Jameson got to sleep in his box a couple nights last weekend. He slept with his sleeping bag, a few stuffed animals and doggie pillow, and stayed there all night. Apparently, we could’ve left him in his crib years ago; he still fits so snugly still in small spaces.
Coraline isn’t quite big enough to participate in the preschool concert at their school, but she sure loved watching her brother sing! My favorite song this year was “You Are My Sunshine”.
I actually already owned the album from that particular artist they used, so we’ve been listening to it a lot in the car. I get my own concerts from both kids almost every day! Our favorites are “You Are My Sunshine” and “Let It Go” from Frozen.
Coraline likes to sing with me, though Jameson has always liked to have me sing or to sing himself rather than sing together with me, so I think it’s wonderful to hear them both singing together.
Jameson has helped sing to Coraline before bed a few times the past month or so, and one of their favorites Jameson introduced to Coraline was “Stinkle Stinkle little Stinky” which is a parody of Twinkle Twinkle about a skunk. It’s maybe one I could do without, though when they both hold their noses it’s hilarious.
Coraline is now a month into the big 2.0 year. She’s lately become very attached to me in the morning, and doesn’t want anyone else to talk to her (including her teachers). She’s a bit slow waking up, not like Jameson who always perked right up in the morning at that age (not anymore).
It was funny to see her hiding away from daddy in the morning, but now it’s made drop off progressively worse. Otherwise, she’s a ball of adorable energy. When she’s not pretending to be shy, she’s saying hi to strangers and playing peekaboo like at the park this past weekend.
Since Jameson’s been in swimming lessons, I started putting Coraline to bed without anyone else home. She was concerned at first that she couldn’t say night night to Daddy and Jameson. Through the past couple months, it has now become a thing to sing our “night night” song to each family member, plus other people, places or objects.
“Night night Coraline
Night night Coraline
Night night Coraline
We’ll see you in the morning”
Has now been replaced with mommy, daddy, Jameson individually, plus our neighbors family, individually. We’ve sang night night to mac ‘n cheese, the wall, butterflies, bugs, Coraline’s potty and more. I’ve had to start limiting it to two extra verses, but she is not a fan. She’s also been calling herself “Coralee” on occasion, and insisted on that one night (though, right before I left the room, she requested her original night night Coraline song).
Potty training? Not really happening. She sits on it for a moment (half a second).
A week or so after she turned two, she did take a big girl step and got a her new big girl bed. She adored it right away, and loved watching daddy put it together. She tried to climb into the window, which has happened a couple times since then as well. It won’t be long before she won’t fit though! She’s getting so big. She’s 24 pounds and in a size 6 shoe! (We were stuffing her into 4-1/2 size, oops!)
Sleeping and napping has been pretty good; she’s been adjusting to the freedom of getting out of bed, and we had a week or so where she didn’t want to go to bed in it after the initial excitement wore off. One day she even took off her pants and diaper and I never heard a sound at naptime! She’s doing really well now, and loves to talk about her big girl bed. Jameson was a little jealous, since it has a roof on it, and he’s also loved playing in it.
Coraline also got tubes put in her ears for the second time. So far, everything is great! We haven’t had any tubes fall out like we had within a month last time. It was harder this time around because she really wanted to eat in the morning. She always requested a snack immediately upon waking, and when I told her no, for the first time she said the full, big word “breakfast” with a sad little face. We left for the surgery early so we could get her out of the house and away from the food. After walking around a little stumbly, by evening and after naptime, she was completely back to normal.
Coraline loves getting boo boo kisses for all her “injuries”, singing songs like Hushabye baby, Rockabye baby, Bumble bee and more. The other night, Jameson translated for us a new rhyme she was saying about monkeys in the tree. She’s hilarious, smiley, and almost always in a good mood.
Except when she’s not, and she screams herself red in the face and lays flat on the ground, which is pretty funny as long as I’m still in a good mood. She doesn’t always like getting her hair done, but likes it when I’m finished. Coraline also wants to pick out her own clothes sometimes now, which can be entertaining. The first three or four times she had on short sleeves the past month, she kept trying to tug them down because she was confused about the length. It’s finally feeling like Spring!
