Odds & Ends

First Road Trip

This past weekend Elisa took her first road trip to South Jersey.  She really did a great job and her parents really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the trip both directions – she slept much better than she normally does at home!  Like most babies, she sleeps well in the car so we would tuck her happily in after a feeding, drive 2-2.5 hours and find her fast asleep with her hat over her face. The most amazing thing on the way down is that she knew almost to the minute the last time she had been fed and would cry briefly (just to remind us she needed to be fed, I guess!)  However, she was very kind and then she would subside and wait until we got to a stopping place.  We just had to get used to spending 1/4 of the time of the trip parked and feeding!

She also handled her Pack ‘n Play for night in the hotel quite well – sleeping 7 hours for the first time the first night!!  Sadly, this hasn’t lasted.  The next night she ate every 3.5 hours – and she hadn’t eaten that frequently at night since the first week home.  Still, when she goes to sleep with very little fuss at night, we can’t complain!  (If only this would happen in the days!)

Anyway, Elisa was greatly admired in South Jersey and very happily held by all and sundry – which meant she slept more since she prefers to sleep in arms.  Thankfully she has been pretty good the first day back as well – although still desiring much holding to sleep and frequently sleeping only for a half hour when laid down.  This is a picture from last week -and it wasn’t that she was relaxed and her head fell back.  She was holding it back!  Mommy especially appreciates that since this was the first day of 5 with just Mommy and Elisa since Daddy is in Janesville, WI.

Bath time!

Last week Elisa had her first adventure with a tub bath rather than a sponge bath.  I guess we could have made the switch earlier, but the tub was full of various baby garments that had no place since the changing table hadn’t come and then wasn’t put together yet…

She seemed to enjoy her bath after the first surprise.  When she is startled, her eyes get even bigger and she reaches out her arms to the sides and slightly out and they tremble.  (Mommy’s favorite incidence of the startled reaction is taking off Elisa’s socks – it was a big surprise the first time and took repeating to really believe it was the socks!)  After this brief reaction she has seemed to enjoy her tub bath.  Lacking an actual fig leaf, we chose an appropriate color washcloth to keep the pictures semi-modest.

Napping with mommy

In the last few days, we have finally succeeded in Elisa crying herself to sleep ocassionally!  That may not seem like a big deal, but the books all said that they should cry themselves to sleep after a bit – and she didn’t!  She could cry full-steam for a full hour without any abatement in the crying (so it wasn’t just that we were softies – even though we are – and picked her up early!)  She could fall asleep in our arms and be fast asleep for 20 minutes and we could put her down and she would frequently startle herself and start crying…and crying.

Now, before anyone feels too bad for us, we should mention that she DID sleep at night and went to sleep without crying, even when we put her down with her eyes open.  So we can’t complain – but mommy really wanted her to sleep during the day without having to hold her most of the time!

In the process we learned a few tricks that did and didn’t work.  She could fall asleep in the car or stroller like most babies – although we don’t leave home to use these remedies.  To keep from bothering her office-mates, Kristin did get exercise walking around and around the quad at Houghton for 25 minutes Tuesday until Elisa was asleep.  However, the swing does not work, more frequently leading from calm to crying baby than vice versa.  One discovery was that if she was put down on her side after already asleep, she was more likely to sleep.  In fact, one day in desperation for a nap of her own, Kristin discovered that Elisa is very happy sleeping under the covers in her parent’s bed.  This allows Kristin to hear Elisa’s cries while keeping the bedroom door closed to keep the bedroom cat-free.  So Mommy and Elisa have had a couple nice long naps together!

However, at this point we seem to be getting to a routine where Elisa can actually cry herself to sleep – even if it comes with a little (and it has been little) crying when she is put down at night.  Today she still had two naps that she barely went to sleep with all the crying, but it was not full-steam crying the whole time.  (It appears she can cry while she is sleeping…her morning nap alternated between short bursts of crying and perfectly peaceful countenance, with the crying becoming more infrequent.)  She is also learning the trick of sucking on her hand or one of our pinkies to calm herself for sleep.  So we are enjoying a little more predictability – and maybe tomorrow she can REALLY fall asleep after some crying!

A Budding Fashionista

This morning Elisa woke up sporting a new look: off-the-shoulder.  She had worked her arm out of the sleeve of the nightgown (a common occurrence!) and up our of the neck hole.  This is not entirely unexpected since she has worked since day one to get her arms loose from swaddling, but she seemed particularly excited by her new fashion.

Fortunately, she will not be disappointed that it has been done before – and either way, any fashion sense she has would probably be an improvement on her parents!

Kristin has also been working on baby fashion sense by learning to accessorize.  As with all babies, Elisa worked her way out of socks and mittens with exhilarating  speed.  As for the mittens, she learned to control her hands more so she stopped scratching herself – we had given up on mittens and she was rather scratched up for two weeks.  However, even though we could avoid socks for a while since it was warm weather, the cold weather is a-comin’ and socks could not be ignored!  Therefore, with a recent trip to Babies ‘R Us, Kristin bought multiple types of socks to try and see if any stayed on better – and there was success!!  Unfortunately for Elisa’s fashionista hopes, it is the cheap socks that stay on best.

And of course, there were the cute baby headbands to buy as well as socks.  Elisa frequently gets the headband so the bow falls over her eyes, especially when she is riding in the car, so we save them for special occasions.  Here, you also see her sporting her burp cloth which she frequently holds following a burping session whether asleep or awake.  Maybe she can bring burp cloths into style as a new trend…

(Note:  Check out more pictures in the gallery linked at the top of the page!)