Claire at 12 Weeks

This was one of the more challenging weeks that we've experienced. Claire went through her three month growth spurt and it was a doozy! I had read that it could be bad but she had gone through other big growth spurts with no problem so I didn't think this would be any different. This one lasted an entire week! She became clingy and fussy. Towards the end of the week, only mommy would do when she was tired and upset. When I would lay her down in her crib asleep, she would immediately wake up and scream. She was waking up earlier than usual. There were times that she woke up in the middle of the night. I know this wasn't as bad as others' experiences that I have read about but we had gotten used to her good sleep habits so this threw us for a loop. I was beginning to wonder if some of the changes weren't permanent but she is showing signs of coming out of it. Last night, we started a bedtime routine with her and I rocked her for 45 minutes and then laid her down with no problem. We didn't hear her until 4:00 when we heard her on the monitor squealing and kicking around but she never called out for me. She didn't call for me until 6:00 which was her normal time. She then ate and I was able to lay her down in her crib still awake and she put herself to sleep. She woke up once and I was able to get her settled back down with no problems. She then woke up at what was her usual time of 9:00 and ate and played and then went back down for a nap before 10:00. Usually, she naps in her swing and I've been hoping that I can break her of this so I laid her down in her crib and I haven't heard from her yet. I have been quite a basket case over this the past few days because I haven't slept well but today is a new day and I am seeing signs of the old Claire. She had been having problems for a couple of weeks prior to this growth spurt. She has been eating almost every two hours for three weeks except for at night. I'm hoping that she'll go back to every three because outings are hard to plan on the two hour schedule.

Growth spurts always bring wonderful developments in the end. We got a wonderful video of her giggling which we posted a link to a few days ago. That night, we put her down for tummy time and she had us rolling. I think Tim put it best when he said that she was a bundle of conflicting signals. She was pushing up on her legs, trying to chew on her hands, and trying to look up. This caused her to scoot around on the blanket on her face with her bottom up in the air. She has done this a couple of times since and it never ceases to be funny. I tried to get a picture of it yesterday but she moves too fast.

This past week, Claire has also started moving her legs a lot more. She kicks them straight up and rolls onto her side while chewing on her hands. She is also a lot more vocal now. She yells when she is getting tired or when she wants something. She also seems very big now. I think she has grown quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. She weighed 13.5 lbs on our scale this weekend. She is already growing out of some of her three month clothes. Some of these she's barely worn. She needs a little girl cousin to come along so they'll get some more use. : )

I didn't get too many pictures this week but here is what I did manage to get:

Playing is such hard work

Scooting and chewing on her hands

Claire's first big belly laugh

Claire giggle briefly last week, but we didn't catch it on video. Today we got lucky and she started laughing while the camera was nearby. Keep watching because around 40 seconds in is when she really gets into it. I have watched this replayed over and over for about the past hour. Love it.

Claire giggle briefly last week, but we didn't catch it on video. Today we got lucky and she started laughing while the camera was nearby. Keep watching because around 40 seconds in is when she really gets into it. So cute!

Category: Comedy

Tags:

Baby laugh

Go to the video

I feel really lucky that we were able to capture this. It just happened that the video camera was on the table next to where Leia was sitting. You have to act fast to catch moments like this because the whole thing was over in less than 2 minutes.

Go ahead, I give you permission to leave comments and tell me how cute my daughter is.

Claire at 11 Weeks

Claire is 12 weeks old today!

As Claire starts a new month, I read the corresponding chapter in What To Expect: The First Year. This helps me to know what new skills to look for and to understand some of her new developments. I thought I would share with you all the chapter for the third month which she is nearing the end of.

What she should be able to (90% of babies accomplish this by month's end)

• on stomach, lift head 45 degrees - Claire can do this very well and I think she lifts it even higher than this. I'm not sure how high 45 degrees is but Claire can pretty much lift her head all the way up.
  

What she will probably be able to (75% of babies accomplish this by month's end)

• laugh out loud - Claire giggled for the first time Sunday morning. She's been making noises that sound like she might be trying to laugh for several weeks but we got a fantastic giggle out of her on Saturday when Tim was changing her clothes. We haven't been able to get her to do it since but I hope she'll start doing it more so we can capture it on video.
• on stomach, lift head up 90 degrees - I would say she's doing this.
• squeal in delight - Absolutely! She loves the ceiling fan!
• bring both hands together - Yep!
• smile spontaneously - She's been doing this since she started smiling.
• follow an object held about 6 inches above her face and moved 180 degrees - This skill is hit or miss. She can do it but she has to be in the right frame of mind.

What she may possibly be able to do (50% of babies accomplish this by month's end)

• hold head steady when upright - Yep!
• on stomach, raise chest, supported by arms - When she wants to!
• roll over (one way) - Since three weeks!
• grasp a rattle held to backs or tips of fingers - She'll do this when we place it in her hand which is what I think they are talking about. In fact, I did this with her last week with a plastic rattle and she promptly hit herself in the head with it. I've got to get something softer!
• pay attention to an object as small as a raisin - This one is hard to determine. I think she is doing this.
  

What she may even be able to do (25% of babies accomplish this by month's end)

• bear some weight on legs when held upright - She's been doing this since she was three or four weeks old. She's got strong legs!
• reach for an object - Not yet!
• keep head level with body when pulled to sitting - Not quite. When she's sitting, she keeps her head steady but when I pull her up, her head still hangs back.
• turn in the direction of a voice - Yep!
• say "ah-goo" or similar vowel-consonant combination - Yep! She's been doing this for several weeks and she's getting louder. This one is so much fun!
• razz (make a wet razzing sound) - Not yet!

As you can see, she is doing really well. She amazes Tim and me every day with what she can do. We love listening to her talk and watching her study her world. She loves to sit with her dad at the computer and listen to music. She loves it when he gives her a bath. She loves laying on the floor and staring at her ceiling fan. This week she discovered the silky side of the blanket she was laying on and kept putting it in her mouth. It was the funniest thing to watch. She started getting tired and she would make this yelling fussy noise and then she would turn to her side where the silky part was and rub it in her mouth and act all happy. She would roll to the other side and yell again. It was adorable! I now try to help her find that side of the blanket when I lay her on the floor because she loves rubbing it in her mouth. She enjoys talking with us. We try to imitate her sounds back to her and introduce new sounds to her. You can see her brain working when we do this and you can tell she's trying really hard to repeat back what noises we've made.

Here are some more pictures from this past week. I've already posted some in previous entries.

Tired after a long day!

Chewing on her blanket.

Working on the computer with dad.

This is a series of photos I took last night with her sitting in my lap. She has started looking directly in the camera.

Warning

I went to another consignment sale this Saturday to buy winter clothes for Claire. Yes, I went a little nuts! So for all you grandmothers and aunties, she is set for clothes until next summer. If you were planning on buying her clothes for Christmas, may I suggest books and toys. I apologize. I got such a good deal and there were so many cute things. I even bought her a few toys. I got 25 items for less than $50. Some of these items included multiple pieces of clothing. I got her a winter jacket, sweaters, overalls, blue jeans, long-sleeved shirts, etc. A lot of these were familiar brands like Gymboree, Old Navy, Gap, Cherokee, Baby Place etc. She is set. Now I can't wait for her to be able to wear them. If you already have things, don't worry about returning them. We'll use them and enjoy them. I hope to sell her consignment clothes in another consignment sale one day.

A Photographer I Am Not

On Tuesday, I thought that I might take some pictures of Claire that I could frame. Well, I'm going to have to try again this weekend when Tim is with me and we can do it outside with better lighting. Here are my attempts:

A little this way, Mom

What is my Mother doin'?

Kickin' it

Here...This is my best side.

Yo! This is whack!

I've had enough!

Almost There

Claire, on Monday, got us so excited. She was so close to rolling over from her back to her front. Here are some pictures:

She got really squirmy in my lap and was burying her head so we thought she might want some tummy time.

Look at that head control!

Almost...

That was a lot of hard work.

Claire at 10 W eeks

I can not believe that my baby girl will be 11 weeks tomorrow! Three months have gone by so fast and she is growing and changing so fast!

Claire's week:

• Claire this past week had another day of frequency feedings which I did not expect since she had one the week before but she is growing a lot so she does need the extra nutrition.
  
• She continues to make new cooing noises which are a lot of fun. We try to mimic them back to her and she'll respond with another sound. It is a fun game. The past couple of weeks she has also been making noises that sound like early attempts at laughter. She smiles and laughs with so much exuberance that it just melts my heart every time.
• She has been able to successfully get her thumb in her mouth and keep it there.
  
• The past couple of weeks has also seen her rolling over on to her side. She'll bring her knees up and rock side to side.
  
