I try to keep these updates high on the descriptive and low on the boastful. However, I must tell you, my daughter is the most delightful baby the world has ever seen. I say that despite the fact we’re in full teething mode and we’re battling fits of tears and anger with Motrin and Little Teethers gel. In between bouts with gum pain, M. is as funny as I can imagine a kid her age being. She picked up a new sound while we were away. Put a glob of spit on the back of your tongue, then hiss like a cat. Only it’s fun hissing, not angry hissing. You’re not mad at anyone. She makes this noise about 75% of the time she’s awake now, and if you do it back at her, she squeezes her eyes shut and giggles.
Really, everything makes her laugh. I was making dinner the other day and she just watched me from her swing (which she can now reach out, grab the frame, and stop). Each time I looked at her, she laughed. Walk up the stairs holding her, she laughs. Carry her under a light, she looks up at it and laughs. Give her a large, red Dixie cup and she laughs and plays with it. Feed her (like today), and she laughs and tries to grab the spoon before you can get it to her mouth. Put her in the tub, she kicks her legs like she’s a maniac and laughs. As I said, delightful.
The big milestone this week has been rolling over. She rolled from front to back at six weeks, which was a little early. She did that for about a month, then stopped cold when she reached the age where she should be doing that. We tried and tried to get her to keep doing rolling, but she would just lay on her belly looking at us. Finally, around Christmas, she started going front to back again. We hadn’t seen her make any effort to do the hard roll, from back to front before this week. I’ve seen other babies struggle with the whole arm tuck thing for weeks. Tuesday night, M. was in her crib watching her mobile. She kept rolling to her side and grabbing the bumper, so I pulled her to the opposite side of the crib just to see how far she could roll. Boom, rolls completely over like she’s been doing it for months. I called S. in, flipped M. over to her back again, and she immediately rolls to her belly. “Had you seen this?” I asked S.. “No!” Neither had grandma who watched her while we were away. Not sure if she had been practicing at night when we couldn’t see her, but now she’s a pro. We put her on the floor to play with toys and she’ll do 3-4 rolls in a row and end up halfway across the room. Kid’s getting dangerous; we’ll have to start pinning her in.
The girl has learned how to sleep, too. I think it helped that grandma would put her to bed at 8:00-8:30 every night last week. But now, we can put her down at early as 8:00 and she’ll sleep until 7-7:30. Even better, she’s taking at least one long nap each day in her crib. She was willing to sleep 90-120 minutes during the day in the past, but she generally had to be laying on one of us to do it. Getting a full night of sleep (Illness allowing, of course) and having time during the day to do things rocks! Now teething is going to screw everything up, of course.
Monday is her six month check-up, so I’ll have updated height and weight numbers then, but it’s obvious she’s growing like a weed. S. cleaned out all the clothes that don’t fit her anymore, and we put so many outfits into storage that it suddenly looks like she doesn’t have anything to wear. She’s definitely longer and not as chunky as she was at her last check-up in November.
Finally, she had a very telling moment Wednesday night. I was watching the Pacers-Celtics game, which featured my men Paul Pierce and Jermaine O’Neal. I’ve kept quiet about this, but JO has replaced The Truth as my favorite NBA player. Each time there was a close up of Jermaine on Wednesday, M. laughed. When they showed Paul, she didn’t react at all. Kid’s in tune with what her daddy is thinking. Hopefully I can teach her fun anti-Texas and Missouri things over the next couple KU games.
(Funny aside, a former co-worker who went to Mizzou, as did her husband, taught their daughter to say “BOOO KU” at something crazy like 15 months. They’d bring her to work, send her to my cube, she’d yell that at me, then laugh. I had to admit that was pretty impressive. I worry about the things the children of a few of my friends will say.)