Bring on warm weather and our climbing toddler! We’re ready!
This month was harder for little Coraline in terms of sleeping. While she was generally happy during the day, her nights were filled with crying out: Only for a moment or two before she fell back asleep on her own, but none of us liked hearing her cry out in pain for weeks at night, with pain medicine or not.
She finally broke through two more of her top teeth, for a total of 5. (And just days after turning 11 months old, she broke through the last of the swollen set, finally, for a total of 6 teeth). Hence her cute quirky crooked smile here she used while teething!
She spent most of this month teething, with a cold, and then got a yeast and bacteria infected rash under her arm. One of the tubes in her ear came out, unusually early (it was only in about two months). She’s currently on 4 medications, including two ointments, ear drops and oral antibiotics. Ooof! Poor thing.
Coraline figured out crawling within just a week after I recorded her video of the scoot she had been doing. She didn’t go backwards at all, and just straight up started moving forward. Sometimes she puts her feet down in what Brian calls her spider crawl which cracks me up, and rarely she’ll put both feet and hands on the ground with no knees, but straight in the air.
And she’s getting up on her knees! Not pulling up yet. This month, we’ve brought out the stand and play toy, to help her practice standing and pulling up. She loves the jumparoo and both jumps like a maniac and also swings herself back and forth like I never saw Jameson do in it, but she doesn’t do very much standing outside of those supported activities. Coraline has such little feet that I sometimes wonder if that might have something to do with it.
Our babbling has just started becoming more words and imitation. She mostly just says “hi”, and if I can say that aside from the babble of mamama and dadada her first real words have been “dada” and “hi”. We’ve started taking sign language class with her, as we did with Jameson. So far, I’m pretty sure she’s signed “all done” (or just being crazy at the end of meal time).
She’s learned to point with her index finger and I can see her little wheels turning. The other day she held up Jameson’s socks to us, and when I responded “sock”, she put it down on top of her own socks and stared at it.
Coraline has learned how to rock herself back and forth, though she’s still very conservative about it. She rocked herself in the glider during the monthly photos this month.
She’s a 17lb even small fry, just beginning to show preferences in what she’s eating. Yes to fruit, peas, and pasta. No to mashed potatoes, and many vegetables. Meat is hit or miss. She still practices the sippy, but since she doesn’t even take a bottle that well from us very often, we aren’t forcing the sippy issue yet. She’s a good eater like Jameson though in terms of just being able to do it: not a lot of gagging. However, she seems to be more prone to putting fistfuls of food (or anything else) in her mouth, so we have to have a hawk eye on her all the time now. A favorite game is to see who, me or her, can make it to the dog first who is eating her cookie treat and leaving crumbs everywhere.
At 7 months, we think Coraline is about the happiest baby ever. In the mornings, she will talk and talk and smile and loves playing with Jameson (Jameson is sometimes slow about getting ready because he loves playing with her so much; he’s very into “taking noses” from Coraline and putting them back right now). She’s very vocal, I think because she doesn’t have a pacifier, it seems like she is always saying something. Several family members have said the she’s been saying “da da da” in the babbling baby ramblings she does!
She is also very grabby still. This month she really learned how to eat puffs. She’s not making any pincer grasps yet but she has discovered how to get puffs in her mouth pretty effectively despite that. It was really helpful on her very first vacation to have the puffs to occupy her at meals.
After we returned from vacation, we started giving her food in earnest. We started with sweet potatoes and carrots and squash (sweet orange vegetable favorites of course). Over the past couple weeks, she has had enjoyed peas, green beans, corn (with sweet potatoes), and apples. She doesn’t seem to have any preferences now, though if she isn’t hungry she will let you know.
In addition, I had my very first night away from her, and she finally, finally took a full bottle from dad. It marks the beginning of the end of breastfeeding, I know, because my supply is dwindling anyway but it is a relief to know we should be able to feed her bottles without difficulty. We didn’t try the sippy again this month, though we plan on practicing more bottles from myself and dad as well as exploring the sippy more this month.
Coraline got her second tooth this month during vacation. So far, her teething isn’t too bad. There is a lot of drool, and close to the tooth breaking through we have a couple to a few wakeful nights. She gets a little edgy, but not unreasonable. I do hope that how she will teethe through all of them because it doesn’t seem too bad. We seem to have caught a break though, since she’s had a little less drool since breaking through the second tooth.
Sleeping is wonderful. She goes to bed around 7 (and lets you know when its time!). She sleeps through the night regularly. Coraline occasionally calls out crying for just second before falling back asleep; she is still very loud, so this wakes me, but she puts herself right back to sleep most times without trouble. When she does wake up for extended periods, she gets changed and then we sit in the rocking chair with her facing outward watching the mobile until she falls back asleep. She holds on to a little burp cloth while she sucks her thumb and wedges herself in corners of the crib.
Unfortunately, she is like her brother in that she it is difficult to tell when she has an ear infection! This month she got her first (a double), and we didn’t know it until she cried all morning one day in pain because her ear drum was bursting. After it was done, despite the ear infection that was still there, she was happy as a clam. Ear drums burst to relieve pressure, and most heal themselves. Hers did without a problem, and she got very good at taking her medicine.
When she went to the doctor for her ears, she weighed in at 15lb 4oz, a full pound from what she was at 6 months. Since the doctors told us last month that she needed to get some more calories in, we believe we’ve been successful and she’s been putting on weight and looking so healthy and her usual chubbier self. Coraline is just starting to get into up to 9 month clothes in length, but we still mostly wear 6 months clothes and size 2 diapers.
It’s been such a great month, I wish I could hold her tight here and stop her from growing for a minute, pausing in 7 months for a bit.
We’ve made it to 5 months old! The next month seems like a big milestone itself to me: dramatic reduction in the likelihood of SIDS, sitting up, playing and personalities. I just love 6 months and forward. Don’t get me wrong: I will undoubtedly miss the months of wee little baby, squishy and flexible and pliable. But this is when things will start to get fun.
And speaking of fun: some of it is beginning now! Coraline is actually doing some playing rather than simply observing. She is an expert at tummy time, far more than Jameson ever was, because she loves to be on her belly. She even sleeps that way now! She learned how to roll back to belly this month, and that’s all she does.
This also means that we have ended swaddling officially, pretty much shortly after she turned 4 months. I will probably miss that, and her little ear hairs on the side, going away the most. Speaking of sleep… this girl is trouble.
She will unexpectedly sleep through the night one night and turn around to be up most of the night the following… it’s been difficult, to say the least. I put up the mesh pads so she can’t get her arms and legs stuck through the slats just yesterday and she slept through, thankfully. This never bothered Jameson, but does seem to bother her. That, and getting frustrated when she does want to return to her back and doesn’t know how to roll that way yet. In addition, if she gets too frustrated, it’s near impossible to get her to sleep so we are always watching for that fine line of trying to get her to go back to sleep on her own without feeding her and getting too frustrated. I’m looking forward to the end of this stage.
Such is her strength that even while lying down on her back (which isn’t very often anymore!), she can lift her whole chest up like she is trying to sit up! She has terrible balance, but she loves when I grab her fingers and pull her upright into the sitting (or even standing) position. She gives the biggest gummy smiles when I do that, and when I kiss her cheeks loudly by her ear.
Coraline also found her feet this month, to the entertainment of all! She even occasionally chews on her toes, which I think is awesome.
She is okay in the excersaucer, which we started putting her in this month after her first time at daycare. She likes it okay, but I think will like it more when she can stand easily. Right now it’s harder on her with a pillow propping her feet up to the appropriate height.
Coraline is also practicing holding things with two hands and will give a funny face when she first puts her toy in her mouth as if she’s say, “eww what is that!?” and then… “mmm that feels good on my toothless little gums!”
Coraline is officially taking bottles consistently at daycare, but still refuses at home or anywhere else but nursing from me. However, we’ve all enjoyed being able to feed Coraline her first foods, which is fun. She got the hang of it quickly and while she doesn’t eat too much yet, she enjoys what she gets. And on those thankfully rare occasions now that she has trouble with the bottle at daycare, they are able to supplement with cereal.
We’ve enjoyed a lot of outdoor play this month, from her first time in the pool to tea parties with Jameson and Lily. The weather has continued to stay on the cooler side for August, but we do hope to get one more time or two on the water bouncer.
