Daytime sleep training

Quickly:

things are good here.

Bean continues to learn about her hands. She can kinda-sorta reach for stuff, but doesn't really know what she's doing yet. Her grip is good, though.

Jenny's big focus right now is daytime nap training. Bean likes to be bounced to sleep but as she's getting heavier (or Jenny's getting weaker) this is wearing mom out. So the short-term goal is more napping on her own, and longer naps of more quality.

Night sleeping continues to go well. She's pretty much a 6pm to 6am girl with a couple of wakups in between. Consequently, I don't see her much in the evenings but the mornings rock. She wakes up and just lies in bed, cooing and gurgling, playing her own little games. Then we when go in to say hello, we get ear-to-ear smiles. Good times.

Now on to the pics:

Sing-a-long time

The new thing for CC now is singing along with mom.

When Jenny gets her ready for bed and sings in her ear, bean grunts, groans, and coos right along with the song.

Wicked.

And if you listen hard enough to the video, you'll hear Ellie and Rex wrestling.

Sorry about the poor quality.

Tummy time!

Ellie and Me

Jenny and I went on our 2nd date since CC was born. Today, it was to see Marley and Me.

The movie encapsulated a lot of what we - and other new parents - are going through. And it was a real tear-jerker at the end.

Sharing your life with a dog is a wonderful experience. I am not comparing it to having a child - they are totally separate things, and both are awesome.

However, dog owners know that having a dog in your life is something special, something that brings such love and joy and requires so little (comparatively speaking) effort on our parts.

I had read Marley and Me before we saw the movie, and it is a humorous and easy read - a great book. But for my money, the best book about a dog out there (and one of the best books I've ever read) is a book called Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote.

It is the definitive account of a man's love for his dog, it's a beautifully written story, and it's a must-read for any dog owner.

So while this blog is about our daughter, we should also appreciate one great dog: Ellie.

Squeals of delight in the morning

Sleep update

So lately Bean has had trouble napping during the day. She'll go for 40 minutes and then wake up because there's always something more exciting to do. She's always been an excellent night sleeper (12 hours, with 2-3 wakups of 10 minutes each), but her day naps have been getting worse.

Today, though, she's a champ. She's been going for 3 hours now, and - get this - she rolled onto her stomach on her own.

This is obviously a first. We were initially worried (because we're oversensitive to SIDS risks), but she seems to be loving it. 3 hours' worth of loving, in fact.

We're actually trying to get out for some errands, but we can't interrupt this awesomeness.

Getting vocal

Catherine loves to look at your face - into your eyes - and interact with you. It's really the coolest development yet for this young lady.

She is also discovering her hands, too. She and I have been working on getting her to grip my thumbs.

Jenny, however, grabs her hands and brushes them up against her face. This sends the bean into a happy state (we think we got our first laughs today). She also loves to chat with Jenny during the process.

Here's a video of CC having a great discussion with her mom: