the toys! We all cheered for you and we are very proud of this milestone.

 Sometimes if you are awake when Nathan is getting ready to go down for a nap, he will read to you.

 Sometimes out of the blue, Nathan will hit you. I can assure you that he loves you so much, but he just can't control his impulses. Mommy always sends him into a time out and we talk about how it hurts you when he hits.

Here's that social smile that I was talking about. You smile when I sing to you.

 This is your gassy smile.

You actually like being on the swing. You love to look at the mobile that hangs above your head. You sometimes can sit quietly and entertain yourself for up to 30 minutes.

Your sleep schedule is falling into a more predictable pattern:
Wake up at 9 am
Down for a nap from 10:00 - 12:00, waking once for a quick feed.
Down for a nap from 2:00 - 5:00
1 to 2, 30 minute quick cat naps from 6 to about 8:30.
Bath time at 8:30.
Fall asleep from 9:30 to 10:00 for 3-4 hours. (One night, you almost slept 5 hours)
From then you wake up after 2 hours to nurse, but go back to sleep quickly.

For now, it's predictable, so it's nice to help me plan and schedule things to do.

Tomorrow, we go to the doctor to get your hips checked. You have 2 more weeks in the harness. In 2 weeks, you will get an x-ray taken of your hips to make sure that things are ok. I'm curious to see how that is going to go. Well, that's it for now. Stay sweet.

Now I'm going to write to your brother...

Dear Nathan,
You are starting to become quite the talker, and a demanding one at that too. You've also become quite the backseat driver. When I'm driving, you are constantly telling me to drive faster, slower, go, or stop. You have also started to request song tracks from our chinese songs CD.

At home, you are still obsessed with your trains. You want me to play with you. If I ever leave for a bit to get something, you will yell "Mommy, Lai (Come)" repeatedly until I am right in front of you once again. But you don't want me to play with your trains. I'm only allowed to build the track and watch you play. Lucky for me, I feel like building the track is the fun part.

Sometimes you randomly will hit Hannah and they say "Waah." You know that hitting Hannah hurts her and that it makes her cry, so why do you continue to do it? I wish you could use your words to tell me about how you are frustrated or sad about something. Here's a picture of  you hitting Hannah that I just happened to get while I was taking a picture of you spinning the butterflies for Hannah to look at.

 In the afternoons we are still doing some cooking. One day this week, we made cookies and on another, we made granola bars. I thought it would be fun for us to try to eat like Teddy, so I had you try to eat the granola bar crumbs without your hands. You thought it was pretty fun, but you prefer to use your fingers.

You continue to still drool a lot, especially when you are concentrating on something. I'm thinking about having you go back to using your electric toothbrush. It seemed like it helped when I had you use it about a year ago. But then again, I think your 2 year molars are coming in as well, causing you to be extra drooley.

On the potty training front, you still continue to use the potty for number 2. You are actually able to recognize that you need to go and run to the bathroom. (But you call it "pee pee") Lately, you have been trying to keep your diaper dry and will tell me that your undies or diaper is still dry. However, when you realize that you've gone number 1, it's often too late. I have a feeling that we are just going to have to do the no diaper boot camp over one of these weekends.

That's it for this week.

Love,
Mommy