Coraline is a delight to be around when she’s awake and not tired. She rarely if ever cries for hunger, and only calls out when she wants to hang with her family or gets tired. She’s so very smilely, and we love that she has finally found that thumb (at least, most of the time). I’m looking forward to teaching her the sippy (hopefully — if she continues to refuse the bottle at home!), and beginning to explore more food, as well as rolling the other way, and… of course… maybe a bit better sleep. Pretty please?
This month, Coraline slept through her first fireworks, enjoyed the company of friends at a kiddie park, and spent time with family for Father’s Day.
Coraline spent this month trying to roll over unsuccessfully. She really seems to enjoy hanging out on her side, chewing on hands or toys but without a lot of motivation to go further. One weekend she was really struggling with effort but when she was unsuccessful, she seemed to have given up and is very content with however we put her. She likes being on her belly much more than Jameson ever did, but like him spends more time on her back batting at toys.
I know it won’t be too long before she really discovers her feet, but I love her on her back using all of her limbs to get at something.
We borrowed a bouncer from friends, even though we already own one. She really seems to like this one better (it tilts her back a bit more and puts more toys in her reach). This is really where she started reach and grabbing, before doing much on her playmat. By the end of her fourth month, she was really starting to try and get things other than her hands in her mouth.
Her chubby cheeks just get me every time. She is however still about average in terms of weight, coming in at 13 pounds, 2 ounces on her 4 month appointment.
She still absolutely prefers breastfeeding to bottle feeding, and in fact recently refused the bottle from any of the teachers other than her regular provider (the head teacher of the room) who had to leave early one day. The doctor suggested that we stop feeding her overnight since we were just perpetuating a habit that would continue until we made it stop… so I did, and saw immediate effect in terms of sleeping, but not in terms of changing eating habits.
This little girl definitely has all our hearts (even Jameson’s!) and we all love seeing her grow big and strong. I’m not, other than the terrible habit of comparing babies, too interested in seeing her roll over. I wouldn’t mind keeping her at this stage for longer, though I already see it disappearing.
Leaving us is the nap-anywhere mentality (even though they were just half hour naps), as well as the content without doing anything. Though that is still there a lot, she enjoys being stimulated with toys in hand or hands in mouth or both. Which is all to the good, except for when toys drop to the floor!
And I leave with this, a picture of Buddha baby. Cracks me up every time!
This month Coraline started sleeping through the night just before my return to work, and stayed that way. It amazed us all since she is still having trouble with bottles that she gets enough during the day still that she is not up at night. She does get up really early sometimes, between 4:30-5:30, but when she’s up that early I am able to put her back to sleep most of the time. But she can and does sleep up to 12 hours!
Of her napping schedule, I cannot say the same. She takes half hour naps, and sometimes longer if I have her in the newborn napper which I try to avoid using too frequently since they don’t use that at daycare. She doesn’t necessarily fall asleep in her car seat or stroller; she is frequently quietly alert instead.
Luckily, she does seem to be getting enough sleep and is cheerful during her extended awake times except toward the evening when she may become overtired. Even then, Brian and I frequently comment on how much more mellow she is than Jameson. We no long bemoan the lack of a pacifier, since she is content without. She doesn’t smile as frequently as Jameson did, but she has much longer calm periods, happy to look around and observe as he never did. They continue to be so different from one another.
She is grasping things with her reflexes, but not reaching for anything yet. She did, however, finally release some of those fists to get a finger in her mouth! Over a couple days prior to turning 3 months old, she had started occasionally finding it. For her photo shoot, she made a face when she found her finger, but by the end of that evening, she was loudly sucking on her index finger with enjoyment.
We still swaddle to sleep, but I think it won’t be long now before she will be a self soother.
Coraline enjoys sitting up, and is really enjoying the bouncer seat (not generally turned on though) and the bumbo chair; we use the swing much less and usually only as another place to put her while taking care of Jameson upstairs. She likes to sit on laps or walk around. Like Jameson, she appears to love to be outside.
We also started using up to 6 month clothing this month, which seems so much earlier than Jameson. She’s sturdy and has adorable little rolls. We had a rash on her chest we were dealing with that finally seems to have dissipated with a different lotion. Baby acne is gone, but the flakey cradle cap of her growing skull appears frequently and she has lost a good portion of her hair on the back of her head that gives a similar effect that Jameson had. She doesn’t look too much like a little old man though because of her little chubby cheeks and the hair she managed to retain on the top of her head.
Coraline loves bath time, always silent and staring in the mirror for the entire event. She still has dark hair, blue eyes and a gummy, wet grin, so she has a pretty face to look at!
While we are all sad that my time at home has ended, Coraline doesn’t seem the worse for wear thus far since I try and feed her 1-2 times in the morning and at least twice every evening. I know this month and next, things will start to get exciting with reaching and rolling. I can’t wait!
We are done with formal weekly photos since I am returning to work soon (don’t worry about second child syndrome; Jameson only had 10 weekly photos too), but I will document these weeks where I have time.
We just loved having the family home for our 4 day holiday weekend. Dad took off work on Friday for the Thomas the Train outing, and Coraline was just an angel the entire time. Saturday we enjoyed a visit from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Melissa for Dad’s birthday, and it is always nice to have another pair of arms holding and occupying her for a little while.
Sunday of course was our visit with JP & Lisa and Jonathan and Coraline enjoyed being outside on the cool day. I’m sad that she won’t be able to spend as much time outside once she starts daycare.
Coraline is still taking 30 minute naps but is happy between so I try not to worry about it much. About once a day I try to take her out for errands long enough for her to sleep a little more.
I washed her 6 month clothes, which was weird because she’s not even 3 months old yet. I have a lot of sleepers that we’re not using yet because she still likes being swaddled, so at night she’s typically just in a onesie and swaddled that she throws her arms out of.
Bottle feeding is still unsuccessful. She no longer screams since we found that she is okay with the latex nipples on Playtex bottles. She particularly likes the fast flow though and doesn’t suck much, maybe a half ounce per bottle.
Coraline loves bath time until we have to get her out and she’s cold. She has a little cradle cap and dry skin but baby acne is mostly gone.
The other day after bath Jameson spontaneously did “this little piggy” on her toes and hands which was so cute. They are getting along so well and she enjoys watching him.
This week with Coraline was better than the last. She is spending a lot more time “talking” and cheerful when she is awake. We are still working on nap times, but thankfully she seems to enjoy sleeping in her stroller outside, and that is how she napped most of the weekend.
She likes to eat her hands, but still hasn’t quite figured out how to use that to soothe herself. In fact, she breaks out of the swaddle one to three times at night (yes, through tight velcro!) and cries only after she doesn’t find her hands satisfactory.
Jameson was home for this photo shoot because Great Aunt Carol and I took them to the zoo! It was a great trip.
We’ve found cleaning her little neck rolls to be more challenging than we realized, and I have to make much more conscious effort with it since the skin under there is irritated right now. The woes of chubby babies! The bigger she gets, the more we think she might actually look somewhat like me.
This week she started looking upwards instead of letting her head just fall to the side. She enjoys looking at the ceiling fans and in particular her mobile over the changing table!
Coraline and I took a couple self portraits on the porch; we are really enjoying the porch in the front and the swing in the back depending on where the sun is during the day. She loves to sit upright with her back patted, or over the shoulder where she can look around.
We also enjoyed the pleasure of a little visit from Great Aunt Carol again; it is nice to have an hour or so of not holding a baby, as cute as she is.
I successfully went to two more lunches without having an awake baby, but I have found that I need to rock her the entire time or she wakes up! The movement seems to be necessary, but as long as I get a one-handed meal then we are good. It has been nice to feel confident going out again after our rough week or so where she wouldn’t nap.
Now, if only we could get her to take that bottle… we are still working on it without success and I just bought a couple more. We have tried mOmma, Medela Calma, Breastflow, Tommee Tippee. The only one she will take an once from is the mOmma one. I have just purchased Playtex and Dr Browns to try next. My original focus was to get bottles that encouraged breastfeeding with wider bases and specific technologies, but at this point, I would like her to take anything. Wish us luck!
