Life in the 'Ham: eight weeks

The biggest development this week is that Claire is continuing to sleep through the night. I am stunned and amazed that we reached this milestone with no effort on our part. She is such a great baby. Not only does she sleep through the night but she also goes to sleep on her own. I nurse her, change her diaper, rock her a little (this is mostly for me), and lay her down. I'll hear her on the monitor for a little while but she doesn't fuss or cry. Her only real sleep issue is that she will not nap in her crib. I can not figure this one out but I've read that a lot of babies do this. The only places she'll nap is in someone's arms, in her swing, and in the car. Yes, we'll be taking the swing with us when we visit our families.

Claire has also developed a routine for herself that is working well for me. Here is a quick breakdown of her day (the times are estimates, give or take 30 minutes):

5:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
5:30 Back to sleep
9:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
9:30 Play time! I'll play with her in my lap for a little while to give her food a chance to stay down. I'll then put her in her tunnel to play for about 15-30 minutes while I eat breakfast. When she grows tired of that I may put her on her blanket or she may just be ready for a nap.
10:30 Nap time
12:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
12:30 Play time! We usually do the same things we did in the morning
1:30 Nap time
3:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
3:30 Play time! I might take her outside on the deck at this point to get some fresh air.
4:00 Daddy's home! She may play with him for a little bit but by this point her fussy time starts so she'll probably nap or fuss.
6:00 Dinner time. Her evenings are a little erratic. She tends to be a bit fussy and she catnaps a lot.
9:00 Bedtime feeding. She gets fed, gets a fresh diaper, and is dressed in her pjs. Once she's done eating, I put her to bed. If she's not quite ready, I'll keep her up but she's usually in bed by 10:30.

This weekend saw her first road trip. We went up to Rome, GA to visit our alma mater, Berry College. We also got to visit with my college friend, Vivienne. That was a real treat. I enjoyed the visit. Vivienne is expecting her first baby, a boy, in December. She looked fantastic and silly me, I didn't even get a picture. Tim and I enjoyed walking around the campus and reminiscing. We're hoping to go back for Mountain Day so we can see everything we didn't get to see during this trip and hopefully, we'll get to see more of our classmates. Claire slept most of the time. She traveled very well in the morning but she did not like the trip home. We got going around the time when she is usually fussy at home so that was poor planning on our part. She also spent a lot of time in her carrier during the day which I think just made her mad by the end of the day. After I got home and fed her, she was a very happy baby. She stayed up and played with Tim until 10:30. I went to bed at 9:30. I was exhausted.

As far as her development goes, this week saw her, once again, gaining greater head control. Now that she can move so much more freely, she has become quite a squirmy baby. She loves standing in your lap and bouncing around. I started pulling her up by her hands from a laying position to a sitting position and she really loves that and will initiate the action on her own so you better be ready to play along. She also loves it when we make silly noises. We've noticed that when we make the raspberry sound where she can see our toungues sticking out she sticks her tongue out too. It is really cute. Her other favorite activities are staring at ceiling fans (moving or still), staring at lamps, and staring at mirrors. Who needs toys!

Here are pictures from our week: