Photo Op

I've decided that part of the whole motherhood experience includes at least one trip to Kiddie Kandids. We made our first trip yesterday. I bet you can guess how it went.

I didn't make an appointment. Instead we just dropped in after I had already dragged Anna to downtown SLC and back. They told us we'd have to wait for about forty-five minutes before they could fit us in. I knew that forty-five minutes later would be right before naptime for a kid who had already skipped a nap, but I figured we'd try it anyway since Anna's such a good natured kid. And she was in a good mood up until the photographer tried to position her. Then she started to cry her little complaining cry. She stuck out her lower lip and let out a waa-waa.

And this is the part that will lose me points in the mother-of-the-year contest. I started to laugh and I thought, why isn't she taking pictures? This is so cute! Instead we rescheduled for the next day. I'm hoping she'll be in a little better mood.

Regression

After sleeping from eight at night until six in the morning, Anna has started waking up again at three or four in the morning. When I go into get her, she's rolled over on her side, almost like she's trying to roll on top of the pacifier that has fallen out of her mouth. I think she's just constipated and uncomfortable, but she could also be checking in to see if I'm still paying attention. The other morning when she did sleep until six, she squealed in her crib for about half an hour before I woke up. They were happy squeals and I was dreaming that someone was making faces at her. This morning I found her like this:

I use the rolled up blanket to stick under her shoulder and keep her off her flat side, so you can see how much she moved in the night. Originally her head was lying next to the right end of the blanket roll. I could understand it better if she scooted up the bed. I'm still not sure how she slides down to the middle of her mattress at night.

Anna also has a new trick. While I'm feeding her she likes to put her fist up into my armpit. Sometimes she will put her hand inside my sleeve and grab my skin. It's not very pleasant but it certainly wakes me up. She also likes to use my arm as a scratch post. I try to keep her nails short, but it's tough. I don't know if all babies have high nail beds but she certainly does. Even when I cut her nails, it still seems like she's got some sort of claw left.

We went back to the physical therapist this week. Anna's flat head problem is the result of a tightened muscle that causes her to look to her right and lean her head to her left. Usually her left ear is closer to her shoulder than her right ear. So we've been working on stretching that muscle. The PT says that her range of motion is improving, but her flat head has stayed about the same. But because it's so slight, the PT guaranteed me that she won't have to wear a helmet. I'm too cynical to depend on her word, but I do take comfort knowing that I'm not letting it get worse. We're also working on tummy time. Now I have a new strategy of rolling her onto her stomach for about thirty seconds and then rolling her back to her back. We do a few reps of that until she gets cranky being on her stomach for a few seconds. It seems to be working better than trying to get her to stay on her stomach a full three minutes like the PT suggests. Dan now says that when she whimpers in her sleep she's probably dreaming that I put her on her stomach.

Anna's Hair

Unlike me, Anna was lucky enough to be born with some hair. She's also had a bit of cradle cap, so we've been brushing her head with mineral oil. I think the cradle cap is just about gone, and I won't miss combing mineral oil through her hair, but it was fun to comb it into a little mohawk (top left hand corner).

Today Anna's hair is lying flat against her head, but she does have a bit of natural curl that comes out whenever her hair gets wet. If I don't comb her hair down fast enough after I get her out of the bath it's hard to get that curl out (top right corner). Earlier this week the curl straightened out but I couldn't get her hair to lie flat no matter what I did. I even tried to use a wet comb, but she consistently had a little mohawk (bottom two pictures). When I washed her hair again, I was better about getting that comb out before her hair got too wild on me.

How can you not love this face?

Anna is three months old and the sweetest baby. In the last month, she's learned to blow spit bubbles and discovered that she loves sucking on her fist. I've tried to convince her to focus on her middle two fingers like her Aunt Christa did, but not even her thumb is as sweet as her entire fist.

I think I can also safely say that Anna has now learned how to sleep through the night. I'm sure this means that tonight she'll be up again in the middle of the night, but the middle of the night has moved in the last few weeks from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. and this past week she hasn't woken up before 5:30 a.m. for the past seven nights. She's been sleeping through the night off and on for the past month, mostly on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night when Dan is willing to get up with her should she decide to be up at three or four. I'm now getting enough sleep myself that a nap during the day usually means I won't be able to fall asleep at night.

In the past few weeks I've also started running more regularly with Anna in the morning. Most days she seems to expect to go out in the stroller in the morning. I'm also learning to watch the weather and use it to my advantage. We continue to have at least one or two rainy mornings a week, but now I know that those are good days to try and get out of the house during her afternoon nap. On the days I go running, I usually don't get a chance to shower until her afternoon nap since she typically wakes up just as we pull up to the drive way. I'm willing to sacrifice good skin for the chance to be outside and some exercise. Unfortunately I don't have enough self control during the rest of the day for that exercise to do anything for my physical health. Yesterday I ate about twenty donut holes. But the good news is that I was so disgusted with myself at the end of the day that I think I'll be able to avoid sweets for at least a few days.

The best thing I've done recently though is create a housework schedule for myself. I've split the laundry and the cleaning up into manageable chunks so that I only have to do so much each day. Usually I've got just enough time during her nap to get that done and make dinner. And this way I can also feel okay about taking a break to scrapbook or blog once my chore for the day is done. My house doesn't sparkle or anything, but it works for me. Now if only I could finish writing all my thank you notes, which is probably what I should be doing right now instead of blogging.