Laurna's passed the 4-month point now and is rolling over quite well onto her stomach, though she usually doesn't roll back. She's sleeping in her crib now as well (the transition from the car seat went better than expected, aside from the first night), and is learning how to make "raspberries" with her lips. What excitement!

We all went down to Comic-Con at the end of July, which was a nice trip and a fun adventure - our first "real" family vacation! Sadly I left our camera on the plane (argh), so the majority of the pics are still on my phone - the good news, though, is that the phone actually takes decent pictures. What a shame about the camera, though! Sigh.

Happy 1/4th anniversary of Laurna's birthday!

Baby girl is 3 months old today, so I thought that warranted a post! She's a lot of fun these days - she still fusses now and then, of course, but also smiles a lot and looks at people and things, which is great. She's bringing her hands together now and sucking on them with a vengeance, but hasn't started putting other things in her mouth yet, and isn't really grabbing at things or holding on to them with much intent.

She's had two bouts for vaccinations and has grown 4 inches and 4 pounds (how crazy! When do we ever grow that much but in this part of our lives? She weighed 14 lbs 2 oz and was 25 inches long at her last appointment on July 7).

She does a lot of playing, and crying is the exception rather than the rule, which was a nice change from when she was very young. No laughing yet, but sometimes she sounds like she's trying, and she does a lot of "talking" and squealing, which is really cute.

She's still sleeping well on the most part, though not consistently more than 6.5 hours or so at a time - but that's all right, since she generally goes right back to sleep for another 2-3 hours in the early morning. The latest sleep trick has been to put her to bed in her car seat, which then sits in her cradle. It's been great! I'm not against letting her cry when I need to, but I'd rather not if I have the option - and I find that while when I lay her down flat in her cradle or crib she cries every time, she hardly cries at all when I put her down in her car seat. So score! It's also handy for when we're out visiting, because we don't have to totally break up her routine, even if we're out past her usual bedtime.

I've gotten much more adept at feeding her in public, so that's good. She's still the spit-up queen (I stepped in a puddle of it early this morning, eew), but the quantity has lessened overall.

She's already been all over in the car, and has been on public transportation...next week she's going on her first plane flight! It will be weird to be the people on the plane no one wants to sit next to...

In honor of my 3 months of parenthood, here are some of the things I'm really loving:

- Watching Laurna play, and interacting with her
- The Ergo baby carrier (Amazing! The infant insert didn't really work for me, but thankfully she's big enough that I could use the carrier the normal way at a younger age)
- Cloth diapers (Seriously! I love them! I do like using disposables at night, though.)
- Thirsties diaper covers (They're great and don't leak)
- Receiving blankets (We have about 20 and we wash them all every couple of days - great for spit-up management)
- The sleep-in-the-car-seat trick (A couple of nights she even slept for 10 and 11 hours!)
- Baby wipes from Costco
- Avent bottles/nipples
- Laurna's baby gym

Well that's the update for now...on to the next adventure!

(Above: some pics of Laurna at her Great-grandma's house on 7/10/09)

Photo Updates

I just painstakingly edited the online photos so now they are in the right order and have dates and captions. Phew! No new photos yet, but it'll be easier to put them in th queue now!

More milestones!

Baby Laurna has been doing well with sleeping - she's been managing about 5 hours straight at night, which isn't bad. This week I started working on getting her down in the cradle instead of in our bed, which resulted in my having to put her down multiple times per night because she would start flailing her arms and legs and wake herself up.

Yesterday at her doctor's appointment we asked about this. Her doctor said it was really up to us - we could get her up every time she cried, or we could let her work through it.

So last night I decided to give it a try. I put her down around 10 PM in the cradle, and we were still up so it wasn't as disruptive for her to be crying. She was quiet for about 20 minutes, at which point she started doing her flailing thing and predictably started crying. I wasn't prepared to let her cry for longer than 10 mins straight. Well - she didn't. For about 40 minutes she did cry on and off, but for shorter and shorter periods of time and never for longer than 10 minutes. By around 11 PM she had stopped crying completely, and when I peeked in on her was sleeping diagonally at the bottom of her cradle with her feet in the corner. So much activity!

She slept without making another peep until 6:30 this morning.

Wow!

Any parents out there - as much as it's hard to let your baby cry for any length of time, it can be a good thing!

We're off now on our first BART adventure...

Pictures and immunizations

Baby girl had her 2-month checkup today, which included a bunch of immunizations - she was a champ! She's now sleeping it off, poor girl. At least it's worth it - those diseases are no joke.

In other news, I have finally posted some photos! You can view the album here or by clicking the link to the right. Unfortunately they got out of order when I uploaded them, but oh well! Enjoy!

Official birth announcement!

Milestones!

Yesterday baby girl started hitting at some hanging things in her baby gym. She also played by herself for quite a long time today. Exciting! (for us, anyway...)

And yes, pictures are still coming!