2 Months

June 11, 2012

 

 Happy 2 Months to our sweet Emmy Lou.

Her favorite place to be is on her changing table. The biggest smiles come when the diapers come off. She can go from a screeching cry to being completely content just by placing her on her changing table. She loves it so much we just have dubbed it naked time. We just let her sit there kicking and cooing with her clothes off.

She LOVES bath time. Loves it so much that she HATES getting out. Nick and I just dread giving her a bath because we know the second we pull her out of that water she will begin screaming and won’t stop until she turns blue. We are in such a hurry to get her dressed afterwards that we look like a Nascar pit crew. We both hover over her and throw her diaper and clothes on fast as we possibly can.

She loved her car seat long enough for me to get one trip down to St. George. Now she wants nothing to do with it and cries anytime we are in the car... especially at a red light. This is a trend for her second month of life. She hates everything she used to love and now loves everything she used to hate. So while she will no longer go peacefully into her carseat we can at least get her to use the swing she wanted nothing to do with a month earlier.

She sleeps on her tummy. Yes, I know that is a big no no. But she is miserable on her back. She grunts and groans and has bad gas and basically just doesn't sleep (neither do I.) So to make myself a little less paranoid about SIDS we moved the crib into our room cause we figured the bassinet is too soft and too small. And we bought some fancy monitors that have a motion sensor under her mattress that set off an alarm if there is no breathing/movement. Paranoid much? Why yes I am and I blame my mother.

Emmy is a total mamas girl. She smiles a lot easier for me than she does Nick. Nick says he has to exhaust himself in order to get so much as a half grin. I cuddle with her every morning when she wakes up and she is always good for me. She just lays next to me sucking on her binky staring at me. It gives me the boost I need to start another day.

Nick complains that his only duty is to serve as her personal toilet. For whatever reason it seems that is where most of her bowel movements occur. She will sit on his lap and look at him square in the eye and just begin grunting away. At first we thought it was funny, but now we really think she may truly be associating the two things. Nick says although she won’t smile for him he is glad she will at least do something for him.

She is still a little confused about kisses. Every time we give her a kiss on the cheek her eyes go wide and she shakes her head back and forth and gives a look of complete confusion. We aren’t sure if she enjoys them at all but we can’t help but to keep giving them to her.

She is eating really well. She eats every two to three hours. One problem we have with her is that she will never act full. If she is offered food she will never refuse it.

She is also excellent at stretching. Anytime we pick her up after she has been sleeping or has been in her car seat she does the biggest stretch. She just sticks her bum so far out that it somehow almost touches her head and throws her hands straight out into the air. It can be a little scary when we pick her up and she does this because it almost feels like she is going to fly out of our arms.

We have started walking every night. She only lets us take her if we swaddle her up, but she seems to really enjoy it then. We initially started taking small walks, but they have slowly gotten longer and longer thanks to Emmy’s sleeping habits. The routine basically goes like this -- We start walking hoping Emmy will fall asleep on the walk. During the first part of our walk she really seems to enjoy it (As long as she swaddled -- otherwise she won’t let us go ten feet). Then after a few minutes she begins to get really sleepy and we can’t concentrate on anything other than watching her in hopes we see her eyes closed shut. Emmy then fights off sleep for about twenty minutes and becomes fussy at which point we decide we are giving up and will just walk home. Then when we are about to make it back home she finally falls asleep. We are convinced that if we stop walking she will wake up so we then proceed to walk for an hour just to keep her sleeping. Our nightly walks is the current highlight of the day. I love summer nights -- and hate small dogs that bark at sleeping babies.

One of the more memorable moments of her second month of life was the dramatic fashion in which she celebrated her sixth week of life. Upon hitting the six week mark she literally cried anytime she was awake for about two days. Then on the third day she was back to a happy baby and slept better than she ever had. It served as a reminder that we had no chance of figuring out this girl.

The second month was filled with a whole lot of frustration and love. There were so many hard days that got us really discouraged. I think about once a week we made the proclamation that we were done having children, but then even during the hardest days she would do something to make us fall in love with her even more. Whether it was a smile, a goofy face, or just watching her sleep our love for her grew even stronger.