Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Part deux.

Well, I have been thrown off the seat off my chair (re: ending of last post). What a week!!

In the last two weeks she has gotten not only one, but TWO teeth. I'm sure the top incisors aren't far behind as her cheeks and nose were bright red all day....unless she somehow got into the melon flavoured vodka last night, haha.

She finally started to roll over. A couple of days ago she was like 90% of the way there, but would always go back on her back. Now, in the blink of an eye, she rolls over onto her stomach. In the wee hours of the morning (last night it was 4:44am on the dot) she rolls over, then gets extremely frustrated that she can't roll back. However, as I write this, she is 45 minutes into her nighttime sleep, she's rolled over and she eventually fell asleep on her stomach. I had rolled her back on her back but she immediately rolled over again!

Her mega diaper rash is finally going away thanks to some prescription cream. The diaper rash is a result of the teething.



Today we gave her Gripe Water for the first time. What is Gripe Water? It's a liquid containing sodium bicarbonate as well as other natural ingredients like dill. It helps with sour stomach due to teething. Babies swallow a lot of drool when they are teething and this can alter the pH of the stomach contents. It seemed to help her get more comfortable as she was obviously in a lot of tummy pain today.

On top of all these things, she got her second round of shots this week and is super cranky.

But at least we get all this out of the way, right? Then it'll be smooth sailing for now on??? Right??? haahahhahahhahahahha

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

Ellie slept, for the first time ever, all night. That's right. 11.5 hours. 7:00 pm to about 6:40 am. No middle of the night feed. No crying from her teething or mega diaper rash. On the other hand, it was my night and at 1 am...and 2 am...and 3 am...I was looking at the video monitor thinking "Hello?? What's going on??? Something must be wrong if she hasn't woken up yet...". So I didn't get as much sleep as I could have, but that's entirely my problem, not hers!! J turned to me at 4:30 am and says "have you fed her yet?" and I said "NO! I'm lying here going crazy cuz it's weird that that she hasn't woken up yet..." and then I started babbling and he obviously wanted to go back to sleep. I finally fell back to sleep around 5 for an hour before J's alarm went off at 6.

I will be blown away by this all week, I'm sure....and today she gets her second round of shots, so we probably won't see this again for a while. But still, I'm so...I don't know...PROUD of her!!!

There are way too many factors to know how to recreate this blissful night: we ran a fan in her room all night because of the recent heat. She was only in her diaper and a t-shirt under her swaddle, she started sleeping on her side a few days ago and spent most of the night that way (and also rolled over the other day, so now we'll be on to the swaddle-weaning!), she had bad naps all day and must have been exhausted, she got a lot of fresh air yesterday with the gorgeous weather...the list goes on. Either way, now I know that sleeping through the night is at least possible!!!

So along with the rolling over (which I'm not really sure if it was conciously done or if she just used gravity when she was on her side) and starting to sit with only a little bit of help,



she's cut her first tooth. All that drooling and hand-chomping proved me right!



Everyone was telling me it was too early for her to be teething and when I felt the sharp top of that first tooth, I called J at work and left him a message in my "really high-pitched excited voice" (my high school friends out there have all heard this voice!). Jeez, he must think I'm crazy...

It's been a wonderful past few weeks....I'm on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen next!

4 months old (tomorrow)

J and I have been worried about the future weaning of the swaddle. It's such a prominent part of Ellie's sleep ritual that I'm scared she won't be able to sleep as well without it. However, I'm sure she'll adapt as all babies do!

Anyways, a couple of weeks ago she started arching her back a lot more and sometimes we'd even find her asleep in that position. She wasn't crying out in pain, so we knew it wasn't from gas or reflux. She was on her way to rolling over.

If I'm behind her when she's lying on the ground, she'll arch her back and throw her head way back and look at me. She'll even swing one arm over to try to get momentum.
Unfortunately, she's not fully aware of her legs and the farthest she'll get is onto her side. Then she turns her head into the blanket she's on and grunts and grunts until she gives up. I can see she's getting so frustrated! I've even helped her along and turned her legs so that she ended up on her stomach. She then smiles for about a full minute while she takes in the new vantage point. And here I was thinking she hated tummy time...

Another thing we constantly see is drool. See the bib in the next picture? It's not from feeding her, it's because once she's in the Jolly Jumper the drool just starts pouring from her mouth. I'm assuming it's because she smiles more and since her mouth is more open it just comes out! She's chewing on lots of stuff: plastic rings, fuzzy toys, fingers...this is another way for her to explore different things.


Lastly, she's discovered her vocal chords and lungs. Specifically that combination. She'll take a deep breath, pause, and then screech. Over and over again. And again, and again. You'd think she's upset, but she's not. She's having fun...especially since we have high ceilings in our family room and her screeches echo a bit. It's like the room is full of babies!