• Yesterday, she sat in her Bumbo seat for the first time. She held her head up well and looked around the room as if she did it every day.
  
• She had her first bath in her tub. I think she enjoyed it, as well.

Her Mimi and Granddaddy came to visit this weekend and we had a great time. Claire got to watch her first Auburn football game and she also got to bake her first cake with Mimi. It was so much fun and it was hard to watch them leave on Sunday.

Here are pictures from this week:

Still loving bath time.

Thumbs are so yummy!

Watching football.

Holding Granddaddy's hand.

War eagle!


Baking a chocolate sour cream pound cake with Mimi! It was delicious!

Claire and Mimi at 10 weeks

Claire and Mimi at 1 week.

Saying good bye but see you real soon.

Claire in her Bumbo seat.
(I know the outfit is mismatched. She had just exploded out of her diaper and this was what was close by for the quick change.)

Claire at 9 Weeks

This post is a little bit late but we've been out of town. Claire at 9 weeks has been building on all the skills she has acquired: head control, hand-eye coordination, cooing, etc. She has become more successful at getting her hand to her mouth and is even able to just suck on her thumb but it only lasts for a quick second and then her arm moves on her again. She is definitely talking more. I can sit and have a delightful conversation with her. She has even started making new noises and it is quite adorable.

We took Claire on her first really big road trip this weekend and she handled it like a champ. We went and visited Tim's family and we celebrated the birthdays of Katherine, 9, Thomas, 2, Atticus and Isaiah, 1. Claire adjusted to the new environment and increased noise well. She got up earlier than usual while we were there so I was worried about what would happen after we got home but she went right back into her routine. We were quite busy while there but Claire didn't fuss about it at all. She just went along with it. We had a great time. It was really nice to see everyone.

Check out the slideshow below for more about our visit. To view captions, click on the slideshow and then click on slideshow in the upper left-hand corner. You can also check out Becky's and Carrie's blogs for more.

I Love A Bargain

There's a blog I've been frequenting recently that has started saving me a lot of money. It is called Fiddledeedee Mom. I used it a couple of weeks ago to plan my trip to Publix. I ended up getting 8 containers of yogurt for $.25 and a box of Kashi cereal for $1. It was so much fun! Recently, she mentioned that on Books-A-Million's website there is a bargain books section that is really fantastic so I went and took a look. I could not believe the bargains. For gifts for our niece and nephews, I mostly do books. Well, they had tons of children's books for $1.77 or $2.67 so I stocked up for Christmas. I bought nearly fifty books for less than $80 and got free shipping. So a word to my sisters-in-law, if you want to order some books for your kids, check with me first to see if I already got it. Oh, and I placed this order on Monday and part of my order is already on the way and should be delivered today. It already feels like Christmas!

9 Week Growth Spurt

I wasn't expecting another growth spurt until three months but she sure is in the midst of another one this week. I realized this yesterday when she started eating every two hours in the morning. The night before that she was eating nearly every hour starting at 3:00. I thought that was due to the fact that she was sleeping so much later and needed to tank up. It may be a combination of the two. Either way, she has all the signs: increased appetite, sleepiness, and some crankiness. I hope this is a short one because she is wearing me out. It zaps a lot of my energy to feed her so much. I think I've lost another pound this week.

In other news, I had to let go of my job yesterday. Tim and I have had some discussion recently regarding my going back to work and him working from home and we both realized that it just wouldn't work. Claire requires a lot more attention than he can give her while he is working.

I went to Samford yesterday to buy a used exersaucer for Claire and stopped in at the library for a visit. My boss was very understanding. In fact, she actually said before I did that I probably wouldn't be returning to work. She was so understanding. She has a daughter of her own and knows how much work babies are at this age and how much they need their mothers. I appreciated that.

Big Girl Move

So this week Claire has decided to change her routine now that I finally posted it. I'm not complaining, though. This is a big step. She slept in Monday morning until 6:30 and this morning until 7:30. I believe that she may have slept longer this morning because we had her in her pack n' play under the ceiling fan which she loves to stare at. We had her in the pack n' play to see how well she would handle it for upcoming trips. Apparently, it won't be a problem. As a result of her sleeping in, she now wants to nurse every hour from 5:00 until bed time. It took a while for me to figure out last night why she was so fussy. Well, she was trying to tank up so she could sleep in. Yesterday morning, she did not go back to sleep very well after eating at 6:30 but this morning she had no trouble and I think she may be getting ready to wake up in a minute.

Have a great week!