Two Month Old Melanie

Melanie turned two months old on Thursday, and let me tell you, two months is a fun age for this little girl.

She smiles a lot. As long as she's alert and not upset we can coax a smile out of her. My favorite thing is when I lean over her crib to get her out in the morning and she gives me a big grin as I get closer. It is really a nice way to start the day. Once she wakes up she eats, gets a new diaper, and we pick out a cute outfit for the day. Then she usually has about an hour of really happy play time. Sometimes I stay and play with her, but oftentimes I take advantage of her good mood and take a shower and eat while she hangs out on the floor. Once she starts slowing down I swaddle her back up and put her down for a nap before she gets overtired. She has started napping in her crib, which is great, even if her naps are short.

Melanie has been a great sleeper this last week, and I really hope it continues. She has dropped her 2am feeding, so she goes down (for the last time) around 9:30 or 10 and sleeps until about 5, then goes back to sleep for a few more hours. I feel like a new person after nights like that. Some nights we get her down earlier than that and she wakes up a little earlier, but she only has one or two feedings instead of two or three.

She has started showing interest in toys and will bat at this ball thing we have. She hasn't quite figured out how to use her little fingers to grab it, but whacks it with her fist.

She coos every once in a while and it's just the happiest sound in the world. Sometimes she will have little cooing conversations with me. She thinks Spencer is the best and even gave him some giggles one day. I haven't managed to get any laughs out of her quite yet, but I'll settle for big, goofy grins and coos.

Melanie is still a very wiggly girl. She's getting pretty strong and likes to be held in a way that lets her see what's going on around her. She is curious and always craning her little neck to get a better look at something or someone going by. We have put her in the bumbo seat a couple of times and she likes it if she's not in too wiggly of a mood. She hates her swing most of the time, so I only put her in it once in a while. She does like to have alone time on the floor a couple of times a day, though. She will whine until I just put her down and leave her alone.

At her two month doctor appointment she was 23.5 inches long (90th percentile) and weighed 12 lbs 4 oz (75th percentile, up from 50th). She also got her first round of vaccines. She loved the oral one, but those three shots made her pretty sad. We got her some baby tylenol and that helped her feel better that first night. By the next day she was feeling better, but slept a lot.

So, that's Melanie at two months. She's a fun, happy, healthy baby girl and we love her so much!

Now it's time to give her a bath, which she still loves, by the way.

Pictures!

Sometimes we let her come snuggle in our bed in the morning. This day we tricked her and left her there sleeping.

Melanie and I had a lunch date out with Tami one day. 

We got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors on our drive with Tami. 

Her poor legs after her shots. 

Just Being a Mom

Someday I'll start blogging more than once a month again. I just downloaded the blogger app, and I am writing this using the talk to text function on my phone as I lay in bed snuggling Melanie.

Melanie has been growing so fast, I feel like there is no way to write it all down. She has started to smile. AnnaMarie got her first real smile while she was here helping me. She is still pretty stingy with them, but she does smile more and more often. Yesterday, while I was about to nurse her, she just looked at me and gave me a big goofy grin. It made me so happy that I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I didn't cry.

For the last two days, Melanie has shown interest in toys for the first time. When we put the ball next to her she waves her little arm around until she whacks it. Sometimes, if she's lucky, she manages to get it close to her mouth where she can eat it. You can see it in her face that she is so excited when she sees her actions change things around her.

She is getting so big, and it's amazing to watch her grow and learn. Sometimes I'm sad that she is growing so fast, but I'm so happy when she learns something new that I would never choose to go back to before she could do that.

Some days being a mom is really hard. I feel silly because I just have one little baby and a small apartment and I can't manage to keep up with my dishes and laundry. I get to the end of the day sometimes and I feel like I've done nothing. But I spend my days holding and feeding and changing and soothing Melanie. And I play with her and teach her and watch her learn. I'm not super mom, but we're learning. Someday, leaving the house might be fun more than stressful. ;-) yesterday Melanie took a nap in her crib for the first time ever. It was a miracle that she let me put her down and stayed asleep. Hopefully, that will become the norm and I will have a little more time to get things done and to work on things that I want to do for myself.

Spencer has been wonderful (as always) and is an amazing dad. He studies so hard, and is always excited to see Melanie when he gets home. He has had two exams now and he's done well on both of them. I try really hard not to pester him when he is home. I like that he can study here and I'd like to keep it that way.

I don't know if I even put this on here yet, but I was accepted to the PT program at CMU. I paid the fee to hold my place in the class and met with the program director this week. I think we even have a daycare lined up for next fall. We are on the list anyway. It came highly recommended and sounds great. It's an in-home place and is less expensive than I was anticipating. Not that I really knew what to expect. I'll go check it out in person one of these days and we'll go from there.

I also owe you a post about Caroline, Marianne, and AnnaMarie's visits. Plus, I will add pictures to this post when I get my computer out and charged. For now, I am going to go snuggle my beautiful baby and enjoy being a momma.

Update:

The pictures I promised. Some of these will probably appear again in the post about AnnaMarie and Marianne visiting. 

She has been getting pretty strong and likes to stand a little. 

Just watching some TV together. 

Melanie's Great-grandma Thornock and Great-aunt Sherri made this for her! 

She likes to be swaddled until she realizes that she can't move.  

I love her. :) 

First time eating out since she was born (thanks to AnnaMarie!). Melanie was great. 

I love this one. Snuggle Buddies. 

She has such great expressions. You can almost tell what's happening in her little head. 

Bahaha. 

A couple of lovely ladies in the ward made this blanket for her! Cool, huh?

Sometimes this is what being a mom looks like. Okay, a lot of the time. 

The first real smile we managed to catch on camera. :) 

This is one of my all-time favorites of those two. :) 

That is the amazing blanket Marianne made and embroidered for Melanie! 

Melanie's new favorite way to be held. 

Hanging out with her favorite Marianne. 

I love this adorable outfit from Susan (Caroline's mom). 

I made it! Yay! I just love the buttons.

This is what our mornings look like when she's done sleeping before we are. Usually this is me and her, and Spencer's at school. 

Is she not the cutest thing you've ever seen? 

Marianne snapped these for us. I like them even though my hair is all weird. 

Eskimo kisses. :) She mostly tries to eat my nose. Or anything that goes near her face, for that matter. 

I didn't even get to the pictures on my phone yet... Those will go onto another post. :)

Oh! And a video. :) (Which, for some reason, YouTube has made unavailable in safety mode. I promise it's safe.)